The Wheelchair

Defeat.
The feeling washed over him like water.
No, not like a light rain, which takes its time to soak the skin.
Instead, more like the crippling flow of a violent waterfall.
That was the word. Crippling. Crippled.
He felt it, both physically and mentally.
Once, this body belonged to a spirited, vivacious, striking gentleman.
Paul Nelson.
However, this man here,
This sad, beaten figure with a right shoulder slumped and abnormally angled,
This man here was not the Paul everyone, and even he, remembered.
What gives a body the right to suddenly refuse its call to duty?
Like an old soldier, he thought.
Too much battle. Too much marching. Too many miles.
After so many years, something is bound to give out.
He touched his wrinkled, weathered hand to the metal side of the chair.
It returned no cool, soothing sensation.
Pushing himself upward slightly, he bent forward to look at his feet.
They were much closer to him than they had been before.
Were they always that large?
The right foot sat heavily next to its counterpart.
He thought about the deception of perspective.
How something grand can seem so small, and vice versa.
How someone grand can seem so small.
He straightened up slowly, heavy with the weight of unwanted grief.
He rolled himself clumsily towards the hospital room's only window.
Positioning his numb right hand in his lap, he then turned to look at upon the city's haze.
Eventually, he slept.