His spirit sat, observing the stone so carefully placed to signify where his dead body lay. He read the quote, giggling to himself. He’d always said that when he died, he wanted something impactful on his stone, something that spoke to him and represented his life. The “I tried, I lost” had come to him on a whim, something he decided spoke to his life perfectly. We all get the chance to try life, to give it our best shot. But at the end of the day, we all lose that game of life. Sure, sometimes people get more than one chance and we may consider that a win. But to Arthur, we all lost at some point. However, he sat and stared at his stone fondly, remembering all he’d done on Earth. So, while he may have lost that game of life, he’d tried his best, and had fun doing it.
This gravestone marks an important time in Arthur’s life where he lost his fight. The gravestone resembles defeat, fight, loss, disappointment, and resentment. August 14th was a day significant to him and that day is all that matters, not the time between his birth and death but that one day. This gravestone is acceptance of a fight that was lost but still honored. The fight could’ve been physical and mental. It could’ve been internal or external. He wants us to know he ‘tried’ in whatever it was that was important to him and that he wants us to know it was important to him. His loss was another’s win that was stolen from him.
Arthur loved everyone he’d ever met. He purchased gifts on every Mother’s Day, he paid for elderly couples meals when he thought he spotted true love at a restaurant, he always kissed his girlfriend goodnight, and he fed birds off his plate if they looked hungry. Somehow, it wasn’t enough. Arthur loved everyone he’d ever met, but time eventually stole everyone Arthur had ever loved. Honestly, is there really any way to win the game of life if we’re all just robbed of everything in the end? Now Arthur sleeps alone with no one to warm the bench by his stone, and his grave is bare but for a single message: “I tried, I lost,” because he couldn’t win. Can you?
There was nothing when I finally wrote my epitaph. I would be the only one to decide what it said. The world was gray as the paper in front of me and the only thing brighter than death was the pen in my hand. He was gone and I would never see him again. Years of both of us trying to change my ingrained behavior built up into the sound of a slamming door and the knowledge that my son was never coming back. Sorrow for him and myself and what could’ve been welled up in my eyes only to splatter on the paper. No matter how many times I played the game of life, dealt myself back into the circle he occupied, he would see through my bluff. I tried my best, but I lost for the last time.
A soul emerged into the world on August 14, 1930. He didn’t come out crying, though. he came out silent. Then, he greeted the world with a blink and a hushed gasp for breath. You see, Arthur wasn’t meant to enter this world for a few more months. His little lungs weren’t fully formed. They couldn’t take in the breath needed to fill his body with oxygen. So he just blinked and blinked and gasped and rasped as he fought to keep his frail body alive. How could this be his end when he had only just begun? The thing about battles is that there is always a loser. Arthur fought, oh, he fought. He fought for breath, for life, for a chance to become someone, but he lost in the end. He did what he could with what he was given, but it simply wasn’t enough. He tried, he lost.
He had a long battle with his mind, his thoughts so often in a fistfight with one another. He was lonely, never quite meeting the mark in his social life. His family had kicked him out when he was eighteen, freeing him from his traumatic, isolated childhood. But he never gained the skills to make friends in the real world. He succeeded financially in an office job, carrying out a great career, but his loneliness never failed to face him at the front door of his empty house every day he came home. He put on a show for his co-workers – no one suspected his struggles, although one look into his eyes showed that he was a hostage to his own happiness. After many battles among the raging war, his mind had convinced him that there was no way out of the loneliness, that he had become deserving of it. Instead of him being just a person who was lonely, he was now completely alone. Surrendering to his seemingly inescapable fate of isolation, he sat down at his desk, writing one last note to no one: I tried, I lost.
How did he end up here? Arthur sat on the ground, his thighs sinking into the wet soil beneath him. Well, they would have, if Arthur had still been alive. He felt nothing beneath him, nothing at all, except for a dull ache where his heart would’ve been. Crumpled yellowing leaves littered his tombstone, almost as though it were a cruel joke from God that he should fall with the leaves. Arthur took a deep breath, imagining the crisp autumn air filling his lungs.
“What’s the ‘S’ stand for?”
Arthur nearly jumped, but it was hard to be scared of things once you were dead. Instead, he turned and took in the sight before him. A young boy, with black, feathered hair and silver eyes stared at him. Arthur wasn’t sure what Death looked like, but he hadn’t expected this.
“Simon.” He answered. Death cocked his head,
“And the epitaph?” The boy asked, “Why’d you choose that?”
For most of his life, he tried. He would try his hardest to be a good son, a prominent student, a hard worker, a kind husband, and a loving father. He tried at work every week, waiting for a raise that would never come. When his mother and then his father died he tried his hardest not to fall apart. He tried every day to keep them proud, and make his new family prouder. He tried his best to raise his daughter right, but she never loved him back the same. He tried to stay happy, but eventually his wife left him too. He tried to spread love, when the world couldn’t give it. He worked harder than anyone at this game of life. This game, where despite all of our efforts, we may only ever lose.
Arthur’s ability to make his mark in the world was unreachable as his life was taken all too soon. In light of their efforts to save him he wasn’t able to fight back. A soul born and taken from the world in one day. From the second we enter the world we have to try with every breath we get to make it through the obstacles of life. Unfortunately for Arthur the obstacles he had to face got the best of him and he lost that fight before getting the chance to show what he was capable of. Family mourning his loss they wanted him to still be remembered for the short life he lived. August 14th represents the depths of life and loss and that for some people their life is taken without even being lived.
Arthur wasn’t granted the easiest life. It was a bumpy road, that led to many disastrous endings. Yet he tried, and tried and tried to see the good in everything, in everyone. But in everything that Arthur did he could not prove that there was good anywhere. Always ending up in last place, while others reached first. He spent his life trying but at the end, he lost it all.
The body of Arthur S. Dorion was found in the town square on a morning in mid August. The heat of the scorching sun was already speeding up the decomposition process as an awful stench filled the street. Attached to the hip of the corpse was a leather bound journal, one that he’d always been seen carrying. The body itself seemed to be burnt beyond repair. The features of this once well known, local, archeologist were melted together. It was an eerie and unsettling sight. What could have caused this to happen? As far as people knew, Arthur had no enemies, at least none that would do this to him. The presence of the journal was also a mystery, how was it in perfect condition when the rest of the body was charred beyond recognition? The only thing left to do was open the journal and read Arthur’s final thoughts.
Arthur is a super scientist who wants to live forever. He tried many experiments to create a way in which he, himself, can be the first man to live forever. This became a game for him that he tried his hat at many times. He would always say how if he was still trying, then he was taking a step towards winning his game. The cruel day same around in which his experiments finally killed him, although nobody could quite piece together how, and nobody could actually find his body. He just disappeared. Until one day a tombstone was found with his name and todays date, with the simple yet haunting sentence, “I tried, I lost”.
I Arthur, tried and lost. I lost at life. I tried and tried to make something of myself but was always thrown to the wayside. I wasn’t able to provide for myself given I was disabled. No one would hire me, I was cast out by my family as a boy since they couldn’t pay to give me any devices to help me live as a “normal” person. I was abandoned. I fought with my whole being to live up to what society was asking of me. Alas, to be a strong man, to provide for a wife and children, I was doomed from the start. My destiny was not to provide, but to rot in the unforgiving world I was born into. Hence, I lost. I lost completely from the beginning. And so, I willfully fled to the frigid winter hoping to finally rid me of sorrow and despair originating from the daydream that I would one day be “cured.”
Arthur was tasked with saving the world something he wasn’t too keen about. The way he had seen it, if humans had decided to destroy the Earth who was he to stop them? It’s hard taking order from the Big Man, but you do what you have to do. And now, after countless battles fought and irreplaceable men lost, Arthur admired the way the flames complimented the sunrise in the quaint countryside he had been sent to. The ash feel like snow and gave him salt and pepper hair, something he realized he would never have now. He would never grow old. The Commanders were shouting at him incomprehensibly over the walkies, outraged that he’s failed. Arthur clicked the side button for his final response, “I tried. I lost”.
I tried, I lost. I tried all I could to outlive the world. I thought it would be me. The one who cures every disease and heals every wound. That should have been me. The world was mine, I was told. I could do whatever I set my mind to. Every day I grew both further and closer to my goal. Reaching everlasting life. I tried so hard to achieve the impossible, but in the end, I failed. Here I am now, only to realize an entire life wasted on this silly dream. I have found exactly what I’ve wanted my whole life, only my life is now over, and it is of no use to me. Ironic, isn’t it? To search for something for so long only to find it when you no longer desire it. But, do not pity my poor soul, for I will live once more, and this time I will know what to do.
With death before me, I knew I had to make something of myself before I could no longer. What better than to be the gravestone that stood out against the crowd? College writing professors wouldn’t be able to resist such an ominous statement. I didn’t have to do anything astounding with my life to be remembered. People try way too hard to outlive time. The thought of being forgotten gnaws so deep. I tried and lost being remembered living, dying is just another chance to barely try at all and win through my inscription.
I tried to be the best that I could be. I tried to be there for everyone, as a mentor, teacher, or even as a father figure, as most of my students were fatherless. All I wanted when I was younger was to be appreciated by my father. He never loved me like my mother did. And when she died, he became even worse, completely ignoring my existence. I always strived to never be like my father. When I became a teacher at a local high school, I promised myself that I would treat my students with the utmost respect that I never got from my father. Becoming a teacher was harder than I thought it would be. These students are monsters. I tried everyday coming into my classroom, wearing a fake smile, to make the most of the day, but I couldn’t. Not with them surrounding me, disrespecting me, taking me for a joke. Just like my father did. I came into the classroom for the last time on August 14, 1930, wearing the brightest smile. Walking out at the end of the day, I left a message on the whiteboard: “I tried, I lost.”
17 thoughts on “I’M TRYING”
His spirit sat, observing the stone so carefully placed to signify where his dead body lay. He read the quote, giggling to himself. He’d always said that when he died, he wanted something impactful on his stone, something that spoke to him and represented his life. The “I tried, I lost” had come to him on a whim, something he decided spoke to his life perfectly. We all get the chance to try life, to give it our best shot. But at the end of the day, we all lose that game of life. Sure, sometimes people get more than one chance and we may consider that a win. But to Arthur, we all lost at some point. However, he sat and stared at his stone fondly, remembering all he’d done on Earth. So, while he may have lost that game of life, he’d tried his best, and had fun doing it.
This gravestone marks an important time in Arthur’s life where he lost his fight. The gravestone resembles defeat, fight, loss, disappointment, and resentment. August 14th was a day significant to him and that day is all that matters, not the time between his birth and death but that one day. This gravestone is acceptance of a fight that was lost but still honored. The fight could’ve been physical and mental. It could’ve been internal or external. He wants us to know he ‘tried’ in whatever it was that was important to him and that he wants us to know it was important to him. His loss was another’s win that was stolen from him.
Arthur loved everyone he’d ever met. He purchased gifts on every Mother’s Day, he paid for elderly couples meals when he thought he spotted true love at a restaurant, he always kissed his girlfriend goodnight, and he fed birds off his plate if they looked hungry. Somehow, it wasn’t enough. Arthur loved everyone he’d ever met, but time eventually stole everyone Arthur had ever loved. Honestly, is there really any way to win the game of life if we’re all just robbed of everything in the end? Now Arthur sleeps alone with no one to warm the bench by his stone, and his grave is bare but for a single message: “I tried, I lost,” because he couldn’t win. Can you?
There was nothing when I finally wrote my epitaph. I would be the only one to decide what it said. The world was gray as the paper in front of me and the only thing brighter than death was the pen in my hand. He was gone and I would never see him again. Years of both of us trying to change my ingrained behavior built up into the sound of a slamming door and the knowledge that my son was never coming back. Sorrow for him and myself and what could’ve been welled up in my eyes only to splatter on the paper. No matter how many times I played the game of life, dealt myself back into the circle he occupied, he would see through my bluff. I tried my best, but I lost for the last time.
A soul emerged into the world on August 14, 1930. He didn’t come out crying, though. he came out silent. Then, he greeted the world with a blink and a hushed gasp for breath. You see, Arthur wasn’t meant to enter this world for a few more months. His little lungs weren’t fully formed. They couldn’t take in the breath needed to fill his body with oxygen. So he just blinked and blinked and gasped and rasped as he fought to keep his frail body alive. How could this be his end when he had only just begun? The thing about battles is that there is always a loser. Arthur fought, oh, he fought. He fought for breath, for life, for a chance to become someone, but he lost in the end. He did what he could with what he was given, but it simply wasn’t enough. He tried, he lost.
He had a long battle with his mind, his thoughts so often in a fistfight with one another. He was lonely, never quite meeting the mark in his social life. His family had kicked him out when he was eighteen, freeing him from his traumatic, isolated childhood. But he never gained the skills to make friends in the real world. He succeeded financially in an office job, carrying out a great career, but his loneliness never failed to face him at the front door of his empty house every day he came home. He put on a show for his co-workers – no one suspected his struggles, although one look into his eyes showed that he was a hostage to his own happiness. After many battles among the raging war, his mind had convinced him that there was no way out of the loneliness, that he had become deserving of it. Instead of him being just a person who was lonely, he was now completely alone. Surrendering to his seemingly inescapable fate of isolation, he sat down at his desk, writing one last note to no one: I tried, I lost.
How did he end up here? Arthur sat on the ground, his thighs sinking into the wet soil beneath him. Well, they would have, if Arthur had still been alive. He felt nothing beneath him, nothing at all, except for a dull ache where his heart would’ve been. Crumpled yellowing leaves littered his tombstone, almost as though it were a cruel joke from God that he should fall with the leaves. Arthur took a deep breath, imagining the crisp autumn air filling his lungs.
“What’s the ‘S’ stand for?”
Arthur nearly jumped, but it was hard to be scared of things once you were dead. Instead, he turned and took in the sight before him. A young boy, with black, feathered hair and silver eyes stared at him. Arthur wasn’t sure what Death looked like, but he hadn’t expected this.
“Simon.” He answered. Death cocked his head,
“And the epitaph?” The boy asked, “Why’d you choose that?”
For most of his life, he tried. He would try his hardest to be a good son, a prominent student, a hard worker, a kind husband, and a loving father. He tried at work every week, waiting for a raise that would never come. When his mother and then his father died he tried his hardest not to fall apart. He tried every day to keep them proud, and make his new family prouder. He tried his best to raise his daughter right, but she never loved him back the same. He tried to stay happy, but eventually his wife left him too. He tried to spread love, when the world couldn’t give it. He worked harder than anyone at this game of life. This game, where despite all of our efforts, we may only ever lose.
Arthur’s ability to make his mark in the world was unreachable as his life was taken all too soon. In light of their efforts to save him he wasn’t able to fight back. A soul born and taken from the world in one day. From the second we enter the world we have to try with every breath we get to make it through the obstacles of life. Unfortunately for Arthur the obstacles he had to face got the best of him and he lost that fight before getting the chance to show what he was capable of. Family mourning his loss they wanted him to still be remembered for the short life he lived. August 14th represents the depths of life and loss and that for some people their life is taken without even being lived.
Arthur wasn’t granted the easiest life. It was a bumpy road, that led to many disastrous endings. Yet he tried, and tried and tried to see the good in everything, in everyone. But in everything that Arthur did he could not prove that there was good anywhere. Always ending up in last place, while others reached first. He spent his life trying but at the end, he lost it all.
The body of Arthur S. Dorion was found in the town square on a morning in mid August. The heat of the scorching sun was already speeding up the decomposition process as an awful stench filled the street. Attached to the hip of the corpse was a leather bound journal, one that he’d always been seen carrying. The body itself seemed to be burnt beyond repair. The features of this once well known, local, archeologist were melted together. It was an eerie and unsettling sight. What could have caused this to happen? As far as people knew, Arthur had no enemies, at least none that would do this to him. The presence of the journal was also a mystery, how was it in perfect condition when the rest of the body was charred beyond recognition? The only thing left to do was open the journal and read Arthur’s final thoughts.
Arthur is a super scientist who wants to live forever. He tried many experiments to create a way in which he, himself, can be the first man to live forever. This became a game for him that he tried his hat at many times. He would always say how if he was still trying, then he was taking a step towards winning his game. The cruel day same around in which his experiments finally killed him, although nobody could quite piece together how, and nobody could actually find his body. He just disappeared. Until one day a tombstone was found with his name and todays date, with the simple yet haunting sentence, “I tried, I lost”.
I Arthur, tried and lost. I lost at life. I tried and tried to make something of myself but was always thrown to the wayside. I wasn’t able to provide for myself given I was disabled. No one would hire me, I was cast out by my family as a boy since they couldn’t pay to give me any devices to help me live as a “normal” person. I was abandoned. I fought with my whole being to live up to what society was asking of me. Alas, to be a strong man, to provide for a wife and children, I was doomed from the start. My destiny was not to provide, but to rot in the unforgiving world I was born into. Hence, I lost. I lost completely from the beginning. And so, I willfully fled to the frigid winter hoping to finally rid me of sorrow and despair originating from the daydream that I would one day be “cured.”
Arthur was tasked with saving the world something he wasn’t too keen about. The way he had seen it, if humans had decided to destroy the Earth who was he to stop them? It’s hard taking order from the Big Man, but you do what you have to do. And now, after countless battles fought and irreplaceable men lost, Arthur admired the way the flames complimented the sunrise in the quaint countryside he had been sent to. The ash feel like snow and gave him salt and pepper hair, something he realized he would never have now. He would never grow old. The Commanders were shouting at him incomprehensibly over the walkies, outraged that he’s failed. Arthur clicked the side button for his final response, “I tried. I lost”.
I tried, I lost. I tried all I could to outlive the world. I thought it would be me. The one who cures every disease and heals every wound. That should have been me. The world was mine, I was told. I could do whatever I set my mind to. Every day I grew both further and closer to my goal. Reaching everlasting life. I tried so hard to achieve the impossible, but in the end, I failed. Here I am now, only to realize an entire life wasted on this silly dream. I have found exactly what I’ve wanted my whole life, only my life is now over, and it is of no use to me. Ironic, isn’t it? To search for something for so long only to find it when you no longer desire it. But, do not pity my poor soul, for I will live once more, and this time I will know what to do.
With death before me, I knew I had to make something of myself before I could no longer. What better than to be the gravestone that stood out against the crowd? College writing professors wouldn’t be able to resist such an ominous statement. I didn’t have to do anything astounding with my life to be remembered. People try way too hard to outlive time. The thought of being forgotten gnaws so deep. I tried and lost being remembered living, dying is just another chance to barely try at all and win through my inscription.
I tried to be the best that I could be. I tried to be there for everyone, as a mentor, teacher, or even as a father figure, as most of my students were fatherless. All I wanted when I was younger was to be appreciated by my father. He never loved me like my mother did. And when she died, he became even worse, completely ignoring my existence. I always strived to never be like my father. When I became a teacher at a local high school, I promised myself that I would treat my students with the utmost respect that I never got from my father. Becoming a teacher was harder than I thought it would be. These students are monsters. I tried everyday coming into my classroom, wearing a fake smile, to make the most of the day, but I couldn’t. Not with them surrounding me, disrespecting me, taking me for a joke. Just like my father did. I came into the classroom for the last time on August 14, 1930, wearing the brightest smile. Walking out at the end of the day, I left a message on the whiteboard: “I tried, I lost.”