The battle between the mind and the heart is a painfully trite conflict, encountered almost every moment in one's life or in a friend's or in a fictional character. It encompasses struggles as frivolous as wanting to have chocolate when you're supposed to be on a diet and those as grave as well as... well, doing something you're mortally forbidden to do, or even think about. Normally, however, such battles vary over minutes, or days, or weeks, so much so that when won once, the victory becomes easier to repeat, and the matter is trivial in retrospect.

But how long can somebody fight? However valiant the warrior is, weariness will seep through, beat him down and force him to run for cover. Hiding like a coward and waiting until the heat dies down... That's what somebody should do in a battle that cannot be won, no matter how much blood the heart pumps to fuel the spirit, no matter how sturdy the walls of justifications it builds.

I fancy myself a brave one... stupid, yes, but brave all the same. So I plough on and on, unmindful of the cuts; I can tend to them later. There'll be tears to spare, but no, there will be no regrets. By being foolhardy, I save myself from regrets.

Oh, would it that I believed in the body as the sole entity of a human! Would it that I had no regard for the soul! For I do know, as deeply as my mind can fathom, that whatever happiness I feel by fighting will be rewarded by my own death, my own damnation. It is an evil choice, one that I pray no one will ever be forced to make... One that I've made before and that I have to make once more.

Amidst the pounding of my heart, cheered by the possibility of indulging for oh! just a little, the mind stakes its claim over the body and the soul, clearly superior and stronger than ever, and the heart now trembles in fear. It will be ignored once again; it knows itself subservient to the intellect, and it beats more loudly... Not in protest, but in resignation as it helps me scamper away from the raging battle to somewhere far. Somewhere safe and cold.

And I wonder if I will be punished for my insolence, punished for having dared, or if heaven will smile down at me, pleased with my decision. Perhaps the angels will tell me that my cowardice is my bravery, my mind is my redemption, and my safety is my salvation. The battle, in their sense, has been won, and the tears I cry should be tears of joy.

Yet like that perennial battle between good and evil, frighteningly akin to that between the mind and the heart, will never be over. This peace, in unrest even to my ears, is temporary. A ceasefire as both sides prepare their weapons and strap their ammunitions. And I know that soon, I'll be thrown into a middle of an encounter, and I'll fight for some time, despair eventually exhausting me, and then I'll have to choose all over again.

Long ago I had succumbed to the perils of courage, of that determination to possess the possible best of what I want. Heaven condemned me a loser, although frankly, I couldn't feel it in the giddy tickling of the flames. Now I am on their side. And the view is certainly terrific from that pedestal of intellect, and I feel a new kind of power, of strength.

But in heaven, the brightness of the sun only increases the clouds' tears.