The Last Joy

I felt it leave today. That cool, soft breeze has fluttered away. On day 9 of 4 1/2 hours of sleep with 11 interruptions, I felt it go. I tended to the reason for its disappearance, and took a shower. The water and I communed for a time, and I shared its breath as it shared mine.
Water has no memory, it has no direction beyond what is exerted upon it by outside influences. It neither loves, nor weeps, though we often use water to represent such notions. When a drop of water slams into the dirt, it is absorbed by the soil, and is no longer a drop of water, but somehow it retains its identity in other forms. When it cascades through my thin wisps of hair, running in rivulets down my skin, passing over the rough texture, down over my fat stomach, and legs that used to carry me mile upon mile without exhaustion, down past my feet, with their veins showing, the bumps and ridges from years of walking on concrete, and tile floors, it still somehow retains its own identity. Water is always water.
The heat remains after the water has washed everything else away.
My joy has left me. The last erg that manifested from my long-suffering  patience has sparked, and withered. It has not died, for joy doesn’t die, it just transformed, like all energy.
All that sits here, now, are embers. I don’t let them fool me, because I know full well that embers can be fanned into flames. No, these embers have always been here, they have always been the hot bed upon which the rest of my drive and motivation sits. No amount of fanning will cause these embers to roar back to life. They exist merely to catalyze.
I am so tired.