A MoMent in tiMe VoluMe i
Shonne DAfen
1. Edge of the Precipice Listen to me, my unknown listener, listen. Have you ever wondered if you would fall with your eyes open when you jumped off the cliff? Creating your last memories? I haven’t. Have you ever wondered if anybody would be there to watch? I haven’t. Have you ever thought about how long you would teeter on the edge of the precipice, unsure if you really wanted to go over? Knowing that you could never come back? Or did you simply imagine that you had the courage to jump, eyes closed, free at last? Did you imagine that death was easy? A simple matter of hopping over the edge? Did you think so? I did. Nobody expects the horrors of leaving everything you ever knew behind. The tension of the last few steps. Sitting on the edge of the cliff, wondering if it was really worth it. Perhaps tracing your name in the gravel, procrastinating. Then you toss your car keys over, watching it arc then disappear. There’s no way back now, except to walk. It’s cold, perhaps if you just moved over a couple of inches, the world would end and you would feel your own body drop and then splatter, casting you into oblivion. It’s easy to think about. Simple to write about. But at that moment, what sort of strength would you need to possess? Surely far more that you would need to get up and walk through the cold night air, away.
2. Kiss Me in the Pouring Rain Just a summer’s day in the rain. Pouring down in sheets, it soaks through your shirt and you know it’s transparent but who really gives a damn anyway. You spin through the rain and you fall, you get muddy, but it’s an old shirt anyway. It doesn’t matter that you don’t have a change of clothes with you, you’re just so happy, yet so sad. It’s the end of a summer, the end of an era. You keep waiting in the rain, knowing that it would be painful, knowing that you would cry. But you know it’s not the end. You know because true love lasts forever. The rain gets harder, you can hardly see, but somehow, you notice that someone is coming towards you. It could be anybody, but somehow you only think of one person. He’s running towards you and you’re running too. Both of you are soaked through, but neither of you care. Finally, you reach each other, he picks you up and swings you around. Then he kisses you like he’s never kissed you before. There’s sadness and heartache, mixed in with the glory and the joy. The rain keeps coming down, but between the two of you, there’s so much hope. After all, true love lasts forever.
3. U There? Always. That one friend you have, the one who would chat you at three in the morning to work on a project that would already earn you a hundred percent? The one, if the school was on fire, you would save no matter what? She’s the one who slaps you when you’re stupid, laugh when you’re funny, and tell you that you can be idiots together. You tell her things that you’ve never told anybody and she’ll never tell. You tell her that you want to do the craziest things and she tells you to go for it, even if everybody else tells you that you’re being dumb. It’s not a hard thing to tell her that you really like somebody, even though you know she’s going to set you up with that person within the next day. And she’d be successful. She’s the one that would buy lunch and then eat yours, though you’re consuming hers as well. She never talks about people behind their backs, so you trust her more than anybody in the world. You laugh so much together that the teachers never try to put you two into the same group. She says the strangest things but to you ears, it makes so much sense. You know that if she reads this she’s going to tell you to shut up. You know that you would never let her go, no matter how angry you get. After all, friends like that come only once in a lifetime.
4. Letting Go When you lose someone, does it just happen? Or do you know beforehand? Is there any sort of mental preparation before the person who means more than anybody else to you leaves you? Would you be brave enough to stand tall and accept the blow, waiting until you’re alone to start crying? Or would you weep beside the casket, believing that it was all over? You remember telling her that you needed her to stay. You don’t know what to do, those few weeks before she goes, because you’re just so afraid of the world without her. You cry, not because you’re sad, but because you’re scared. In the middle of the night you call her to make sure she’s still there. You tell her how much she means to you and you tell her you’re scared. You then can’t bear it, you drive over to where she is and you pull her close. It’s the only way you know to keep her with you. You wrap your arms around her so tightly that she can’t move. What can you tell her? What words do you use to tell her how much she means to you? Or do you simply not speak? Hoping that you never have to let go. Then she’s gone. Before you know it, the day you’ve been dreading comes. She’s gone. You feel numb, but there’s no pain. You don’t cry, and you don’t scream. You seem to feel nothing until you see her there in the coffin. Her hair is so carefully brushed and her suit has just been pressed. She’s so lovely there, on a bed of the purest white. Her light hair glowing around her head like a halo. You can’t help yourself, you reach out and touch her arm lightly, remembering the night when they were wrapped around you. Then you must go on, there are other people waiting. You catch one last glimpse of her, knowing that you would never see that face again. When she’s buried, when the last shovelful of earth has been placed on top of the coffin, do you turn away, unable to watch any longer? Or do you kneel down, believing that if you could just reach her, she would be with you once again?
5. The Time of Your Life Imagine an old woman. She’s on her deathbed, and she’s thinking her last thoughts. She remembers all the wonderful times with her husband, with her children, with her grandchildren, and even her great-grandchildren. They make her happy, but somehow, that’s not what she wants to think about in her last moments. Her mind, muddled by age, darts back through the decades, back in a time when she was only fourteen. Just fourteen. She remembers a sleepover with her friends. She remembers the night so well, like a well thumbed book. She remembers how they all sat around on their sleeping bags, talking. They trusted each other, not as friends, but as sisters. There’s no judgement, no scrutinizing eyes, just simply honesty, whether kind, or harsh. They laugh, they cry, they say things that they used to only think to themselves. Does she realize how much that night would stay with her? How there’s no pain, just this sort of elation that comes with being so close to people one loves? They know, only too well, that they’ll perhaps grow apart, but deep down, they know that their friendship is sacred. She smiles as she thinks about the night. She knows they’re all waiting, and she’s not scared. These people were her world, and somehow, they still are.