52 Stories, 52 Weeks: May
May the stories entertain you, I guess.
#18:“Check Point”
I won’t be here forever, but I don’t think anyone, nor anything should be. Let’s just enjoy the nice weather, talk of our lives thus far, share a little of one another and call it a day. If you’re here tomorrow then I’ll be glad. If you’re not, I’ll move onto the next thing and keep my spirits up. Then in private moments I’ll think of you and me. Fondly. It’s memories that I hold dear to me as if you were still here.
I’m a check point. I’m a security blanket when life becomes too turbulent to maintain by oneself. I seek no competition, no glory, no conquering. Just conversation and the allowance of dreams to see the real, if for only a brief moment. If it’s the best case scenario, then maybe you find new hope to make those dreams of yours come true. Now that’s something.
You have to move along now? I understand. I’m not one to keep people waiting. I will not beg, either. We both have our lives to live and duties to attend too. But this moment was nice while it lasted. Hope your permanents treat you well and you keep your head up, even if it’s difficult sometimes. I’ll be around, but not forever as I too, move along.
Regret is a photograph that captures your actions you’re most ashamed of. One that you hope to lose its vibrance and clarity from what you did, so that you may feel free from what stares back at you. It is just a memory taking form. Not all moments, memories can, nor should, be good ones. Without mistakes, we could never truly learn to make those good moments a little more grand and to appreciate them more all the better. It should never have to stare back at you as if it has sentience all of its own. Memories are captured in a flash. They ought to be gone as such, but we remember them still. It’s best not to linger on tarnished memories all that much. Sooner or later, the photograph must be put away.
Regret is a photograph that should be best left in a drawer of other miscellaneous junk, doomed to sit there until it is ultimately forgotten.
“Would you like to know a secret. One that you may tell anyone?” A honeysweet voice asked her son.
“No, don’t tell! No one can know a secret! Especially everyone!” He said matter of fact, wiping dirt from his small fingers.
“Not everyone, just anyone you’d like to know what you know. Those important to you. I could tell you, and it’d still be a secret. Because not everyone knows about it.” She said.
“How do you mean?” He asked.
“We cannot know everyone. Not everyone will listen to what you have to say. So it’ll still be unknown to others, wouldn’t it?”
The boy pondered for a moment. “Yeah! You’re right,” he exclaimed. “But I’m not sure why you would tell me a secret just to tell a whole flock of folk.”
Her lips stretched ear to ear, giving way to a warm smile. ‘Flock of folk.’ She wondered where he heard that one. His mother bent down to meet at eye level with the boy. Her knee pressing into the soft earth after pulling weeds from the garden bed. “When I tell you, you get to decide who’s worthy enough of telling. Okay?”
The boy nodded. “But why tell me now?”
She leaned in closer. “Because it nearly became a secret to myself. I’ve nearly forgotten it. So, I’d like to tell you so that you may remember for me.”
“I’ll remember. I swear.” He said.
She leans even closer to his ear and whispers. Words so softly spoken the boy barely made out what his mother had to say, so he listened more closely. A vague confusion waves across his face, waiting for it to make sense to him. He understands, but doesn’t understand why she would tell him that now. He held his heart close to his heart.
“Just in case I forget to tell you, or if I don’t get the chance to tell you.” She said also scraping the dirt from her fingernails. He nods. That smile of hers returns and she gets up and heads back to their house.
It’s a secret that must be known to those close after all. He promised he’d keep it with him always.
Where Can I Find Silence?
Where does the Quiet reside?
You may find it in between spaces
Of those crowded
In the moment of pondering,
Until there’s a connection of thoughts
In the anticipation
Of the words to fall next in line.
See it chasing past the outburst,
Shooing it away as it claims it’s vacancy
In the reading of funeral rites
Of a conversation long dead.
You may find Silence
When you lose sight of everything else.
You may find Silence
Hiding in the free time.
Comments
Post a Comment