Blink

“Write a story about a person waiting for an answer to a question.”

When will the right time come?  I fidget with the pen in my left hand, the end practically bitten off from all the times I’ve nervously nibbled on the side. I can feel the blood pulse through my right as I lay it perfectly still against the desk, breaking off from my major veins and splitting off like lightning through my fingertips. My throat runs dry and someone’s up their gutting themselves but I can’t hear them over the thrumming beginning to grow as I realize I’ll be up there soon. I close my eyes and try to black everything out as the clapping subsides and the commentary begins. 

It’s quiet here, just shadows and nothing more. Nothing matters other than the sound of my breath and I’m slowing down now. I know eventually I’ll have to leave and I know I’ll have to get on that goddamn pedestal but right now I’m here. I can just wait here until i’m ready to go, but until then…

  When will my golden moment come?  I open my eyes to find that I’m not in the classroom anymore. The air is humid and thick with the scent of a cold ocean on a hot day and the house is alive with laughter running down its halls and love running through the framework. I’m at the beach house we rented when I was ten and my pinkie finger hurts like hell from the windburnt cut I got from my boogie board and I have to dig my heel into the tile below to stop myself from screaming as my mother dumps antiseptic over it. It falls into the sink as she wraps a bandaid over the wound and guides me to the bathroom. She leaves me with a towel and a change of clothes and tells me we’re going to the boardwalk for the night so I’d better be ready. Alex was going to try and ride the bull again, Tony would try to beat his older score and later on we’d get funny videos and laugh about them when we were older. And, I’d have another chance to show everyone who’s boss. I wasn’t going to let up on that, now, was I? They’ve told me stories of broken bones and freak accidents that have happened here before. I try not to think about it too much as I take off my size four sandals but the storm clouds are racing in and I feel the sun disappear behind them. The operator’s saying he’ll go slow and that he’ll be nice but people are staring and it’s too late. I close my eyes and try to black out the shiny lights and the loud noises around me. 

It’s quiet here, just my own little perfect world and nothing more. Alex gets on for about forty three seconds and then we leave to get ice cream at Bessie’s and then we go back to the house and swim for another hour before we go to bed. We leave and get Hardee’s on our way home and we never go back to the bull or the boardwalk. I go to sleep and dream of perfect worlds and careful nights and I know I’ll eventually have to wake up but I wonder… 

Will I ever be ready?   I open my eyes and the sweet salt smell leaves me. Rows of people sit on the bleachers watching their kids grow up one last time on the overdone football field. The line’s getting shorter and they’re starting to run out of names and the string on the cap is really starting to bug the eyes of the guy ahead of me. I step in the vacant grass just to feel a bit of my robe tucked under, and I do my best to wipe the dirt off before I get any closer to the stage. Why was I this nervous? All that I had to do was shake someone’s hand, take my dumb piece of paper and smile for the pictures. Still, this paper meant goodbye, this paper meant everyone would go off to a different piece of this world and carry on with their lives as if these last eighteen years meant nothing to them. Maybe we’d catch up over coffee once a week, maybe we’d visit on the holidays, maybe this is the last time I’ll ever see them again. The stairs ascend and I know it’s my turn next and the principal’s wiggling his eyebrows at me before the guy before me takes his diploma. I close my eyes and try to black out the cheers and the flashes of overdone cameras in our faces. 

It’s quiet here, just the ambiance of my pale skin glowing against the ebony sky and nothing more. I get the diploma and I leave high school behind. It’s time for another phase of my life, and I have no idea where I’m going, but I think it’s right. I know I’ll eventually have to leave my silent paradise but for now I just need to know…

Will I know when the right time will come?  I open my eyes and the diploma is gone, and I feel dizzy as the world spins me into another memory. The floor keeps moving down but I’m not moving and the sun is warm against my bare back. A tower stands high and mighty above the rest of the park, all kinds of pastel tubes passing through its infrastructure, and in the distance people throw themselves in and come out of the other end soaking wet. They whoop and shout and it seems like this small piece of the world is electric with adrenaline. I smile, eager to join and I’m roaring to go but my only way down is seventy feet of sea blue and emerald green terror. My heart hitches. The lifeguard is getting bored and I can tell by the way he rolls his eyes that he just wants me to go already but my instinct comes crashing down over me and my flimsy affirmations do nothing against it. I close my eyes and try to black out the roaring water and the seventy feet off the ground. 

It’s quiet here, just me and the wind and nothing more. My thoughts dissipate and I find the embarrassing moments of my younger year falling behind me. My fears, my doubts are nothing but grey smoke in the distance, out of sight, out of mind. I don’t want to leave, but this isn’t real and I know it. I’ll have to step into the sun eventually, but still I wonder… 

Am I ready now?  I open my eyes to find my trembling hands hovering over my school issued chromebook. The sun’s setting outside and the little cousins are going batshit insane playing fortnite and there’s too many fireworks outside but the dogs don’t seem to mind. The chromebook is open and there’s a google doc with my huge plan to confess that I’m autistic to the world, and my heart practically stops. The fog’s always been the thickest here, powerful enough to possess me and wring my hands against each other, strong enough to rip steel and tear open opportunities apart. I try to will myself to hit the send button, but my hand feels like lead and my breath is getting too thin and my eyes are starting to get splotchy in all the wrong places. The voice of my mother begins to ring through my head as I try to resist the current. “Would you rather let them think of you as crazy? Would you want them making their own horror stories about you, tell me, Emma, what are you so afraid of?” I don’t know. She spits the words like venom and the schoolkids snicker and bide as the next “special” kid walks by. “Retard, Retard”  They say, over and over again like some goddamn alarm I can’t shut off and my breathing begins to shrivel. I close my eyes and try to recede back to my paradise. 

It’s quiet here. I think I could get used to this. I knew the drill, though. I could never stay. But for now I fell into the waves and let the peace possess me. 

I open my eyes to find that I’m still in the room. Was this all a fever dream? The man in the corner doesn’t seem to think so. He snickers and lights a lantern, slowly walking to me until I could smell the rotten flesh stench on his lips. I stumble back to find that he’s right behind me, and his arms wrap around my stomach and I try to break free but we’re gone. I pull my head out of his chest to find that he’s ascending up stairs and they’re pearly white, a little too perfect for my taste. His eyes cascade across my face and I feel the static under my skin turn to goosebumps. He smiles knowingly and chuckles at my dismay. 

“I sincerely apologize if I’ve been a lousy usher so far. I mean, I snatched you from your little perfect world and  I forgot to introduce myself!” He babbles incoherently and I pretend to sleep to get him to shut up but he maintains my attention. “Well, I hope I can make up for that horrid first impression. Why don’t we start over? ‘Hi there, friend! My name is Demetreioi, but you probably know me as Death.’ Nice to meet you, uh…” 

My face goes white as a sheet. Death? If he’s here, that can only mean one thing…. “Uhm, sister, are you ok? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” He chuckles. “Well, technically I am a ghost, so, I mean-” 

“Why are you... Am I… dead? I can’t be dead, I’ve done so much to conserve my life, I-I ate those shitty protein bars and I-I did everything the doctors told me! It can’t possibly be over now, I’m just twenty two!” My breathing hurries and I clasp my hands in a wasted effort to calm myself. His eyes are sympathetic and I can tell he feels terrible but I know there’s nothing more he can do. “I have so much left to do! I-I’m not done, I have to-”

He silences me with a finger on my lips. “I know, love.” We stop walking and for a second he drops me back onto my feet. My hands fall into his and his sorrowful ember eyes gently burn into me. He falls to his knees and sits on the stair we’re on, holding his chest to his knees and I can tell there’s a sob trying to work itself up but he holds it back. He pulls out a cigarette, and puffs enough smoke out to put a bonfire to shame. 

“There’s times where I love my job. I get to meet so many people, I get to bring them home for good, and when a warrior soul is writhing in pain, I get to be the one who watches them appreciate peace for the first time. I’m revered and no one messes with me, I never have to prove myself or pretend to earn respect. That’s what everyone seems to know.” He rubs his eyes and wipes his palms off his ripped black jeans. “But, not everyone knows how incredible a burden it is to be Death.” He takes my hand. “I know how much they want to stay, some of them. Sometimes it’s too hard for me to carry them further and I let them run off because I can’t bear to do it, and even as the whip lands across my back I hope it’s worth it. Sometimes I get off shift and I lock my bedroom door and drink until I can’t remember the names or the faces. It’s a nightmare. But nothing gold can stay. Stars die, the plants wilt and even the strongest hearts stop beating. Statues stand tall and gold might shine but eventually everything will end up in my arms, up these stairs… we can only delay the inevitable.” His hand tightens in mine. My eyes start to well up as I realize I really can’t go back this time. 

“So, this really is the end for me. But where did my golden moment go? I-I mean, they’ve told me in school, if it’s not ok it’s not the end but I’m here right now and-and I’ve been waiting for my time to step into the sun, to prove I was better than fear!’ He leans back and I can tell he’s trying to keep the tears in his eyes but even he can’t do it. 

“Love, it was right there the whole time. Every moment is that right time. It’s all a matter of whether you’re brave enough to take it. It’s not what you want to hear, I know, but I’m not going to lie.” My chest tightens as we sit in the sunset, knowing that I could never go back. I try not to think about what I could have done, but it’s overbearing. Every what if I’ve ever asked myself has always ended in smoke and ash, but what if I had done it? 

And we sit in the sunset, knowing that we could never go back.