The Flag

“Lazy” is not a name or a description I want to be remembered by. Maybe I don’t finish my job all the time, and maybe I lack initiative. But doing things never was my strong suit. Oh, people think so because of my false candor on personality quizzes for online jobs. I make it a rule never to meet in person with a boss or anyone business-wise in person; I don’t want them to see through me. But it seems I can never get out of this unending flow of deceit and trickery, laziness and sloth. Even so, to be called out as lazy sends a pang to my chest. 

I just got off the phone with a close friend. Well, as close to a friend as I can get. You see, I’m not exactly known for having friends. Although it’s just as well because then they won’t have to grieve when I’m gone. Yes, I have cancer. And yes, just sitting here at this moment is draining. I expect to be dead within the week. My sister, the one whom I just got off the phone with, has called me “unresponsive” and “lazy.” I’ve been told that “iron sharpens iron,” but right now it seems the smith just struck my heart and I have this sick feeling in my stomach along with an aching in my head. That was the first time we have spoken in months, and trust me, it wasn’t pleasant. She criticized me for not joining in to participate in the Black Lives Matter campaign or rally thing. I said that I wasn’t going to do something that required me to show my political opinions. “This isn’t just political,” she said. And I said that I didn’t want to get out of my house, that I didn’t want to risk being killed. She said those were stupid reasons and that I was lazy, selfish, indifferent, apathetic, and the list goes on. It hurt. But then I did the simple task of pushing my conscience aside, and everything is better. Except for the fact that she is right. 

Why didn’t I do anything in school with what I was given? Why didn’t I offer friendship to that girl in fifth grade? Why didn’t I accept that scholarship to the university? Why did I insist on being sickly, selfish, and uneducated? I once longed for romance, but my chance for that is long gone; it’s a classic sob story, really, only that it wasn’t in any way beautiful or wonderfully pathetic at the end. I met a man in choir, and I thought he was perfect; his wavy raven hair and black eyes paired with his silky voice made me fall head over heels for him. Until he had an issue with his parents. 

They happened to be in trouble with the police, and were trying to pull him into it. He called me and texted me, looking for response and action because he wanted someone who would fight for him. I hung up. I didn’t respond. Until finally once in the middle of the night I texted him, “It isn’t my problem.” That was the end. I genuinely liked him, too. But sometimes I think my nature is hopeless so I don’t try anymore. Daniel found another girl, less pretty than I, but he married her and cut all ties with me--his new wife had a hand in that. So, at twenty-one, my life is almost over and I am the most wretched, worthless, useless person I know.

I stare out the window and look down on the street from my shabby apartment window seat. Not many people are out today, considering the fact that it is pouring rain and the high winds blast the puddles against the sides of buildings and down sidewalks. I turn my gaze to a flag that is flapping rapidly on top of a smaller skyscraper that ends a couple floors below my apartment. The stars are faded, the stripes are torn and drenched. It once stood for something great, I know. The people who founded this country knew what they were doing. Their motives were pure, admirable, and their efforts never ceased. They fought for what they believed in until their dying breath, and they are remembered. 

Through countless battles and too many wars has this old flag stood. Soldiers enlisted and stood by their home, their family, and kept their eyes on this flag, believing that it could and would be a symbol of hope and liberty for those of other nations, even its own citizens. 

I watch as the tattered flag is torn from the pole in a violent gust of wind and is whipped in the wind, sailing down and lands on the ground. What hope do I have? My eyes linger a bit more on the faded scrap of cloth, barely visible from this height and through the gale. I feel like despairing. After all, who cares for the thoughts and the sentiments of a girl alone in her apartment, shunned by her family, without friends, and who has never done a productive thing in her life? 

But in the quiet, in the stillness of my apartment something is recalled to mind. A quote, small at that, but so full of truth and hope that I once read in a fantasy novel--that was always something I could do; reading let me escape and distract myself with others’ heroics, yet never inspired me quite enough to do anything for it.

 “It is not despair, for despair is only for those who see the end beyond all doubt. We do not.*”  

I do not see every end. But every end to what? To my life? There is no hope there. Can I even do anything to help the world before I leave? Would it just be a waste of time, considering that I might not even have the willpower to do it? 

No. 

I will not let myself fall into this. Squeezing my eyes shut and clenching my fists for good measure, I announce to my apartment walls with a purpose, and with a will, “I am going to write a book. I am going to start now, and I will send it to Livia, and she will publish it.” 

Oh, but how foolish I sound! Nevermind that, I’ll make this happen if it’s the last thing I do--and I mean this quite literally. I briskly walk to my desk where my much-beloved laptop sits, and flipping it open, begin to type. 

I start at how I am not qualified to write this book, but also may be at the same time the most qualified because even me, who hardly possesses the perseverance to eat my breakfast in the morning, can see that something is dreadfully wrong. I continue to write that humanity has hope, we just need to see it. That there is something still worth fighting for in the world…

I elaborate on this for a moment before pausing. What is at the heart of this book? This chapter? What is worth fighting for? 

A quiet voice inside me answers.

Love. 

And life.

These are the things we hold onto. The things that keep us going when we wish we could end it. I think back to the flag. The symbol we have in our country of hope. No, the world isn’t perfect, and our America isn’t exactly the best it could be. In fact, I’m sometimes ashamed of it. But it can get better. And maybe what I’m writing will reach hundreds, or thousands of people. Or maybe it’ll reach one mom in her thirties, looking for books to read about government and hope like my mom used to. But even then, it’ll make some difference. And to me, that’s worth it. If it’s the last thing I do.

---------------------------------------------------------------

What difference are you making? What is your purpose, your symbol of hope? What is one thing you are going to do, if it's the last thing you do?

*This quote is from JRR Tolkien's the Fellowship of the Ring