Pictures

Cold, It’s so cold.

Stepping out of the surf. The sea dropped off me like earths silk blanket. The memories of what happened tried to slowly came back to me.

I was so exhausted. I sat down on the sand and closed my eyes. Waiting for the memories to occupy the spaces they did once before. 

I remember…a ship. A massive ship. Sailing through the seas. It’s hulk was mankind’s blade slicing through nature’s beauty. 

The Bliss

Yes that was it. The ship was called The Bliss. 

It was a Cruise ship, yea that’s it. But, why was I on it?

Hm?

Looking around, I see that I am alone on this beach. The forest behind is just a black cave entrance in the moonless night. I see some debris around. A wooden board there. A suitcase there. Clothes and other odds and ends that really shouldn’t be on a beach. Like a bookshelf and thousands of sheets of blank paper scattered like squared stars in a golden sky. 

Wait. 

What is that?

It looks like a book. 

Standing up I realize how quite it is. No chirps or calls from insects or birds. Not even a cool breeze. Just a stillness. I then realize as I bend to pick up the book. That even the sea seems very still. 

The book looks old. Really old. 

I then realize something really weird as I open the books cover.

There are no waves in the sea. 

The first page is not a dedicated page or authors note.

 It’s a picture. 

A picture of me as a boy. 

I am sitting in my old bedroom. Reading the old books from my youth. Stephen King, Nick Cole, Nicholas Sansbury Smith. Monsters and zombies. Adventure and danger. Battle and love. The stories that I read till my eyes ached. The stories that filled my mind and dreams with horror and greatness.      

I smiled at this image. I ran my finger over the young face that had so much hope and wonder in his eyes, and his soul. 

Turning the page it was another image. Me with my brothers and sisters. The youngest out of half a dozen. We did everything siblings did. From laugh and fight. To loathing and forgiving. A band bounded by blood, sweat, and tears.

My smile grew as I looked at my family. Some of which I have forgotten what they actually looked like. A need to see and speak to them grew and weighed on me. Like I swallowed a musket ball and was now carry a cannon ball in my guts. 

Turning the page. There they were. My parents. Smiling as they looked at each other at a barbecue in our old back yard.

Been together pretty much since the Big Bang.

35 years of 5 kids, 6 jobs, and 7 moves. Once across country. High school sweethearts, They stood together ever since graduation. The pinnacle of a great love story. 

The next few pages told the stories other parts of my life. First job, first car, first kiss, first love. 

I turned another page and I felt the air leave my lungs. The woman before me was a angel. It was Sarah. On the day I asked her to be my wife. On a cliff side in Italy. I remember all the overtime and side jobs I had to take to afford that trip. I also remember the look on her face when I told her we where going. She hugged me, she smelled of berries and lilac.

She told me she loved me for the millionth time and we kissed. 

Then while on a cliff over looking the ocean and the clear sky. I got up the nerve to ask the question I should have asked two years earlier. 

The diamond was small, no bigger then the worlds smallest pebble. But Sarah didn’t even seem to notice. As she cried, she let me place the ring on her finger. She wrapped her arms around me. Her tears seeped through my shirt and she said softly in my ear, “I love you”.

I placed my fingers on her picture. I didn’t notice I was crying till a tear fell on the picture then.

I wanted the tears to be for joy. But I remembered then. I remembered everything. 

The ship called bliss wasn’t a ship. It was the mood I was in when…

Reluctantly, I turned the next page. 

I love being a teacher. I love it. 

That’s why, when a student pulled out a gun. I stepped between the barrel and my class. 

That poor child. His hand was shaking so much I thought he was going to drop it. His eyes where blazing with hate. But, also with confusion and fear. He screamed of bullies and loneliness. Of fear and terror of the unknown. I tried to talk to him. I tried. I could have done something else. I should have done something else.

Maybe then the last picture in this book of memories would not be me, lying on the school floor. Two small holes in my chest. 

I can hear the screams now. From my kids. I hear the young, hateful, scared boy crying. The gun lying on the floor by his feet. His arms were wrapped around his knees so tight his Knuckles was the color of salt.

I remember hearing my wheezing breath as I try to tell the boy that everything will be alright. That this wasn’t his fault. I wanted to tell him, my class, and the rest of this world that fear, terror, and hate are not what we are. We can be more, we can be better. We can do great and beautiful things.

Together, and only together.

I closed the book on my lap. I can hear sirens. The beeping of a medical machine. The cries and pleas of my Sarah in the distance. Her cries were fading. Like a dream after waking. 

I remember something I read once. A story about how some ancient tribes believed that the stars guide our paths upon this earth. That as one star blinks out, another is born somewhere else. 

Could be bullshit. 

Who knows. 

But it stuck with me because of a thought I had at the time I read it. What does the departed see when they are leaving. What does a star see as it dies.

I think it would be like us, closing its cosmic eyes as the lights of the living world fade. One by one the lights further then closes to you going dark, forever. 

I cried my last tears, as the beach gets darker. I look up at the shining stars. 

I scream at the top of my ethereal lungs, as my stars start to blink out.

***

“Clear”!

“Come on damit, come back”!

“Clear”!

“Come on buddy”!

“Clear”!

“ Doctor, We have a pulse.”!

“Yes”!

“I don’t know if you can hear me. But your going to make it buddy, we got you”!

I smile wildly as I look up at my few remaining stars. The stars brighten, and the book on my lap feels mighty heavier.

The End