It's the last day of July and summer is drifting into a
haze, slowly disappearing into the distance, and I wonder what has become of
me.
I used to be the girl who could fill pages and pages with
words that meant something. They were about love and happiness and being alive.
And now I'm... what? Now I'm a shell of that girl, the girl
I used to know but now, now I haven't the slightest idea who she is.
Sometimes I catch
glimpses of her, walking down the aisle in the supermarket or in the bathroom
as she's combing her hair or brushing her teeth. She's lying on the couch,
sometimes, and other times I catch brief glimpses of her walking down the
street, the sunlight warm on her shoulders, or in passing behind the wheel of a
car she pretends to know how to drive.
But mostly I don't know who she is, or where she went to
after the walls crumbled in.
If I met her for coffee one evening in a Starbucks I'd like
to ask her where she went. As she sips her latte with tired eyes I'd like to
ask her who she is now. What happened to the beautiful girl who wrote pages and
pages in notebooks and did things like cartwheel in the grass even though she
knows she's not good at it and thumb through pictures in the magazines
convinced she could be among them one day.
I think she would look at me, a sad smile on her lips. She
would tell me she got tired of living in a battle field. There was a war raging
on and staying cost her much more than leaving ever would. She would run her
hands through her hair and tell me she was still there, undercover, waiting
until it was safe to come out, until the war had all but ended.
It's hard to be happy and alive and write pages and pages
about things like love when you're stuck in the middle of a war with dust
decorating your face and the sounds of guns merging with the sounds of the
flowers growing up in the warmth of the summer.
She would tell me that beauty couldn't coexist with the war,
that eventually something would get over ruled. She would place her fingers
around the cup and press it to her lips, closing her eyes and savoring the
sweet, rich taste on her tongue and I would watch her with a wide eyed gaze,
feeling a sense of familiarity, like this was home and where I was now I was
just a traveler, a foreigner.
She would tell me that while she wouldn't stay gone forever
right now the best thing was to sit tight, wait. There is a time for fighting,
she would say, but there is also a time for waiting and you must be very wise
to know which time is which.
She would lower her voice and tell me the news like she was
telling me a secret "Soon the war will be over. Just wait, you'll see.
Soon the war will end and I will be back for good, I promise. You just have to
wait and eventually the sun will come out again and the death and destruction
that has come since the enemy invaded will be gone. You have to believe that
even though it is winter now there is an invincible summer. That invincible
summer will not be beaten and it is within you and it is in that summer I will
be. You just have to wait. And if you get impatient, like I know you're prone
to do, just look inside and find that invincible summer and it is there I will
be."
I look at her, this girl I used to know, and my hands shake
and I want to ask her a million questions. I want to ask her how I am supposed
to survive the war and how bad the devastation will get before it’s over and if
I can go with her to the place where there is this invincible summer she speaks
of.
As if reading my mind, this girl I used to know continues to
speak, "I know you want to come but you can't right now. I don't know how
long this war will last or how hard you will have to fight to stay alive but
watch closely. When it's time to move from waiting to fighting you will know.
You will know how to fight when it's time. The invincible summer, it is not a
place. It is within you. And I, I have not left you. I am just waiting, lying
low until the war ceases. I am not gone, do not worry. I am right here,
whenever you need me. Just close your eyes and take a deep breath and find that
invincible summer within you and it is there I will be."
1 comment:
…”I couldn’t help but listen as you talked,” said a voice in the shadow at the table next to theirs. He leaned forward ever so slightly, as they struggled to catch a glimpse of their eavesdropper. “There is no retreating from this fight,” he continued with the hushed tones they had previously been using. But there was something strange about how he said those words. Not with the resignation of defeat or the weariness of apathy, but with a pinch of excitement. The shadows still hid the details of his features, but they could now see that he was a boy sitting with his legs crossed comfortably on big recliner. “The frontline is deep and runs through each of us,” he whispered as he tapped his chest over his heart with two fingers. Then he leaned even closer, and the girls saw a bright smile emerge from the shadow as he said, “But the invincible summer will be all the more beautiful because of it.” The girls were about to finally respond and ask who he was, when a man stormed in through the Starbucks front door. He hastily surveyed the shop, and when his eyes rested on the boy, he jerked his head outside knowingly and then fled the shop. The boy, noticing the man, nimbly jumped up out of the chair to leave, when he turned around to the girls and said, “Beauty must exist with this war, for the contrast brings clarity of our coming hope.” As he sprang through the shop he called back, “See you in the summer!”
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