Bare feet pound against dry, cracked earth.
Each step leading to nowhere.
The horizon never changing.
Heartbeats pound against tight, stitched ribs.
Each pulse leading to the last.
The horizon too far to care.
Despair pounds against ever-waning hope.
Each second leading to the end.
The horizon stares on, aloof and distant.
Faith pounds against the impatient horizon.
Each thump a call to believe.
The horizon swells. The horizon cheers.
Kick start your week with a lil' moxie!
My legs dangled over the edge of the cliff. As far as I could see frothy peaks dotted the pulsing waters. Whispers skated on the wind all around me. I strained to hear them over the waves crashing below and the frenzied whip of my hair.
The sky, a marbled gray, vibrated with an angry energy and threatened to crack open. There was a connection. I was the sky. My exterior was merely the dam holding back everything I had held in for far too long. So much inside of me pounded against my sanity like the waves against the cliff. Relentless.
Sentences were impossible to make out, but the occasional word pushed its way through.
Do.
It.
The words came softly, but pelted my skin like daggers. I had no illusion to why I was here. What I came to do. But the encouragement from familiar voices was a slap to the face. A chorus of the people I loved: my mom, my dad, my sister.
The wind picked up and snatched away my tears before they could travel down my cheeks. I stood up knowing that the wind would do most of the work. With my toes hung over the edge, I raised my arms, breathing in the salty spray of the water. So caught up in the moment, I barely even noticed the gust of wind that took me over.
With the ocean racing toward me, the voices screamed to be heard. Desperation and heartbreak underscored their need for me to hear the truth:
Don’t do it.
The words warmed me against the chill of the ocean. But clarity stung my heart. All I could be now was thankful that I had no time left for regret.
Kick start your week with a lil' moxie!
Kick start your week with a lil' moxie!
Barton Marshall’s tooth slipped from its gummy pocket and hit the porcelain sink with an unceremonious clunk. Every sign he’d ignored before now took center stage in his mind. Releasing a long, sour sigh, he knew no matter how hard he tried, there was no denying that he’d been duped.
“You’re an old man,” he said to the reflection in the bathroom mirror. His eyes, nestled atop bulging dark folds, stared back and, through the fading steam, offered a wordless agreement. Lightning bolts of pain chimed in from his lower back with a “Here. Here”. His creaky joints extended the only audible notes of solidarity.
He shuffled his way out of the bathroom and into the sterile room he woke up in. Lifting his feet seemed like an inefficient use of the little energy he had left and his well-worn slippers scuffed across the tiled floor. Reaching the bed, he plopped down, allowing gravity to do most of the work.
Barton’s friends and family had begged him not to do it. But to him, they were overreacting. Back in the twenty-first century it wasn’t uncommon for people to donate blood for some extra cash. He’d even read about people going as far as donating their sperm. Their eggs. So what was a few years?
A few years.
When he woke up, he had a bad feeling, but chalked it up to post-surgery haze. And even though making it to the bathroom had been a chore, he swatted away the thought that they had taken more years than he had agreed to. Hours ago, he would have had the strength to fight. To allow his rage to run the show. But hours ago he was a twenty one year old with his whole life in front of him.
Staring at the spots on the back of his wrinkled, fleshy hand, he figured he must be somewhere north of eighty. The thought added eighty pounds of tired on top of his already exhausted, fragile frame. His head hit the pillow and his body softened atop the stiff mattress.
As his mind drifted and sleep wove its way through every part of his rapidly aged body, Barton hoped when he woke, he’d discover this had all been a nightmare. Or at the very least, that he had enough money to buy some of his years back.
Kick start your week with a lil' moxie!
“Green tea latte with almond milk.”
This time—the third time—the barista’s voice cut through the air with an edge, meant to slice the person inconveniencing her with a dose of public shaming. Rodney Melliver knew the drink was his, but he couldn’t respond. Shoulders slumped forward and chin to chest, he realized there was a distinct possibility the tiny round table dappled in pastry crumbs might be the last thing he ever saw.
The first tingles danced up his arm while he stood in line, waiting to order the ridiculously overpriced drink everyone at work had talked about. He ignored it at the time because, as had been the case for the past several days, he found himself lost in the past. Memories flooded his mind without warning. Each one bringing him to his knees with shame and regret.
While in line, Rodney was in the midst of reliving his daughter’s birthday. Well, the last one he remembered and, more impressively, acknowledged. Two days past the day she was born, he got her a card and didn’t even bother putting it in the envelope. The freshly turned nine year old was on the couch watching television when he got home. He tossed the card next to her and mumbled happy birthday without breaking his stride to grab a beer from the fridge. Now, eleven years later, remorse had found him, demanding as much attention in the spotlight as the dull prickles traveling up and down his arm and the painful contractions in his chest.
Rodney imagined himself outside of his body. An observer to his own pathetic state: slouched and alone. So alone that there wasn’t even an empty seat at the table for him to welcome potential company. Borrowed earlier by the fleshy-faced guy at the neighboring table. When he watched him carry it away and join his friends, Rodney was gut-punched with jealousy. It had become increasingly difficult for him to see what life could have been if he had only tried.
But he hadn’t. And here he was.
“Green tea latte with…you know what? Forget thi…”
The barista’s voice trailed off and darkness crowded the edges of Rodney’s vision, he hated that his last act before dying would be to add another person to the list of people he had angered.
As the sounds around him melted together into a tinny, echoey jumble, Rodney vowed that if he was given another chance, his life would be different. He would be better. Do better.
And he would definitely try the green tea latte with almond milk.
