365 Days (Part 1) | ✓

125. Frozen

125. Frozen: Write about a moment in your life you wish you could freeze and preserve.

An Excerpt From a Story I Will Probably Never Write

Moments... Some moments stand out to me. They are frozen; hung suspended in an atmosphere of cold blue stillness. They are timeless, straining against the changing time and battering against the sly seconds. They exist, and will forever, in my memory.

I remember long ago, when my limbs held the spring of life in them, how I punched Cy Baker in the nose for calling my mother loose. Our father's blood may have swirled through both of our veins, but it meant nothing to me. It never did. He didn't care either, and that was the one thing we agreed on. I can still taste the soft flesh of his cheek, and underneath, his solid skull. I can feel the sting of his returning punch, and the grain of the ground as I shoved my unwashed skin against it, and the rust of the blood from my nose fallingg into my mouth.

I remember my mother, singing low songs as she worked; doing homework, under the sickly yellow of the lamp, and watching her after a school day, wondering if what the people in town said about her was true. How she slid gracefully around the faded kitchen -- I remember that. She never did sing the songs loud enough for me to hear every word, and so they remain to me mysterious, ghostly melodies that haunt my memories of her.

I remember meeting Emily, in the drugstore, and how she looked so pert and pretty in her pink dress, sipping on a milkshake. I had let my eyes linger on her just a little too long, and she had noticed. It had only seemed polite to say hello after my eyes had been on her, and she had laughed at me. Even though I was embarrassed, I gloried in her amusement. She was an angel, Emily was. Of times and places unseen but wanting to explore.

Funnily enough, marrying Emily doesn't stand out in my memory, but our first fight does. And so does the time she broke me and I broke her. I remember when we were alone and lonely, and too far gone to get back up. I remember when she died, and how I felt -- terribly, guiltily, and full of shame -- relieved. For Emily did not deserve the life she led, and it had made her into something worse than what she was.

I remember the war, and doing my utter best to get myself killed. I wanted to die. I wanted to taste the gunpowder in my mouth and to sacrifice my life for something worthy. I remember volunteering for all of the worst missions, for the most dangerous jobs. They called me a kamikaze. I didn't care. In the end, I had a bullet to the leg and no death certificate.

I remember then, Anne. Every expression on her face and every shadow in her eye. Her voice, her smile, her words. I remember every moment I had with Anne, for they were far too few. She was a puff of dandelion, upon which wishes are made, but she floats away at the slightest breeze, and then she was gone.

I remember the girl, too, for she is here. She stands by me and whispers to me to let go. To give up the links to earth, for to go and be chained requires pain. I want to be released, not ripped painfully from earth. I remember the feel of her hands on mine more than I feel her touch. Almost everything is gone from me now, and it is through recollections that I live...

"Father," she whispers.

But I am a memory.