All Good Things Must Not Last

“You know, you should always have plans in case any sort of situation happens,” there’s my mother, always telling me random things at random times. With a sigh, I give my automatic response, “Yes mother.” She doesn’t like when I respond just that, but I do anyway. Sadly, she interrupted my train of thought with my math homework. Though I faced down towards my homework, I could feel her brown eyes glaring at me from the scratched up leather couches.

“What did Londone do now?” My sister came into the living room with her sassy attitude and judgmental eyes. My father soon wandered in after. I could feel the upcoming commotion with all four of us in the same room and decided to take my leave. Gathering my backpack from of the white tiled floor, I went into the small room I shared with my sister. I went to my desk, door closing behind me, and dropped my stuff.

The room felt cold to me, but I knew it wasn’t. The sun was pouring through the window, it was my actions that gave me the cold feelings. As usual I welcomed it, the sun was an old enemy. Walking to my dark dresser, I faintly smelled the wood as I opened the top drawer, taking something shiny from it’s hiding place. My own protection. My pocket knife. The door opened, but I knew who it was. I walked toward the bed and put the pocket knife under my white pillows lounging on the blue conforders.

“Mine is the red one,” said Aaliyah, my sister. She was on her bed under the window opening paying no attention to me, buried in the homework she was probably late on.

“I know, you had it laying on the floor yesterday.” It was a typical Aaliyah fashion: lazy and sloppy. Sitting on my bed, I was deciding where to put my pocket knife so it would be near me. I grabbed the long wiener dog I got from my Dad on Valentines day years ago. It had  ‘I Love You This Much’ embedded in its long body in red, a beautiful contrast with the light brown fur. On the top of the long body, there was a hole. I buried it within the inviting cotton, placing it back in its place at the foot of my bed. I went back to do finish my homework.

I always got a bad feeling when things that could affect me in any way we're going to happen. 2008, late July was no different. The pocketknife had been in the dog for weeks, and I had grown to preoccupied lately to move it. They were arguing again, so my Mom would sleep on the couch. I was sloppy, wasn’t using my head to connect the dots. By then, it was too late.

Living with my family, I have heard many things that annoyed me. The sound of the calm before the storm is the worst thing I have ever heard. As i sit upright in bed, my senses are heightened and my mind is going a mile a minute. Though I know on some level of my hectic brain that the soft comforters are beckoning me to rest, the absence of my valentine dog made me restless. The darkness did nothing to cease me from seeing the future playing out in my head. I can taste the sweet yet horrid taste of the loss of my secrete, and I know it’s coming. My father’s snores vanished accompanied by the extremely faint glow from the hall meaning the television was muted. Though the sound of silence is screaming at me that they will be here, as always I couldn’t help but not feel anything. Emotionless. Impassive. No matter what the small portion of my humanity would yell at me, I could feel nothing. My shadow was more alive in me.

“Londone!” There it was, the church bells signaling execution. I tried to muster up some emotions of confusion like always, but it wasn’t happening. The floor was cold, and I welcomed it. The couch that I sat on was cold, and I welcomed it. The stares of my parents were cold, and I welcomed it, intensifying the coldness with my own eyes. I welcomed the darkness that was pushed back by the glow of the television. The air felt heavy on my lungs.

Today, I don’t remember what they said, or maybe I do. I don’t remember the threats my father threw at me, or maybe I just didn't feel their depth. I don’t remember when my Dad finally decided to retire to his room, leaving a trail of anger and disgust, or maybe I just didn’t care enough. I don’t remember when exactly the tears mixed in with the yelling and wild accusations from my mother, but she no longer was cold, so I must not have recognized it. I couldn’t have cared less unless I actually cared.

I remember when my self-preservation kicked in, and my back up tears started to fall. Tears of ice, always convincing. Habit had made it so that I walked away as cold as I walked in. What I remember most is that my mother hugged me. She hugged me with all her warmth and heat from the sun she and my sister so very much loved. Though I walked away cold, I woke up with a flicker in my darkness.

I tried for months to go back to the impassive me, the one who always got the job done with no hesitation. That flicker of light changed me. I hated the feeling of warmth, and my humanity seemed to have grown. There was never any warmth or growth in hollow creature; that’s how I knew it was too late for me. I was broke, and I had to learn. I had to adapt, that’s the one thing I do best.

Six years later, here I am. When I think back to that night… that morning, I always feel the loss and the gain. I lost my ability to do everything that was necessary without having emotions influence me, and my self-preservation was at its Golden Age. Now, I feel and struggle not to, I feel a need to put others before myself. My judgement is clouded. There are lots of things i would do differently that night. That night would never have even happened had the smallest things been changed. I would still be in my GOlden Age, before I learned and adapted to accepting the sun. I welcome the cold when I can, but my old enemy is just that: an old enemy. So, yeah, I’d love to go back to how I was before, nothing able to affect me or influence me, but what can I say, my judgment is clouded.