The Last Sunrise

A Story by T.Marie

A young woman knows she will die in the next 24 hours, this is the last sunrise she will ever see in the living flesh and the first she ever truly noticed.

In 24 hours I will be dead, there is no point in me telling you how I know this fact. That is not why I am here, I want to tell you something less macabre and more lively (if you could call it lively). I've seen many sunrises in my short life but none meant to me like this. This would be my last sunrise, maybe wherever I'm going after I die will have sunrises. Even so, it wouldn't be the same because I'd be dead and there's some form of beauty in a sunrise while in living flesh. Maybe I'll be reincarnated into like, a deer or something that would be living flesh right? Even so, if I do become a deer in my next life the chances of that deer having the brain capacity to appreciate the flaming hell that's 92,960,000 miles away is small.

I awoke just as the first sign of dawn made itself know. From my bed I could see out my large window and take note that the sky was still lavender and the aura that it left shining through my window was chilly, damp, and oddly comforting. You know, despite the fact that I'm going to die in 24 hours. I laid there staring at the ceiling while I waited for what I wanted, patience is virtue. Don't matter how much I want that sun to come up right now, nothings going to change the rate that the natural predictability in life happens.

Soon (not soon enough), the first beams of light hit the wooden floor of my room. I throw my covers off and immediately regret it considering the fact the room is still chilly from the 'dawn'. It's like it's trying to tell me "Don't forget me, just to make sure I'll bite you in the a*s!". I struggle to put my sweat pants on as I hop around looking for my shoes. Unable to find them I just barrel out the door and into the dew covered grass heading straight to the woods.

Just beyond those woods is a clearing where I can envelop myself in the suns bright yawn, right after its good nights rest. I lay my hand on a large tree and look towards the sunrise itself, careful to avoid the sun itself. Not that it would matter, I'm going to die anyways. But this moment, this moment, just Dear God, please don't let me forget what its like to be human. -Love, Me.

The cool tree resting against my palm with its run bark that I would've hated 3 days ago. The first moments of sunlight dancing across my chest, my arms, my face, everything. I almost want to cry because I truthfully don't want to die. I want to experience this moment all day forever. But I can't that's not how things work.

The little voice in my head is telling me just to go back inside and don't leave my property following the bread crumb trail to my certain death. But people need me, I have things to do, an oddly enough the other half of me knows that this is the right time for me to die. Young, yes but it's right. Only the good die young right? Dear Billy Joel, that song better not have been lying all these years. If so I'm going to come back as a ghost and haunt your a*s. -Love Me.

I pry myself away from this moment, go back through the trees and into my yard. Up the porch and into my house. To the closet I tell myself, "Got to pick your death outfit today." Maybe if I remain silly about this, it won't be so bad. The whole death part, what's going to happen as my life fades into darkness. Or is it light that it fades into? I don't know but some shade is going to get faded into and I want to know what's going to happen when it does.

Maybe as the breath leaves my lungs and my soul detaches itself from my body, I'll think about this sunrise. That way I won't be scared, I'll think about the happy, evil, conniving, son of a b***h sun that burns peoples corneas and can possibly cause cancer. That's what I'll do, I have to think about the sun. Sun, life, not death -Repeat. Sun, life, not death. That will be my mantra for the next 24 hours. It will be.