Post by Sparks on Dec 25, 2004 10:52:10 GMT -8
I'm kinda hesitant to post here, nobody ever seems to read the "Prose" section.
Anyways, the wrap up of this piece is that it was something that really happened this August, right before we went back to school, in my community.
Another one of those things that people conveniently stop talking about.
Since it's the first Christmas, I felt bad today. For everything that happened.
Anyhow, this kid was one of my brother's friends. And... I guess it just happens that fast, doesn't it?
I know this might be a bit of a downer, but please read and comment.
Thanks very much.
An age beneath the surface. Underrated and overrated at the same time. Sixteen: like your face breaking the water of a glacial lake in the in the coldest storm of winter. Breaths taken will shake with the departed memories of
(not)
so long ago; things that you can try to disregard. Things that’ll haunt you and follow you, that’ll tear you up inside forever.
Sixteen. A time of innocence, guilt and beauty. They will tell you that your teenage years are the years of your life in which you grow most. The decisions you make then will affect who you are, and who you become. They’ll also affect who you don’t become.
I watch you. Those brilliant milk chocolate eyes I have come to know so well, though I’ve never met you. I don’t even know what you look like.
(dark, shaggy hair and an original, crooked gait)
Your confidence amazes and amuses me.
Nobody else brings out in me what you have. You were never like the rest of them, you know.
Sixteen goes on forever. The days of socializing in the crowded halls, skipping class, practicing what you were good at. Your friends are good people. Your family is never there, and you love them for it. I admire you, you know.
Is that such a good thing? I’ll always admire your ability to adapt to profoundly difficult situations.
Sixteen goes on forever. At least, it will for you.
I doubt that I’m the first one to tell you. All over town they’re shaking their heads. They’ve never met you, and yet they lay awake at night wondering where you are. They wonder who you would have become. They regret not knowing you. It wouldn’t have made a difference otherwise, but we all ponder these unanswerable things. Do you understand what I’m going through?
Did you know the band At the Drive-In? I don’t know if you played the electric guitar, or the bass, or if you couldn’t fall asleep at night for fear that life would end before you got a chance to really live.
If that’s the case, then it seems to me your fate has been spun by the threads of an ultimately cruel irony.
Sixteen years old. It passes so damn fast. It approaches and you try to scramble back into the fading days of childhood, because everything you believe in exists there. You are pushed forward though, and as you blow out the candles on your sixteenth ice cream cake, you think of the future. You imagine everything that’s still ahead.
Did you even like ice cream cakes? Another thing I’ll never, ever know.
Sixteen years ago, you were brought into this world, facing ecstatic parents. You didn’t know that you would end up in the same city as me. I suppose you still don’t know it. Maybe you never would have known me. But I know you. I know you, even though I know nothing about you except the sequence of the final moments of your life.
It’s a tragedy. I heard that your eyes were closed, at the visitation. My brother came home, the depth that has recently settled in his eyes once again unstable. I don’t think you knew each other well. But my brother’s a good kid. I know that. I have always known that. I look up to him. I admire him, too. Maybe I admire him more than I admire you, but I will always feel deeply for that night that you suffered.
I heard that your mother was strong at the visitation, welcoming your peers with dry eyes. They were all kids, like you. They’ll go back about their lives. I wonder how your family’ll feel, come Christmas. The memories will flood back. You should never have gotten on that skateboard.
You should have never done any of those stupid things.
I know you to be a daredevil, but I never really knew you anyways.
I wish you’d thought about it. You’ll haunt the driver forever.
He can’t sleep at night, anymore. He sees you lying there disoriented, the rust-coloured pool beneath your head spreading with the passing seconds.
He can see it being absorbed into his untied shoelaces, and moving towards the sewers. The initial nausea still hasn’t left him.
Every time he closes his eyes and takes comfort in the darkness, he can hear his friends agreeing on the gravity of the situation, that day. Taking your life into their palms.
“Don’t worry. He’s just gonna black out. We should call an ambulance. He’s gonna be fine. He’s fine.”<br>He’ll loathe the thoughts that crossed his mind - that told him not to worry, because a concussion was the worst that could happen. I know you’d take it back. You’d take it all back.
I would change the past to save you, even though I’ve never met you.
I can’t imagine what it would be like to walk into the hospital room and see your firstborn lying naked on the bed, IV drips running through his wrists and spreading the undeniable truth throughout his body. I can’t imagine their expressions when the doctor bit his lip and tried to hold onto that cool professionalism in the face of such a tragedy
(Your son is what we call ‘Brain Dead’)
and accidentally let the shiver passing through his body seep into his voice.
I can’t imagine how it would be to see your son, so alive, and know that he would never see you again.
If there’s anything good to come out of this, it’s at best bitter-sweet.
I remember you telling me once that you wanted to be sixteen forever.
I’ll bet you didn’t want it as badly as you thought.
Anyways, the wrap up of this piece is that it was something that really happened this August, right before we went back to school, in my community.
Another one of those things that people conveniently stop talking about.
Since it's the first Christmas, I felt bad today. For everything that happened.
Anyhow, this kid was one of my brother's friends. And... I guess it just happens that fast, doesn't it?
I know this might be a bit of a downer, but please read and comment.
Thanks very much.
An age beneath the surface. Underrated and overrated at the same time. Sixteen: like your face breaking the water of a glacial lake in the in the coldest storm of winter. Breaths taken will shake with the departed memories of
(not)
so long ago; things that you can try to disregard. Things that’ll haunt you and follow you, that’ll tear you up inside forever.
Sixteen. A time of innocence, guilt and beauty. They will tell you that your teenage years are the years of your life in which you grow most. The decisions you make then will affect who you are, and who you become. They’ll also affect who you don’t become.
I watch you. Those brilliant milk chocolate eyes I have come to know so well, though I’ve never met you. I don’t even know what you look like.
(dark, shaggy hair and an original, crooked gait)
Your confidence amazes and amuses me.
Nobody else brings out in me what you have. You were never like the rest of them, you know.
Sixteen goes on forever. The days of socializing in the crowded halls, skipping class, practicing what you were good at. Your friends are good people. Your family is never there, and you love them for it. I admire you, you know.
Is that such a good thing? I’ll always admire your ability to adapt to profoundly difficult situations.
Sixteen goes on forever. At least, it will for you.
I doubt that I’m the first one to tell you. All over town they’re shaking their heads. They’ve never met you, and yet they lay awake at night wondering where you are. They wonder who you would have become. They regret not knowing you. It wouldn’t have made a difference otherwise, but we all ponder these unanswerable things. Do you understand what I’m going through?
Did you know the band At the Drive-In? I don’t know if you played the electric guitar, or the bass, or if you couldn’t fall asleep at night for fear that life would end before you got a chance to really live.
If that’s the case, then it seems to me your fate has been spun by the threads of an ultimately cruel irony.
Sixteen years old. It passes so damn fast. It approaches and you try to scramble back into the fading days of childhood, because everything you believe in exists there. You are pushed forward though, and as you blow out the candles on your sixteenth ice cream cake, you think of the future. You imagine everything that’s still ahead.
Did you even like ice cream cakes? Another thing I’ll never, ever know.
Sixteen years ago, you were brought into this world, facing ecstatic parents. You didn’t know that you would end up in the same city as me. I suppose you still don’t know it. Maybe you never would have known me. But I know you. I know you, even though I know nothing about you except the sequence of the final moments of your life.
It’s a tragedy. I heard that your eyes were closed, at the visitation. My brother came home, the depth that has recently settled in his eyes once again unstable. I don’t think you knew each other well. But my brother’s a good kid. I know that. I have always known that. I look up to him. I admire him, too. Maybe I admire him more than I admire you, but I will always feel deeply for that night that you suffered.
I heard that your mother was strong at the visitation, welcoming your peers with dry eyes. They were all kids, like you. They’ll go back about their lives. I wonder how your family’ll feel, come Christmas. The memories will flood back. You should never have gotten on that skateboard.
You should have never done any of those stupid things.
I know you to be a daredevil, but I never really knew you anyways.
I wish you’d thought about it. You’ll haunt the driver forever.
He can’t sleep at night, anymore. He sees you lying there disoriented, the rust-coloured pool beneath your head spreading with the passing seconds.
He can see it being absorbed into his untied shoelaces, and moving towards the sewers. The initial nausea still hasn’t left him.
Every time he closes his eyes and takes comfort in the darkness, he can hear his friends agreeing on the gravity of the situation, that day. Taking your life into their palms.
“Don’t worry. He’s just gonna black out. We should call an ambulance. He’s gonna be fine. He’s fine.”<br>He’ll loathe the thoughts that crossed his mind - that told him not to worry, because a concussion was the worst that could happen. I know you’d take it back. You’d take it all back.
I would change the past to save you, even though I’ve never met you.
I can’t imagine what it would be like to walk into the hospital room and see your firstborn lying naked on the bed, IV drips running through his wrists and spreading the undeniable truth throughout his body. I can’t imagine their expressions when the doctor bit his lip and tried to hold onto that cool professionalism in the face of such a tragedy
(Your son is what we call ‘Brain Dead’)
and accidentally let the shiver passing through his body seep into his voice.
I can’t imagine how it would be to see your son, so alive, and know that he would never see you again.
If there’s anything good to come out of this, it’s at best bitter-sweet.
I remember you telling me once that you wanted to be sixteen forever.
I’ll bet you didn’t want it as badly as you thought.
