Life is precious. Every heartbreaking moment.
Like Hermes cast down from Olympus, the three boys sped surefooted through an overgrown field. Swaying dandelions and meadow thistle charted their traverse across the expanse like a compass. The true north of their hearts was a wild unknown teetering at the field’s edge where depths of darkness waited with a hungry embrace.
Featured Image: Unsplash – “Boys will be boys.” by Jordan Whitt (CC0 Public Domain)
Something enigmatic and yearning played about the edges of this moment when the marching of cattle plumed the dust of memories into the morning. Time to reflect and reminisce would come and bring with it the mercy of fulfillment that only weary muscles, dirtied hands, and reddened faces produced. For now, a determined and knowing grin cast low beneath the brim of a stetson welcomed the new day with the beating of horse’s hooves.
We stand hand-in-hand leaning over the railing of the little bridge that crosses the river in the park behind our house while the city behind us becomes a kaleidoscope of light in the icy water below. We’ve been here a thousand times repeating the same ritual, repeating the same wish, repeating the same crushing weight of always knowing the answer is no, but we come back anyways because hope is all we have left now. We drop the last tiny paper crane into the water, a silent plea cast out through the darkness like a message in a bottle to the world, and we watch it flutter to rest on the water’s surface and bob up and down as if replying “Your resilience and faith has been rewarded – wish granted” before its pulled under by the current.
“What if hearts were made of waffles?” Elise mused, her pigtails bobbing slightly as syrup from the bottle pooled on her plate and drizzled over the side from the unsteadiness of hands not quite as big as the questions she posed.
“Well, then love would be as deliciously sweet as you are,” I replied, dipping my finger in powdered sugar and adding a slight dusting to her cherub nose.
The scent of sugar and the late Sunday morning sun formed an amnesiac aura around the kitchen of our one bedroom apartment, impregnating the space with the peace of forgetfulness; tomorrow it will rain, papers will be washed in ink, and the acrid earthy smell of a life that was promised will drown out the candied moments of family memories shared around the breakfast table, but for now, I had waffles and syrup and Elise asking big questions that have hard answers all while lifting up the sun with her little hands.
DV-2301 didn’t choose the Stormtrooper life; the Stormtrooper life chose him.
Gifted with crafting form from a brushstroke of color, his childhood was spent drawing on the various canvases of life – illuminating flickers of hope in the wake of Imperial domination which had cast its shadow over the small corner of the galaxy he called home.
Now, his canvases were orders carried out with precision and unwavering loyalty, and his palette were the whites, chromes, and blacks of his station; he was the paintbrush moved by an invisible hand who painted astoundingly beautiful atrocities in the name of peace.
Such an insignificant thing
becoming a symphony of life
in the hands of a child.
“The best families have fruit, some sweet like berries and some sour like citrus, a few nuts for variety, the grains of flour holding us all together, a splash of rum to warm the spirit, but the best part is the proverbial cherry on top – that’s you my dear,” Granny smiled as she delicately sliced the loaf.
I smiled up at her, briefly acknowledged her musings, and turned back to the text messages on my phone, oblivious to the allusion she made; Granny always drank while she was baking, and the more she drank, the more she tended to speak in innuendos and vague metaphors and the more people tended to smile at her good natured ramblings ignoring their true meaning.
It’s been six years since Granny baked her last fruitcake and ruminated on the spirits of Christmases past; it’s been seven years since I put on the apron taking my place beside the stove, kneading breads, baking cakes, making candy, and drinking rum – the cherry hasn’t fallen far from the tree.
Annabelle doodled daisies wherever she went, sidewalks, notebooks, desks, doors, windows, walls, but her favorite was plucking their sunny faces, the petals adorning her lap and hair.
It’s been years since her fascination with daisies shut like the day’s eye at night.
I hadn’t realized how much I missed their innocence until I found the memory of one pressed between the pages of her favorite book, suspended in its youth like Annabelle with her golden-crowned head and bright eyes.
Unbound 