drama

Normalcy in the Face of Grief

She stared around with her currently dull, sleepy eyes. She saw everyone around her, but also seemed to see through them, see their intentions. They all stared eagerly ahead, so intent on understanding, so intent on impressing, on seeing who was knowledgeable and who wasn’t. Eager, all so eager. She slowly shifted her gaze over them all. Why are they acting like this? She thought. What do they gain from it?

She was presently struck again with how much her grief distorted her perspective and views on life. Nothing seemed so important anymore. As long as you keep living, even in total numbness, what does it matter what your future holds? What does it even matter what the present holds? What’s the use of striving to greatness or even comfortable mediocrity? She didn’t care what would happen in her life anymore, as long as she kept living somehow.

This sprang to my mind at work today, and I quickly wrote down the words on my little pad of paper that I carry in my bag everywhere. Dramatic, perhaps, and quite depressing to tell the truth, but I just started thinking about writing this, so I did. I will resume my usual nonsensical posts on the morrow.

Good Ole’ Fashioned Genuine, Corny Joy

The wind picked up, stirring loose hairs and chilling bare arms. The merest trace of a forgotten scent was in the air, blowing up and around and through the streets. The light of the half moon dwindled as clouds settled in the night sky. Dark and ominous they were, and yet still the harbingers of joy.

The first drop was dismissed as anything but rain. For rain it couldn’t yet be, not at the end of September. Fall could not have come so quickly to the hot and stifling cities. The second drop, and then the third, fourth and fifth were sweet, for they could not be ignored, could not be mere spray from some unknown spout.

The clouds seemed to groan and sigh with relief as they let themselves break open and spray the dry streets with rain, the first rain. They did not relent and disappear quickly, but stayed for an hour or more, sending small and icy drops down onto the unwary people.

The wonderful moist, wet scent brought tears to my eyes and joy to my heart. Winter is coming, I told myself. Winter is coming.