The Alex Show - Episode 66

It was January when I first saw her. She was walking without a purpose - an incremental hangover from the previous years. Out with the old, and in with the nothing is new. Eyes sullen, hidden below the hair she purposefully refused to push back behind her ears. Someone used to do that for her. Used to. Now just the thought of the motion was reason enough to hide behind it. Shoulders heavy, tired from the weight she figuratively carried, waiting for the day she could stop defending the emblematic as problematic. You cannot see the wind, but you can feel it, and enough of it can destroy you. Providing proof was never proof enough. It only made her appear more defensive... eager… guilty. 

Spine curved, or at least that's what happened when she no longer acted as if she had one. She shuffled by, her feet brushing against the pavement mimicking the sound of the bottomless pile of papers she once rummaged through at her desk, each sheet a reflection of one day in her so-called life: seemingly infinite, covered in constructive nonsense, specifically different, yet all the same. Days like DNA of fraternal twins. Days like numbers on a calendar. Days like stats when you're losing the game. The familiarity of that shuffling sound made her cringe. A shiver crept up her spine - or where it once was - tearing limbs. Oh good, she thought, at least I can still feel. 

There was beauty in her sadness. Or perhaps it was not her sadness that defined it, but rather beauty so truly undeniable that nothing could fully conceal it. She possessed an undeniable beauty the same way the sun rises still, gloriously spilling over the mountains covering the earth with its radiance, regardless of how persistent the darkness lingered from the night before. Sadly, it is all a cycle. An ugly one at that once reversed, for the days are bright and undeniably beautiful, but the sun always sets, and the night always rises.

I stopped and paused and gazed back in her direction, my eyes and heart following suit. I could feel the wind seep into my lungs as my lips dispersed, filling me with the oxygen we all so desperately need. But nothing came out. Just more wind. You cannot see the wind, but you can feel it, and enough of it can destroy you. 

Who am I to break the cycle?

It was January when I last saw her.

FLASH FLASH FLASH SPIN SPIN SPIN

I hate sixes. Sixty-six is my least favorite number. Fitting.

- afm