Forty-Five Seconds

A beach, a sparkler, and forty-five seconds to remember everything...

This post is based on a prompt from Kayleigh Thorpe, shared by James (HVR) : https://open.substack.com/pub/kaythorpe/p/fourty-five-seconds?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=179nz2

Forty-Five Seconds

We had just finished watching an amazing fireworks display from the beach. The sky was dark again, but the air still smelled like gunpowder. Smoke hung over the water like the night had not totally let go of it yet.

Then Summertime handed me a sparkler.

Somehow, I knew. When this thing was done, so was I. I would die and go wherever I go.

Really? Am I being dramatic? Is this really the end? What if it is?

I had been scared before. I had been anxious, panicked, furious, heartbroken, all of it. But this was different. Apparently my body knew something I didn’t, and the strangest part was, it gave me peace for a second. Not peace like everything was fine. Peace like some part of me had already accepted what the rest of me was still trying to argue with.

Then my life literally started passing before my eyes.

The memories came like the fireworks had, bright and beautiful, one after another.

I saw my mother’s face first. There was no time for anything except her face, the panic in her eyes, and her hands pushing me out of the way of the rolling car in front of our house. She knew before I knew. She saved me before I even understood I was in danger.

Then I was in the ocean, and Kara was pulling me out before I drowned. I saw her face, scared in a way I don’t think I understood at the time. Salt water was in my nose, my throat, everywhere, and her hands were on me like she had already decided the ocean was not getting me that day.

Patrick’s eyes came next, the first time we met. The way he looked at me like some part of him had already decided something I was nowhere near ready to believe.

Then Zee as a puppy. Puppy breath, soft fur, little needle teeth, licking my face like love was the easiest thing in the world. I felt it in my heart so hard it almost hurt. That pure, ridiculous, impossible love. She was mine. I was hers.

I saw the Pacific Coast Trail with Kara. The sunrise in the mountains of Hawaii. I wish I remembered the name of it. Uncle Paul telling me this would be mine when he died. My dad dancing with a gorilla at his fortieth birthday.

June’s funeral. Paul’s gravestone. My wedding. Ariel and Diana.

The calm water beside the ferry in the morning, pretending the world was peaceful.

The sparkler burned lower.

I waited for the big answer. I waited for fear, or God, or some last-minute revelation.

But all I got was smoke, gunpowder, and the unbearable truth that I had been loved.

Then the last spark went out.

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