I lean into the clock. You cry.
I am participating in #Trust30, an online initiative and 30-day writing challenge that encourages you to look within and trust yourself.
Prompt #1:
We are afraid of truth, afraid of fortune, afraid of death, and afraid of each other. Our age yields no great and perfect persons. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
You just discovered you have fifteen minutes to live.
1. Set a timer for fifteen minutes.
2. Write the story that has to be written.
(Prompt by Gwen Bell)
________
There is no clock for this. No ticking, no sound. Things slow way down: my breath, the air, you. Dogs are barking but I can't hear them. The sun stopped shining an hour ago.
If the story hasn't been written by now, my love, it won't be. There is no waiting for this moment. There is no truth to be said or heard now. Not now. No.
If I haven't lived the life I wanted, full of laughter and all wide and deep; and if I haven't told the people I love that I love them by now–and in so many, how many, ways–then it is surely too late.
If I haven't been kind and generous at every single opportunity, then telling other people to do so is a falsehood, a desperate stab at redemption from my own failings. You'll find no wisdom here. No pretense at knowing, but just knowing that I don't know, I never knew, I never would know, and the questions were delicious.
I always knew I wanted to live my life so my human survival units–those I love most and most deeply–would be with me as I left. And so here you are. We have acknowledged that letting go is an act of sheer love. And if I haven't written your name in the sand by now, it is too late, the wind is blowing too hard, the sky is opening up for me too, too fast.
If I haven't made chains of red clover with you by now, and watched over the eggs of peace and love we wanted to hatch in the world, the clover will turn to seed. That's just how life goes. Clover chains or seed.
The clock takes a turn forward. I lean into it, each moment a memory. You cry, and I lean to wipe your tear, then taste it. If you don't know by now how much you are fully inside my very skin, then you will never believe it after I am gone.
So we must tell. Now. And we must live and give. Now. We must trace the outlines of the faces of the people we love most in the dark with our eyes closed. Now. Because the time is always, always, at the 15-minute mark. Last breath.
