Tuesday, February 15, 2011

thanks for watching as i fall

Crowds gather at the edge of the pier, staring down at the churning waters that were calm just moments before. There is not a breath of wind or a cloud in the sky. No ships dot the horizon, nor are any creatures to be seen on the ocean's floor. And yet the waves roll, and the waters rage, and the people stand by to watch.
No one seems to notice at first when she moves too close to the edge. She loses her footing and tumbles into the fury below them. She thrashes around wildly, trying to gain some control in the chaos.
"Look there!" someone shouts, pointing through the salty spray.
All eyes turn to where she's fighting desperately for her life.
"Ha. She calls that swimming? My cat could do better with his legs tied together."
"Don't splash so much. You're getting me wet."
"Have you seen my hat? It fell in just seconds ago."
"You have to kick your  legs."
"You're quite tiresome with all your calls for attention."
"It's a black hat. It should be over there somewhere."
"Your form is atrocious. You have no grace in your movements."
"I suppose you expect me to go find dry clothes for when you get out, don't you?"
"Oh look, it's right by your ear. If you'd just hand it up to me."
She slips under the surface, and after a struggle of only a few seconds, her soul abandons her body in its moment of weakness. It escapes to the surface in a stream of bubbles, breaking free in the air.
The sea goes calm.
The crowds disperse.
"I only wish she could have passed me my hat first."

***

I think I need to sleep. It's ridiculous how tired I get the minute it hits nine.
I'm not even sure if this makes sense, but it felt like it needed to be written, so there's that.
Also, my professor walks into class today, asks if we want our midterm in class or take home. we choose take home. then he asks if we want to switch our project presentations about our papers into a summary about our paper. uh, yes please. i guess he's not so bad after all.
also number two, i just noticed when i was skimming through this for glaring typos that i started off using capitals and then switched back to lowercase towards the end. weird.

*My Happy Ending - Avril Lavigne

7 comments:

  1. that was sad, now i have to tell the story to someone because i could have sworn i was there kicking with them, trying to stay on the surface craning my neck to search for the hat. that darn hattttt! oh dang, i wish she got her hat... i really am sad for her... damn.

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  2. and it just bobbed up! but it's floating away, and i am a bad swimmer, and my form is atrocious, and i am afraid to kick too much and hitting that dead girl.

    whattt is it about this story? honestly i think if you hadn't written it, something bad would have happened to me. i needed that story to be told. i just... i feel so incomplete because of this damn hat though. i wish things would have turned out differently. this is so surreal sarah. like did i hear this story before? i dunno, i'm having big deja vu? maybe i was there? for real it's so familiar im suree i tried grabbing the hat, im sureee it was bobbing up and down and running away from me.

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  3. ok... i am still thinking about it?

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  4. wow i had no idea this story would hit a nerve with anyone. i was just sitting in class and it came to my head and it just needed to be written down, and so i did, but that wasn't good enough. i had to put it out into the world so to speak.

    after that whole same dream thing that happened to me, i'll believe anything. maybe this was something you thought of or dreamed of or experienced or whatever, and then it came into my head? i dunno. weird.

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  5. i dunno. i can't swim in normal life.
    maybe i drowned in a past life? i would be the dumb one to drown. maybe that's why i am so preoccupied with the hat?

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  6. Wow. This story is absolutely perfect. I don't know if you were going for it, but it says so much about the current state of things. How amidst so much turmoil, all we worry about is ourselves, whether it be the collateral damage that hits us or our attempts at climbing the ladder up to that pedestal, kicking down her worth, and criticizing her form to inflate our egos.

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  7. while i was writing it, i was just writing it without thinking. but when i first read over what i had written, that's kind of what i thought to. both on a large and small scale, other people look at a person drowning in chaos and all they can think about is themselves.

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