Bourbon. Shannon Lee

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СКАЧАТЬ thing. I’ve been writing my thoughts and memories out here on these pages for the last few months because Mama said penning our stories is important. I have yet to feel the importance of it. What I do feel is confused, as if my memory has taken on a life of its own. I feel that my mind might not be trusted to remember correctly.

      Take for instance the morning last week when I went down to the cove to meet Frankel and found his body had been washed up on the shore with three other wave-walking children. There are times when I play it back in my mind and can recall the small details, such as the clothing some of the other children wore- for example, I seem to recall that the smallest girl had on a pink dress with lace trimming that looked like it was in real fine condition before she walked into the waves. She was maybe five years old. I remember wondering about her life, wondering if she was crying when she walked into the waves, and who she died with. Her hair was dark brown and long. I admired the color of it just before I caught sight of Frankel, but the shock of seeing him made everything in my head feel like liquid after that.

      For some time after I found his body I couldn’t recall the details of what he looked like laying there on the sand. To be honest, I can’t quite figure out why it is so important to remember it at all, but something inside me needed to call the details up and out. What I can work out is that he was on his belly, and his face was puffy and turned to the side, with those doe eyes of his staring through the hole his death instantly blew through me. It took me a few days to remember he had been wearing that shirt of his daddy’s I love - the one several sizes too large. It is the shirt I liked to imagine him filling out years down the road if there wasn’t an end to the world and we could have been together.

      What I would like to forget about that morning is the feeling of hatred that started in the pit of my gut and worked its way up into the top of my head when I recognized him on the beach. I hated him for his cruelty. I hated the offense of his act. He must’ve figured my whales would bring him to this cove, to our cove. What kind of cruelty is that? Everything about him on that morning felt cruel from the shitty finality of death in his eyes, right down to the beauty the sea was unable to wash from his face.

      For the first time since I’ve known about the great end, I guess it is fair to say that I’ve been grieving possibility. Possibility, the mother to hope, I’ve heard people say. I got to thinking that part of the reason my grief feels so acidic in my guts is because I’ve created stories in my mind about the possibility of the world continuing, and what Frankel and I might find to do with the freedom of that. It feels silly now. I think I will grieve the death of those stories as much as I will grieve him. “There ain’t no possibility quite so inspiring as what brought us to possibility in the first place.”

      “Talk sense, Mama.”

      “Frankel inspired you.”

      She’s right about that. It helps me to forgive him a little bit.

      Mama told me after that horrid day when I found Frankel that we haven’t left home and taken to the nomadic life because she wanted me to have a story with him. She wanted me to have some semblance of what a teenager might experience if the great end wasn’t looming overhead like an angry thunderhead. She said we can leave now if we find ourselves aching to chase the wind again. Something in that feels right. I’ve thought about walking into the sea, like Frankel, but the truth is there’s too much of Mama in me that is aching to live out the mystery of all this.

      So here in my last entry I’m going to tell you my truth about the looming great end: I won’t mind at all if the great end happens in my lifetime. I desperately want to bear witness to it. And if it happens, I’m pretty certain it will feel good and right to leave this life with Mama. I suspect if we find ourselves someplace that doesn’t have peaches we will find something equally as wonderful to enjoy while we hold onto one another real tight, both scared and eager, to see what happens next. I do wish I could leave this entry with a few sentences on the big meaning of life as I see it through the lense of these times, but when it comes down to it, I don’t think there is just one big meaning. I don’t think life is that simple, or that complicated.

      The world changes, and people change right along with it.

      And that suits me just fine.

       ~~~

      Self love is genius,

      allegiance to life is joy.

       ~~~

      ~~~

      I have lived a thousand lives within the context of my one solitary existence through plot lines of a similar, undying theme - that I fall in love swiftly, and out of love fiercely.

       ~~~

      Sam Manning Grade 6

      Monday

      My name is Samuel. Sam Manning. I hate the name Samuel. My mom is the only person that calls me Samuel. She sings the “el” at the end of my name when she calls me downstairs. I don’t like that. My teacher Miss Hershel wants us to keep a journal over Spring Break. She says it will help us to “cultivate a sense of yourself in relation to the world around you.” It’s just an exercise and she promises not to read our thoughts. Whatever. I can’t even think of anything to write about. Nothing exciting happens here. My sister is a little person and that’s pretty cool because there are like no other little people in our family. Her name is Sabrina. She is my favorite person in our house. She helps me play pranks on Mom. She’s really good at it cuz Mom never thinks that Sabrina would ever do anything wrong. Like last week I had Sabrina steal the flour jar and we dumped it out in the field. Then we smashed up a bunch of chalk and put it in the jar and Sabrina put it back while I distracted mom. That was pretty lit. I play a lot of Candy Crush even though most of the kids in class don’t like it anymore. Dad took my phone away because I was playing Candy Crush at the breakfast table. I also like Minecraft. It’s actually way better than Candy Crush and I can play that on my xbox. We’re having turkey burgers for dinner. They always suck.

      Tuesday

      Mom says I have to watch Sabrina this week. We can’t do anything fun because mom and dad have to work. Dad works from home sometimes. Insurance. I don’t know what my mom does but she complains about being tired a lot. Sabrina wants to ride bikes, so we did that. Then she wanted to make mac and cheese in the microwave. We did that too. Now we’re bored. Dad said we should go play in the fields, but Sabrina can’t run as fast as I can so it takes a long time to get to the stream. Dad has appointments soon. I’m going to get Sabrina and sneak into the back of Dad’s car. We can drive around and see how long it takes him to notice we’re there. I’ll write later.

      Sabrina and I didn’t get caught in the car. She was real quiet like I told her to be. It got boring waiting in the car for dad when he went into someone’s house. I fell asleep but Sabrina stayed awake. She was trying hard not to talk but when we got home she said there was a little person at the house dad went into. A little person woman. She said Dad kissed her on the cheek when he left. Sabrina wants us to sneak into dad’s car again. I don’t want to, it was really boring. When mom comes home I’m going to play Minecraft with Miles. He used to sit next to me but Miss Hershel moved us because we talked too much. Miles is weird, he talks about Miss Hershel’s tits a lot. I have to be home for dinner. Mom says we’re having leftovers.

      Wednesday

      I don’t know when I’m supposed to write, in the morning or the night. It’s night now. Miles was busy today so I went to Caleb’s. We looked at his dad’s Playboys then we went to the park to shoot hoops. Caleb smoked a cigarette. I tried some but СКАЧАТЬ