Ashen Pages

The good days seemed far behind us, laying an affront for a future that we could not see or understand. My mother reminded me that the self is what you’ve created for the world, however, the soul remains within you simply waiting to be seen. She had a way about her that alluded my experience of life. Things were never as they seemed and always required absolution, leading me to believe that there was hardly ever a firm reason to readily agree to anything at all. I remained inquisitive, trying to take hold of myself when necessary, and winding myself up tightly so that others could not enter the threshold of my world.

It wasn’t long before she got involved in an affair with a younger man; reimagining her life in ways that I’d never seen. I was curious, believing her to be the stone that would never sink to the bottom of the lake. When you threw stones across the water, they’d caress just the surface, bringing about quirky splashes and plopping down. Although she was a stone, she always floated just above the surface, deciding that she was different than everyone else. Except she wasn’t. The water stirred and the sun gleamed harshly against the surface, watching her sink all the way to the bottom.