The unseen Signs and Premonitions of Death

Have you ever noticed that before something bad happens you get these… signs? Like… premonitions?

No?

Neither did I.

Maybe it's because I've never experience such a loss before. The worse "bad thing" that can happen. So I didn't notice them. I let them skid by me, never giving them a second glance. I smiled at the. Laughed at them.

Then I regretted I did so. All the smiles, all the laughs – I detested them. I cursed them. I cursed myself. I felt guilty for being happy before. I hate it that I could still laugh after, like nothing is wrong. That in the end, things moved on. I beat myself up, saying something must be wrong with me.

Why can't time stop? Why can things continue as they have before?

Everything changed!

Yet everything stayed the same.

Same retinue, same life, same existence. Minus a factor. But the same, none the less.

I shake my bag, dropping its entire content on the floor. I pick the paper and stare.

One of the biggest signs I let by. One of the largest ones. And I was even proud of it at the time! It was a poem. I wrote it in a clear, sunny day. A really, really good day. But the song was dark. Pessimistic. It was a poem that did not fit at the background of the peaceful afternoon. I loved it.

And the day after, I realized it didn't just pop to my head for no reason, that it wasn't just one of those… random thought that carried on into something. I have a lot of those. But this one was different, and I failed to notice it… no, I ignored it completely. I smiled at it. I laughed at it. I puffed out my chest with joy and pride.

I pick up my phone. Check my calendar for the day before it happened. See the reminder. Stare at it for a while. My heart aches.

The second one. it was a meeting with my school's consoler. I really needed it, because he had told me just a few days before. She said… She said that person was hopeful, that she talked with him every day, and he thought he had a chance.

I remember I told her I don't think there is. I told her my father told me it was too late. That now, it was a question of time. She asked me if I was sure, and I told her that I wasn't, because I wasn't big on the issues of death and life. I never dealt with them before.

But my father doesn't lie.

She set in silent for a minute, then sighed and continued the conversation into a lighter topic. One I could enjoy.

When I stepped out of her room thirty minutes later I could barely remember telling her what I did. That ominous realization. I only remembered it was fun, and that I felt like I was talking to a friend, and not a consoler. I thought there was still time when I told her so. I thought maybe a half a year… a couple of months… a month, even. But not a day. Never a day.  

When I look back, there were just too many signs. There were too many sighs that it was impossible to miss them. Yet I did, and so shamelessly so.

Tears trickle down my cheek. I wipe them off, but new ones just come to replace them. I cripple the poem in my hand, making it into a paper ball and throw it to the garbage can. I miss. I think of getting up, but it's just asking too much. Instead, I try the same thing with the phone.

I sink it right into it this time.



(c) Haru
Written December 31st, 2010.