Читать книгу Identity - Jeff MDiv Sieniewicz - Страница 4

To the left, the course was set early and often, and it took merely one moment and one step to go chillingly wrong.

“Just one moment, I’ll be right back,” Sarah had called out to her friends and the rest of the group that afternoon, while she took just one apparently innocuous step off the marked path.

Away from the group and unknowingly away from Frank, her son Johnathon, and the life she had quickly grown to know and love. Yet, at the time, who could have blamed her? The view that she had been drawn to was one of the most spectacular she had ever seen. And besides, she would be gone only for one moment, and so she took just one more step toward it.

Then another step, followed by another, with her eyes focusing on the ever so soft yet ever so hard, the ever so warm while ever so cold view. The view of the sharp jagged edges of the nearest mountain jutting up, the sunshine brighter than she could believe reflecting off the snow covered tops causing it to melt and form streams under the snow. Streams that flowed continuously down the mountain until they emerged from the snow above to run down through the greens and browns of the lower slopes. Finally they would deposit their water in the river that lined the ravine between the two mountains. All of it had taken a transfixed Sarah’s breath away.

Sarah had just kept walking that afternoon for only a few minutes before attempting to turn back, without a thought to how she would. But, who could have blamed her at the time?

Regardless of blame, that one step is all it took for Sarah to be gone. Gone for good, except without the good. All in just one moment.

_________

Even years later, the events of those several weeks surrounding the loss of his wife and child stuck with Frank. At times they were confined in specifically haunting memories, at others vaguely in the constant weight pressing down upon him, but always with the lonely feeling in the air that while varied in intensity, never left. Yet there were other times still, when his past would manifest itself in more curious ways.

“It was Johnathon. I know it was!” Frank exclaimed from the kitchen to Laura, who was long ago out of comforting comments for this particular type of situation.

At this time she had only been reunited with her friend from university for a couple months now, yet she was already finding this reoccurring problem to be a very draining one. For both of them.

When arriving back at Frank’s apartment after their ritual Sunday dinner, Frank was convinced he had seen his long ago lost son getting on a bus.

Frank ran toward him, whoever it was, but the bus just pulled away, leaving Frank to stand helplessly as he watched the bus drive away until ultimately it disappeared. Disappointed, he then just turned and walked sheepishly back up the road and into his apartment. A concerned Laura followed after him.

At first, Laura was unsure if Frank had realized that it was not his son getting on the bus, rather just his past pulling at him as it often did in this tormenting way. She did not ask or offer her opinion on the matter, because she knew Frank would soon realize this pattern repeating. So instead she just consoled her friend the best she knew how.

I mean who could blame Frank for this repetition? He had lost both his wife and son so unexpectedly, and even if a sizeable amount of time had now passed, who was anybody to tell him when the appropriate time to forget them was?

Laura had plenty of sympathy for Frank, many times wishing that his imagination would quit playing such cruel tricks on him. Although, she knew from her own experience just how futile wishing proved itself to be in these situations.

Laura watched as Frank slouched forward resting his elbows on the countertop, his head buried in his hands. The fact that his imagination played this trick much less frequently now was the only good thing she could think about this situation. Yet as she approached Frank, it hardly felt an appropriate remedy to cheer him. She persisted all the same.

Laura slid her hand along his back, and Frank slowly looked up at her.

She gave him her warmest smile. “Relax, and I’ll make us some tea.”