Keeping it brief

Sometimes I forget that I don't have to post here every day and so I push myself to slap something together (as well as throwing things up at the CPPA). So here, take this from me and try to remember that I did it in very little time.

Let it be Brief

A silent prayer, repeated over and over again as he waited for today to fall into tomorrow, fretting because just maybe he was wasting time but he could not think about today right now. There was only tomorrow, and at the moment it was not tomorrow yet. So he had to wait, hoping that it wouldn't be that bad.

Tomorrow was a thing that he dreaded, at least this time it was. Today merely stood as the final buffer between him and tomorrow, and while part of him was grateful for the interference, the vast majority of him wanted it to be over—to be over now, so that he could pass through the fire and focus on recovering rather than on wondering how he would survive. There was nothing to be done; he'd gone through all the possible scenarios and not found one which had him emerging unscathed. There was only strapping himself in and surviving tomorrow, which he didn't want to do but then again there wasn't any real choice in the matter, now was there?

Instead he sat, awake an miserable, as the hours slowly ticked by. It was now tomorrow, but not yet the part of tomorrow that would necessitate his trying to survive. He tried (for what felt like the fortieth time) to figure out what he'd say—what could he say? What could he do? Was there a way for him to escape the situation entirely?

Would he manage to survive at all? He had to confront that very ugly possibility that tomorrow would be it; he'd be ruined. Everything that was now his own would no longer be his own, and he'd wind up desolate, or dead, depending on his ability to deal with it.

Time marched on. The hour approached.

He got ready in a mechanical manner, stepped into the shower for what might have been the last time, combed his hair, and spent some time staring at his face in the mirror. His reflection looked back at him with sunken eyes and hair that (despite the combing) remained a mess. He ran a hand over his chin, newly shaved, and stared back into his own eyes.

It was a shock to see a spark there, burning angrily behind those eyes. Despite the hopelessness of it all, despite the fact that he couldn't possibly escape unscathed (not this time), despite everything, something in his eyes still burned.

“Let it come,” he thought. “Let it come, let it be the worst thing to ever happen to me, let it tear me apart if it can. I will carry on in spite of it—to spite it. I will not merely survive, I will fight back, and when it is over, I will know that I did not meekly submit.” His hands formed into fists, and all of a sudden he wanted the hour to arrive, arrive now, he'd rip it apart with his bare hands and move on. Maybe he could escape unscathed. Maybe everything would be all right.

The hour came. He took a deep breath and walked out of the house, a little taller, a little more confident (though still haggard from lack of sleep). It was not brief, but it no longer mattered.