FFP#9 – :):
I am the courier of emotions.
When everyone is asleep, I shuttle from house to house seeking a person receptive to my particular extreme of positives and negatives. I slide through windows, like water seeping through linen, and make my way to a sleeping body. The easiest transfers are to those who sleep with their mouths open. I place my lips around theirs, breathe out, then in, and out again.
In the morning, some will awaken rested and peaceful and some will awaken sorrowful and unsettled.
What is my payment? Satisfaction. Balance. A state of perfect equilibrium. I am the math problem solved. I am the end of proof. I am reason and logic. And the world moves forward and I move on.
But once in a great while, I mistakenly breathe into the mouth of a dying body. Diluted and stale, their breath infects me. For days, my own body is crooked. My mind races. I am reminded that I will never die, will never experience love or loss or loneliness.
There’s something in that dying breath that damages me. It’s the forever and the naught. Two equal and unequal ideas, lingering on their tongues and mine, a bitter aftertaste that becomes a curse, reminding me that I am forever, showing me what I can never have no matter how long I live.
Forever, I’ll be the courier. But to live forever, to live alone, to live without mystery – there is no balance in that.
Tags: flash fiction project
Uncategorized | 
February 22, 2010 12:14 am
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