CONSUME

[01] don't know

***

kameron springfield

A moment. All it takes is one moment for something to change. A lot of times, we live life doing the same things over and over again, every single day. Breaking the cycle feels difficult, and changing things completely? Well, that seems impossible. But all it takes is one, single, solitary moment– and everything can change in the blink of an eye. It's just about taking that leap. Jumping into something new to leave behind something old.

It sounds like I'm talking about an amazing moment. Getting a new job, starting a new relationship, going backpacking through Europe. Extreme. Exciting.

But my moment was something that was so out of the blue and absolutely absurd, that it did nothing but bring my life as I know it to an inexplicably burning downward spiral.

So why'd I do it? Take the leap? Well... just like any other impulsive activity ever done in the history of mankind, I was hanging out with my most dear friend, vodka. Thanks to her, I jumped head first into a moment that I'd never be able to come back from.

Before I explain exactly what my moment was, and why I was hanging out with Vodka in the first place, and why it turned out so horribly terrible, I'll have to start right at the beginning. Well, even before the beginning, actually. Way before. In this part of the story, I was sober. I was ten years old.

"Hey, what are you doing out here?" A young boy's voice spoke from behind me. I heard him walk towards where I was seated on the cold sidewalk. The December breeze brushed across my face and grazed the skin of my nose. I sniffed, feeling as though the tears that streamed down my face just moments ago, had already turned to ice. Hugging my knees to my chest, I shivered.

He sat down next to me, but I didn't look his way just yet. I'm not sure who this boy is. All I can tell is by his voice, he must be around my age. "I don't know." I replied. "I didn't feel like being in my house."

He didn't say anything to that. All I felt is his presence by my side. Flakes of snow began falling from the dark sky, the clouds shielding any starlight from glimmering through the air. The moon however, glowed amidst the gloomy nighttime sky, brightly. I looked up to watch it, the white sphere floating up above, gray craters visible from all the way here where I sat.

"Aren't you celebrating?" The boy asked me. I furrowed my brows, then veered my eyes away from the gleaming moon and to his face. The light and dark of the atmosphere mixed on his light skin, making his pale face glow. His bright blue eyes stared at me and the brown hair on his head began accumulating snowflakes. I noticed he was wearing just a t-shirt and jeans, but he didn't seem cold.

"Celebrating?" I replied to his question with another.

"Well, yes." He looked away from me, his nose looking buttoned from the side and his lips rounded. "It's New Year's Eve. Don't you know?"

"Of course I know that," I rolled my eyes. I then sighed, clouds of vapor escaping my lips from the dense air. "I just--" I stopped myself. "What do you care? You're sitting out here too, aren't you? Why are you not celebrating?"

"My family really makes me angry sometimes." He said, "It doesn't feel like a celebration in there." He motioned his head towards the house that's right next to mine.

I frowned, "That's your house?"

He nodded his head, "Unfortunately."

So, he's my new neighbor. That makes sense, considering a family just moved in across the street this morning. My mother and I both wondered why someone would choose to move to a new home on New Year's Eve.