A Snapshot

Teenage Autobiograghy

The First Chapter

"The most beautiful thing anybody can write is something that they actually believe."

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Diana visits her grandmother. Her grandmother has nothing to leave behind in the world. Diana wants to leave something behind before she's gone. She writes her autobiography – she realizes she has nothing to write about. Then she meets people that will make her life far more interesting then she could ever imagine.

--

"Grandma, are you afraid of dying?"

The grandmother leaned back in her rocking chair. "When I was about your age I asked myself that same question. Mortality is a funny construct to young people. But now I'm old and basically dead I find it interesting." The grandmother sighed.

"Uh, grandma, I asked if you were afraid of dying?"

"Why do you want to know? What if my answer just scares you?"

"I'm curious. I don't know how to feel about death."

The old woman shut her eyes and smiled. "I have always been terrified of dying. The fear of the unknown is a chilling thing to think about. You can't really have a feeling about death, you know. People say they hate death, but how can you? How can you say you hate death?" The inquisitive girl asked her grandmother. "Why wouldn't people hate death? It takes away the most important thing! Death takes away life, and that makes people sad. When people are sad they begin to hate."

"Death doesn't take away life dear, it's the end of it." The grandmother calmly responded, eyes still closed. She began to hum. The girl got a little angry. "Okay, yes, but death is still sad. I hate death for taking away my brother, are you going to question me for hating death?"

"With his occupation it shouldn't have been a surprise to you, dear." The grandmother chided. " and didn't you say you didn't know how to feel about death just a minute ago?" The girl shook her head and brushed her hair out of her face. "I meant I didn't know how to feel about my death, not death of other people. There's a difference grandma." The grandmother peeked one eye open. "I never said there wasn't dear." She began to rock in a constant rhythm. The girl shook her head and rolled her eyes.

"Grandma, I'll be mad at death when it takes you."

--

Diana found herself confronting her mortality at age 17. She stood in front of a fresh grave of her recently deceased grandmother. She found herself recalling that morbid conversation she had with her grandma all those years ago. She felt the touch of a hand on her shoulder. A soft voice told her that her family was going home but she could wait up. Soon she stood alone in the quiet cemetery, looking at her grandmothers grave. The only thing a person really leaves behind is their grave, she thought solemnly. She slowly turned around and walked to her car. She shut the door and stared blankly that the floor for a long time. She jumped when she heard a tap-tap-tapping at her window.

She nodded to the faceless person and drove off, eyes looking ahead but yet not focusing on anything. The cars around her- were they really cars? She squinted. She couldn't make sense of anything. Blobs of gray matter passed her peripheral vision. But still, her eyes lay ahead and saw nothing. Then they flicked up. She was home. She nodded to her mother on the way inside, brushing past a comforting hand. She walked to her room and sat down on her bed-was this really her bed? She didn't remember it being this...nondescript. She looked around her room and saw nothing. Because there is nothing in this world. There is only gray. Gray was the color of her grandmothers skin before the gray machine lowered her into the gray ground. Gray tear drops fell, blending in with the gray rays of light from a gray sun. Utterly gray.

"What a way to end summer vacation." She intoned, voice hardly above a whisper but echoed endlessly throughout her room. School tomorrow, she thought. Okay.

When she woke up she felt a little less numb. But not enough. "Honey you don't have to go to school." Her father said. "I'll go." Diana said.

When the gray bell rang she sat down with a group of friends for first period. AP Biology. She looked directly into her best friends eyes and saw a soft shine, interrupting a canvas of gray. She looked back at Diana. Diana doesn't want to know what her friend saw in her eyes. "Bro, you're zoning out, wake up man!" She blinked to attention. The room wasn't as gray as before. "Thanks." Diana's voice was much stronger than last nights.

Soon classes were over, and her whole unit of friends met outside the school. They bunched around her, yelling, crying, laughing and touching, caressing, whispering and tugging until Diana couldn't see one gray thing in her field of vision. She smiled a little better too.