Flowing thoughts

Phone Calls

My phone lights up, I have a text.

My mum has been calling and I can automatically tell that something is different but still I Think Quick.

I click on her number and call her back, my mind whirling with the excuse I'm about to give but I never get the chance.

It only rings once and then I hear her voice and the moment she speaks I know.

Deep down I know.

I can hear the urgency and feel the despair but I ignore those subconscious warnings and say, "What's up? Sorry I'm late home."

She doesn't snap or get mad, she doesn't curse or threaten me, she just sighs into the phone her voice shaking as she tries to stay strong as her world falls apart.

Our world, but in my self-centred mind I can barely hear the unmasked pain until she speaks and then my fears are a reality.

"You have to come home."

My throat burns even as a smile graces my lips. "Why?" My teeth grit together because though my night wasn't amazing, I was still having fun.

She sucks in a deep breath and I can hear her mind ticking, she's wandering how to tell me this and I'm sensing the distress.

"You have to come because she's gone. She's gone."

Silence

I don't hear anything.
I don't remember saying anything.

I don't know how I got from outside my friends house to the high road but all I know is I'm walking.

Shivering from the chill from within and the rain that's pelting down on my thin cardigan. My feet are squelching in my dolly shoes and my leggings are soaked through but I don't feel a thing. My mind is gone as I wonder through the late night streets.

A car pulls up and I get in. No conversation needed though I can tell they itch to throw their paltry condolences at me but my mind hasn't checked back in yet.

I can't feel right now but I know when I do. When I do...

I jump out the car as soon as we reach home and I can barley get through the door because they are everywhere.

Bodies clinging to the stairs and walls as the feeling of death lingers heavy in the air.

I head straight into the sitting room and my fears are confronted.

Her skin is pale and grey, body waxen and instead of saying goodbye like everyone implored me to do I head upstairs to the room we once shared.

Mum's inside my room and as she sees me, she clenches me to her chest, sobbing into my skin and I just hold her. I have mentally checked out even as I try to muster up the required emotion needed but I find myself bereft.

"Are you okay?"

Am I?

"Yeah, I'm okay," I shrug.

"It's okay to cry," she sniffles and I merely shrug again.

"I know, I'll cry later."

But I don't cry. I don't know how and as everyone cries around me, the walls echoing with their grief, I sink deeper and deeper into this cool place of nothingness.

Condemning myself for even being here now that she's not.

AN - This is something I wrote a while back when thoughts of my sister were sitting heavy on my chest and with the death of Nipsey Hussle those feelings have re-emerged. Life is precious and often we don't get to cherish it until that person is gone.