The Adventures Of John B : The Sacred Stone

Part 24 - On Stormy Seas We Ride

Isn't it funny how some numbers seem so big and others so small?

I've found that nine seems like such a small number.  And yet ten is so big, so universal, so infinite.  

Is ten more important than nine?  Is nine disregarded with such resentment because of the number that comes after it?  

Whatever the case, they've all become the same to me. 

 Five minutes feels like fifty days. 

Maybe if I were someone else with a different mind, I could confidently say that the pain is excruciating- having to endure this time with these wackos.

But for me- it's painful knowing I'll never do this again.  I'll never see darling Celeste, clever Tommie, bad ass John, or the radiant Vivian.  

  With them, time almost stops and speeds up at the same time. I'll get caught up in the moment for what feels like seventy- eight days, when in reality, it was only 7.8 seconds.  

 I find it happens most often when he looks at me.  Don't ask me why or how this is scientifically possible.  

It seems the most powerful things, the long-lasting things can't be explained.  The lucky things in life.  Like love, freedom, family-  things that are so precious.  Things we take for granted, things that we normalize when in reality, they are the rarest of gems.

  Before you say a thing, it has nothing to do with that playful gleam in his eyes or the tenderness that emanates from his body every time he looks at his precious siblings.  

 I have an inkling these fifty days with them will feel like five seconds. They say time goes by fast when you're having fun.    

Time is almost going by too fast.   

My whole life, time has gone slow, but it's now speeding, and I'm not sure what to do. 

 Do I enjoy it, or worry about it?

 I find that every day I am regretting yesterday and worrying about tomorrow when I could just be enjoying today.

 I'm not going to say that a moment lasts forever.   Because it doesn't. The reality is that it will eventually end.   It is not eternal or infinite.   Eventually you will retreat to the harsh reality of the cold truth and everyone will leave you. 

 The miserable woes of the world will sink in once again and you will fake a smile. They will walk away with the moment, seizing it from your grasp.  It hurts to hope.

Time is gone, just like that small, small moment.  

Everyone is gone.  

And I feel alone.  Maybe even a little hollow.  It doesn't bother me.  

My emotions are locked up in a tight jar.  If I were a child, maybe I would want to open them all up and let them float around as I marvel in their elegance.  But I'm not so hasty anymore.  

I'm okay with feeling empty.  No one can ever open me up and take my locked jar.  No one can wrench those emotions out of the prison that is my body without the key that I hold onto.  I am in control.

I think I deserve it.  This pit in my stomach that is expanding, projecting its distant pain on my pounding heart and sore limbs.    I know it.    But empathy has seemed such a wasteful thing for me.  I've never cared about my actions, and I've never stopped to think that they affected anyone other than me.

I am selfish.  And I am not ashamed.  She wasn't embarrassed.  

How could it be my fault when I've done nothing?