Blood and Photographs − 29 April, 2008
Last night my mother was looking through some old pictures with Jake and Travis. As she leafed through the pages the lives of those photographed were held frozen on yellowed paper. They told stories of people I knew, some that I didn't. My parents were there, young, and looking so much like me. I saw uncles and aunts, grandparents. All fixed in a state of perpetual youth. In one picture, I saw my father, just eighteen years old, holding a newborn child. His eyes were wild with exhaustion. My twenty year old mother hide behind the camera. These weren't my parents. These were kids.
She flipped further through the pages that chronicled our lives, and I watched myself grow up. Soon, Travis was borne, and I watched him grow up. Then Jacob grew into the thin willful young child that he was. Looking about the kitchen table where were sat, I saw the scene as if I were looking in yet another old photograph. Jake leaning over the table on his elbows, Travis leaning back, a cloud of smoke above his head, and my mother, tired and pregnant with another child that would grow up in some old photo album. Already they were the past.
It was in this moment that I began to feel small. I was powerless against the current of time, and I was terrified. I was merely a link in chain of blood that went back long before I existed, and would end long after I was gone. I was not myself. I was everyone that had come before me, and everyone that would come after. I had lived my life a thousand times, and would live it a thousand more.
I left the kitchen and went into the silence of the living room. I closed my eyes and sank into the couch, knowing each breath pushed me deeper and deeper into the dark.
I know I will be alone when I get there.
She flipped further through the pages that chronicled our lives, and I watched myself grow up. Soon, Travis was borne, and I watched him grow up. Then Jacob grew into the thin willful young child that he was. Looking about the kitchen table where were sat, I saw the scene as if I were looking in yet another old photograph. Jake leaning over the table on his elbows, Travis leaning back, a cloud of smoke above his head, and my mother, tired and pregnant with another child that would grow up in some old photo album. Already they were the past.
It was in this moment that I began to feel small. I was powerless against the current of time, and I was terrified. I was merely a link in chain of blood that went back long before I existed, and would end long after I was gone. I was not myself. I was everyone that had come before me, and everyone that would come after. I had lived my life a thousand times, and would live it a thousand more.
I left the kitchen and went into the silence of the living room. I closed my eyes and sank into the couch, knowing each breath pushed me deeper and deeper into the dark.
I know I will be alone when I get there.
