Slow Death This is my hiraeth draft - I might edit this tomorrow but I wanted to post it to my blog just in case.
``` I pressed a button on my phone, causing the screen to light up with the time. 3:36. Only just under two and a half hours until I would have to be home for dinner. I exhaled and placed my phone back down on the concrete step, returning my attention back to the street in front of me. The sun was a bright disc in the cloudless sky, casting over everything an oppressive heat that was made only somewhat bearable by a slight, warm breeze rustling through the trees. It was that awkward period towards the end of summer break where it was really a bit too early to begin thinking seriously about school starting in September, but each careless day was tainted slightly by the knowledge that soon you would again have responsibilities. Instead of making the most of the time we had, my best friend Miranda and I instead often wasted our days hanging around the neighborhood doing nothing or sitting around on her front step. Miranda lived in an unexciting looking house that was painted a light beige and had a roof made of tiles that had faded from black to a worn-out gray. The only thing that made her house stand out from the other houses on her street was the Japanese maple tree on her front lawn. I glanced over at Miranda, seeing her completely engrossed in playing on her phone. I clicked my own phone again. 3:39. I sighed again. Time seemed to be passing incredibly slow. That was the way it always was hanging out with Miranda, nowadays. At some point, Miranda and I had stopped being ‘BFFs’ and become barely more than casual acquaintances. I wondered when the turning point had been. The start of middle school? When we had stopped liking the same music? There had been a time when we had spent nearly every day together; where we had known each other so long and spent so much time together that we were practically two halves of a whole. You could have one without the other, but there would have been the underlying sense that something was missing. Now, it was rare that we would see each other more than once a month. And even that felt pointless and unbearable, like trying to defibrillate a skeleton. I clicked my phone. 3:47. Still not enough time had passed. I thought of years back, to when Miranda and I had been kids. Miranda’s house was a twin, and a few feet to the right of my friend’s front step was another that looked fairly identical. The neighbors were rarely home, however, so we had claimed their step for ourselves, to be used as an asylum when the wasps situated in a small nest above Miranda’s doorstep began to act up. I’m not sure they ever knew or cared that their front step no longer belonged to them. On days like this, when the heat caused the wasps to become restless, we would hide in our makeshift wasp-escape place, happily wiling away the time talking and making shaky chalk drawings on the bumpy sidewalk. We weren’t doing anything incredibly interesting, but back then it seemed like we could have fun just being in each other’s company. In the present, it all seemed insufferably boring. 3:51. Getting closer. It was hard to accept that Miranda and I had outgrown our friendship. That we could never go back to being the way we were as kids. But we had just become entirely different people. We still called each other best friends and did many of the best friend things we used to do together, but now it felt hollow and meaningless, like a person carrying out a tradition thats meaning had been lost to history. Even though letting go of the friendship would feel like all the time spent being Miranda’s friend had been wasted, it had to be done. I spared another glance over at Miranda. She was still starting at her phone screen. It should have seemed strange that my best friend and I hadn’t spoken a word to each other in nearly a half even though we were sitting right next to each other, but somehow, it didn’t seem unnatural for us. We had simply run out of things to say to each other. 3:58. Miranda and I had grown up together. And now we had grown apart. 4:00. Only two more hours. I exhaled. I could do this.
2 Comments
Kann
2/15/2017 06:57:33 pm
Hey Charlotte! Your story with Miranda is really interesting.
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Charlotte
2/19/2017 09:17:48 pm
Thank ya for commenting :). Probably exploring the woods behind her house! When we were kids it really felt like a big adventure, even though there wasn't much to find.
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