"These Are the Days I've Been Waiting For." A Short Story

Photo by Jessica Felicio on Unsplash

A short story.

“These are the days I’ve been waiting for,” she said to herself, looking at half of her face in the bathroom mirror as the other half leaned against the door frame.

Nevermind that she has no idea what that really means. It was a statement of sentiment more than of fact, because facts have no place in a moment like that. A moment when time doesn’t cease but just ceases to matter. Arbitrary. Like whatever her neighbor is doing upstairs or whoever is passing on the sidewalk outside of her view — it simply isn’t relevant to where she is right then.

It’s the kind of moment she doesn’t even want to let build up inside her chest because what goes up… can’t stay there… so she leaves the room to gather dishes from the dining table and put them in the sink, and to shut off the kitchen lights, and the dining room/living room light and the hall light. And she changes into warm, soft clothes just right for sleep, leaving laundry on the floor half-kicked beneath the bed and plugs her iPhone in and reaches for the last small light on the bedside table — pausing —

She still wants that warm feeling, though… even though she knows from time and time again of past experience, it always trails away and into other days with a much different face looking back at her in the bathroom mirror.

But that’s the thing. When the thick, cold, low day comes — or the angry, bright, heavy day falls — or the bitter, dark, tangled day looms — she’ll need this one — this moment — the memory of the full, warm glow that comes from somewhere she doesn’t even know the name of. That sweeps over from the inside. That winds out widely in every direction. It won’t destroy her hardships altogether… but it’ll take the edge off, remind her there is another side — that she knows, too.

So she smiles, lets it grow inside her, lets it well and stir and simmer and settle within her…

She rubs her eyes, tired. The moment passed.

The light goes out.

And within the hour, she falls asleep.

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