In Search Of. . . Written Words: Writing Prompt

In Search Of. . . Written Words: Writing Prompt

Start with a number.

210,380

Two hundred and ten thousand, three hundred and eighty hours.

Plus or Minus.

Two hundred and ten thousand, three hundred and eighty hours, I've been sitting here, waiting. Not with baited breath, not even with apprehension, because I had no earthly idea of what I was waiting for.

No unearthly idea either.

I just sit here waiting.

Glancing down at my watch occasionally, I tick the seconds off. Sometimes, for the sake of my own morbidity, I count to six, gasp, and begin again.

When I was a little girl, someone told me that every six seconds a person died. I remember waiting in grade school counting them out. Sometimes I still do.

Now, I watch the clock, wondering if in another six seconds I will be the one, suddenly finding myself standing in eternity.

Those six seconds have passed, and another six in the time it takes me to write this. It’s a horrible fascination with death—a fixation almost. It is a constant in life.

In my 210,380 plus or minus hours, I've witnessed the death of eras. My life began at the end of one. I've watched millennium change. Every year, I celebrate the life of a new year, forgetting to mourn the death of the old one.

We often forget death. It’s odd though.

It’s everywhere.

We are all dying from the moment we enter the world. The cells break down second by second. We see it. A wrinkle here, a sag there. Maybe even a grey hair. Maybe our ears go, then our eyes until finally—

The heat will leave our bodies at some point. It seems the thing that makes us alive is how warm we are.

To be cold is to be dead.

I’ve felt the heat leave a body before. He’d already gone into the afterlife, but I held his hands as his body caught up to what his soul had already done.

So, I sit here waiting for nothing to happen, ticking off six seconds at a time.

Maybe I’ll have counted down to the death of someone I know.

I pray not.

But, who knows. . .

210,380

Two hundred and ten thousand, three hundred and eighty hours.

Plus or Minus.

And still counting.

As Always,