Imagines

James Franco

I watched as the waves crashed against the rocks, not for any one reason in particular, but because they do. Waves are waves. Rocks are rocks and if they are unfortunate enough to be damned to an eternity, no matter however long that may be to a rock, although I can imagine it surpasses that of a human, near the ocean, then so be it. The life of a wave is no more pleasant. It ends as quickly as it began, just as a human's.....

She would've been intelligent. Her father & I are both scholars, she would have been a genius, I bet. Maybe she would have taken up acting straight out of high school and abandoned the 18yr long plan for her to go to college first. We would've tried to talk her out of it, but I know she would have been strong-willed like me.

The breeze carried a thin layer of foam from the ocean to my place on the rocks. The cool water did not comfort me. It reminded me of death. I dragged my fingers along the dark rocks under me. They were smooth and damp. Everything was so cold....

I crawled closer to the edge to a point where I stared the hundred foot drop in the eyes. A few feet to the right, the cliff was not as steep of a drop. It's where I walked with James the day I delivered him the news of my pregnancy. I wish I could say it happened so long ago or that it at least felt so, but it all happened as fast as a heartbeat. I wish I could have had time to be a mother, but I also wish I was never impregnated from the start. I don't know which I wish for more, nowadays. I look down to my stomach. My hands have developed a habit of holding my stomach, knocking at a door of an empty house. The sky matches the ocean's mood as it turns from its clear state to a serious, cloudy grey. I pull my jumper over my head and lay back on the cliff with my hair falling over the edge.

They're doing it again.... Searching for residency where vacancy is inevitable. Searching for life in a graveyard, where dreams go to die and no amount of tears can water the flowers, left there by some damaged soul, and persuade them to bloom. I breathe and exhale my demons. I shut my eyes and allow my mind to focus on anything else, but I only see what could have been-brown hair and a dazzling smile, surely used to get her Dad to spoil her. Her big, brown eyes would marvel at the world for all it's worth.

Her.

Her.

Her.

Jesus, I can't even say her name!

My heart burns and I can't fight it anymore. Tears pour from my eyes like rain from the grey sky. Thunder rumbles through my insides, finally tearing through my chest, my throat, my mouth. My sorrows loom over me and I wonder if there was ever a calm before this storm or was it just one seemingly miraculous moment after another, illusion after illusion.

I try to cover my mouth to muffle the screams, so James doesn't worry. This wrecked us both.... We were putting together the crib when I got the contractions. He had warned me not to pick up anything and strain myself, but I didn't listen. I picked up the box with the crib inside, only for a second.... God, it was only for a second.... I knew something was wrong when I felt her shift... I don't know how I knew, but I knew something was wrong. We rushed to the hospital.... We went as fast as we could.... The doctors told us it wasn't our fault and that she strangled herself with the umbilical cord, but the damage was already done. Maybe we weren't meant to be parents... If we can't protect something inside of me from whatever short list of dangers that present themselves, for nine months, how can we protect it for over eighteen years? My body quakes and I try to calm my breathing before I fall off of the cliff.

A drop of rain falls between my eyes and, for a moment, I wasn't sure wether it was rain or tears. I sniffled and wiped my eyes before I stood and made my way inside.

Our house wasnt very far away, but I walked slower than usual to give myself a chance to calm down before James saw me. The rain poured down by the time I got to the house. "Hey there, Delilah." He smiled softly at me as I entered, but it didn't quite reach his eyes the way it used to.