Her Name is Life
Little Isabelle sat in her bed, waiting for her friend to come visit like he always did. Not sleeping like the lady would tell her to, just sitting, and waiting. She listened to the steady beep in the background that she had grown so accustomed to it was as quiet as her breathing. She stared at the window, that was where Friend always came in. He would climb up the side of the brick wall outside and perch on the sill. There he would stare with his one remaining eye and just talk with Isabelle. She enjoyed their talks, and she could tell the Friend enjoyed them as well.
Finally, deep in the night, when the clock read 3:03 up on the wall, Friend climbed into the window. Excited to see him, Isabelle danced a bit in her bed, unable to move much because of the chords monitoring her existence, but enough to show Friend how excited she was to see him again.
“Hello, my child,” Friend rasped through his dry vocal cords. Isabelle could see his lungs protruding through his open ribcage as his small figure crouched on the wall, “How are you tonight?”
“Hi Friend!” Isabelle bounced, “I’m great, the lady told me that I did really good today.”
“During your tests?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s wonderful my child,” though he had only one eye, his entire face beamed with pride for the little girl in the bed. They continued to speak of the day, Isabelle catching Friend up with all that he had missed since the night before. As the second hand of the clock spun around itself, pressing them later into the night, Friend sat and listened as Isabelle lit up the room with her stories of adventure and life, her parents had both visited her room, even the nice man in the white coat stopped by. Then the question came, Isabelle asked two questions to Friend every night, and each night, he would answer.
“Friend,” she began, he nodded, she continued, “who are you taking with you tonight?”
Through his cadaverous face parts of his charcoal and murky brain could be seen thinking, finding the right words to articulate as to best explain to the girl his actions. “Her name is Clara, she lives just down the road actually, in a retirement home.”
“Is she nice?”
“Almost as sweet as you my dear.”
Isabelle giggled and asked her second question, “Friend, when are you going to take me with you?”
He sighed, his entire skeleton moved with the gesture, he recited the same line to her that he had been for the last six months, perched on the side of her bed he gently stroked her hairless head, “Someday my sweet, you shall come with me, I will take you to where I go, and we shall be there forever.” Friend contemplated, where he goes, where he would take her, she would never come back. He would keep her forever, and she would be missed, but she would be happy, maybe he would take her tomorrow, but she wasn’t ready to go tonight.
“Friend,” Isabelle began her third question, catching him off guard, normally she only asked the first two. But this question was new, sparked in Isabelle’s mind after a conversation she witnessed between her parents earlier that day, so she asked, “Friend, what is… love?”
Friend smiled, love. He even laughed a little, of all the people in the universe, he would be the least expected to understand the concept of love, but he knew.
“Love, my child, is a warm summer breeze. Love is the drops of dew that are illuminated with the sunrise. Love is the crisp ocean wind that glides across your face on a beach. Love is a vibrant sunset at the end of a long, desert road. Love is the green trees that span the forest. Love is the laughter of children, love is the kiss of a mother. Love is a passion to protect, care for and grow with another. Love is something I hope you one day feel before you come with me. Love is unable to be accurately described because it cannot be confined to one thing.”
With that, he looked deep into her eyes, squeezed her hand, let go, and moved to the window, making his exit, just as Isabelle asked one last question for the night.
“Friend, have you ever been in love?”1096Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡolIgjw0zcy
Friend stopped dead in his tracks, for a second, he was quiet, but then he responded, “yes, I am in love, and she is beautiful. She creates gifts for me and sends them to me, gifts like you my child, she has given me you. I get to watch these gifts grow, these shadows of her, watch them mature and slowly become closer to me. Then when they are ready, I take them with me to the place I go, and I cherish them forever, holding onto the love that she gives me.”
As he finished his answer and stood on the window sill, Isabelle asked of her name, and before he departed for the night, Friend spoke the name of his true love,
“Her name is Life.”
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