by Mileva Anastasiadou
Only we didn’t know.
A pack of wolves, a company of four, but we didn’t know or didn’t appreciate the bond, we thought better days would come, but those were our best days, our carefree, fun days, when we rode the world, survived heartache, disasters and we laughed and danced, but we know now, now that fate called us, now that our pack got hit, now that we’re together again only one of us lies under the ground, now that we got smaller, fewer, and we think that was it, that was our life, now slowly fading, we are only remnants now, awkwardly standing between life and death, reminiscing the old days, when we were one body.
*
But we thought otherwise.
A whole body, one heart fueling us, but we didn’t know, we’ll be happy forever, we said, best friends forever, we swore, used future tense, as if that present didn’t count, we took our separate ways, for that’s what life does to people, to friends, but we know now, now that one of us is missing, now that we attend her funeral, now that a part of us is amputated and we hurt, we hurt so much we know we once were whole, for she’s the arm, or the leg, cut out of the body, and we have to live without it, that part of us that evaporated, disintegrated into nothing but memory, nothing but pain, embedded in our brain, bringing back the past, when we were one.
*
But now we mourn.
We mourn and grieve, while feeling guilty for mourning, for whining, at least we’re here, we’re alive, we’ll settle for less now. That complex overwhelming sentiment, called fear, is now haunting us, like the worst is yet to come, like we should save our tears for later, for we didn’t know then but we know now, we know we had much in common, like Venus in Pisces, we’re now in pieces, except for her, she had Venus in Cancer, and for a moment, we are all out there again, embraced, floating over our bodies, we are a pack, we are whole, we are happy, and we laugh, we laugh, we laugh for that’s what we do best when we’re together, that’s what we always did, facing disasters, and that’s what we do now, this last time of togetherness, we laugh and dance, but then we go back and reinhabit our bodies, all of us except her, and it feels surreal, like our life is a David Lynch film, strange and ugly, doesn’t make sense, but there’s always love, that undying love that once united us, that love that connects us to the body in the ground, and that makes everything worthwhile, a Venus in scattered pieces, that love glued back together, we know now, and we’ll howl hard, we’ll bleed forever.
Mileva Anastasiadou is a neurologist, from Athens, Greece. A Pushcart, Best of the Net, Best Microfiction and Best Small Fictions nominated writer, her work can be found in many journals, such as Litro, Jellyfish Review, HAD, Ruminate, Lost Balloon, X-R-A-Y and others.
Emerge Literary Journal 