Sometimes it’s you in your bed, your grandchildren’s soft, sad eyes and your last breath surrounding you. Or you’re choking the life from the steering wheel of a sedan, gazing at the roadkill behind you and wondering why it was so important to look down and skip that gimmicky song. Or perhaps you’ve collapsed the icy caps of wavy lake crests, slipping down into an environment colder than you could have imagined, the ice and snow and water and darkness bullying you into fearful thrashing. Every sense and emotion is dulled, apart from pain, fear, and regret.
The flash isn’t a montage. It’s like a polaroid, one quick moment. You may or may not be ready for it. Then there it is, a scrap of memory for you to keep. One moment in which humanity is captured, your mortality in all its beauty and feebleness.
I was always getting into trouble. By age seven I was in elementary school, most recesses were spent inside and “naughty” cards were flipped at least to yellow on a good day. On my own, I was fine. But in front of others it was like a game, a competition. I had to get the attention, channeling all of my prepubescent energy for smiles, warning stares, or shouts. The only one who could handle me was my cousin Shayla.
Just sixteen miles away, our cousin Tom lived with his three children Megan, Josh, and Shayla. Shayla was older than my sister and I by a few years, and she was always willing to babysit us, although it felt almost like playing. Josh was seldom home, and Megan was just too cool. She usually sat by the pool with her friends, paying no mind to Amaris and me, the black sheep of the family. Poor, immature, adopted, black, out of place in her upper-middle-class world of painted toes and swimming pools.
One day our mother dropped Amaris and me off at Shayla’s. Megan was out back, sitting at the pool. Shayla went off to make us her specialty, PB&J with banana, leaving us on the deck with Megan. Immediately ignoring us, she paid extra attention to her tanning technique. We’d always jump on the trampoline outside when we went over. It was next to the pool; they could afford both.
I knew the difference between them, I wasn’t stupid. But there was something interesting and dramatic about the pool cover, hovering over something magical, something that my cousins had at their disposal, yet ignored. Amaris was over trying to talk about big girl things with Megan (who was ignoring her), causing them both not to notice me. My next trick was mounting the taut pool cover and bouncing like on a trampoline, a water bed.
I only weighed about 60 pounds, but the cover didn’t care. It didn’t push back against my weight, it was not playful. One step and it wrapped its folds around me, pulling me into the cold water underneath and closing overhead. Inside this cold chasm, my life flashed. Water flowed down my nostrils and throat as my arms flailed without a direction, not knowing which way was up, safe or dry. I wondered if anyone watched me fall in. I had wanted them to, after all. As I turned to get closer to what I thought was escape, the cover only constricted me tighter. My lungs burned and muscles ached until a heroic arm pulled me out of the water.
Shayla hit my back with force enough to draw up any water until I croaked out an explanation; I was fine. I’d only been under for a couple seconds, I just wasn’t ready, I hadn’t had a chance to hold my breath. It was a joke. Megan told me I was immature, that it was obviously just a ploy to splash her. Who cares if the black sheep drowns?
Shayla handed me a sandwich, and in her wide eyed, slow movement, I knew she understood that she had just saved my life. Years later, I reminded her of this, and she looked startled. She’d completely forgotten. For the both of us, it was just a flash.
Philip Runia 