Could It Be A New Story?

Hello friends!

So, I wrote something the other day after I kind of had a breakdown on my couch and cried my eyes out. I wasn't sure if I was going ever going to share this story with the public, but I ultimately feel like it needs to be shared.

A little background: last summer, my childhood best friend died. We're not 100% sure what happened, just that he passed in his sleep. We hadn't seen each other or spoken for years. Not that we fell out or anything, but life happened, he had kids and I went down my path. He was my best friend when we were kids, we did literally everything together. A day or two after his passing, I swear to all the gods I heard his voice say my name. It was calming and that's stuck with me ever since. The story I wrote was just something that came to me, something I needed to get down and it felt like a great tribute to not only him, but the other amazing souls I've come across.

So, without further ado, here's a little story I titled simply as PIECES. I hope you enjoy and if you haven't spoken to your childhood best friend in a while and it's simply, because of life getting in the way, reach out.

PIECES

By Jordan Smith

A childhood best friend is the best kind of friend you can have. They’ve known you through all of the good, the bad, and the super shitty. They’re there for you when home life becomes too hard, so you escape to their house to forget and create better memories of playing Crazy Taxi on their GameCube and eating pizza bagels. You go on vacation with their family to the Caribbean and find your love for superheroes in their very living room. They lend you their copy of a book they’ve been reading and you discover your love for Harry Potter. They teach you how to play chess and you spend weekend after weekend in their bedroom, spending a month playing SSX Tricky and then another month playing Spy Hunter and then another with X-Men: Mutant Academy.

You also fight over stupid, childish things and decide to leave and walk home alone, even though you know you're not supposed to. Getting older, your mental health begins to take a deeper decline and your friend tries their best to help, but doesn’t always know the right thing to do or say. You don’t blame them for that, only that you've put them in that position in the first place.

Maybe that’s why you stopped talking. Maybe they couldn’t handle it anymore. Maybe they just didn’t have the energy to keep you from the ledge time after time.

Maybe that’s what you tell yourself to justify never reaching out to them.

You want to call, to see how they’re doing, how life is with their family, but distance and different crowds change the course of your friendship and you wonder if it’s even worth it. Do they even miss you?

You decide to let it be and just hang onto the memories. You remind yourself regardless of how often you speak, even if it’s years, they are your family and you've never stopped loving them.

Putting those thoughts into words were nearly impossible as I crouched over my friend as he died.

He laid in a crater of rubble, reaching out and grabbing my arm as he clung to life with the rest of himself. He struggled to catch his breath, staring at me with pleading eyes. With all of my power, I couldn’t help him. I was useless.

“I'm so sorry,” I choked through tears, “I'm sorry I wasn’t there when you needed me most.”

He cracked the slightest smile and whispered, “Save my girls.”

The hair on the back of my neck stood up and ground beneath me shook. A distorted laugh echoed from behind me and inside, rage unlike any other took over. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw a figure. It had no face or distinguishing features. I didn’t know what it was nor did I care. All I knew was it took my friend.

I stood up and faced it. Thunder cracked and lightning struck the ground as waves of energy rippled through my body. I couldn’t even hear my own screams over the sound of the storm. I stretched my arms out and let the memories flood over me.

Bright white lights ripped through my skin and out poured the souls of the most beautiful creatures.

They were animals I came into contact with, the souls of the deer who laid dead on the side of the highway and the raccoons and opossums that were injured and not saved. Every animal I shared even an ounce of an emotional connection with tore through my flesh and rounded up around me.

Against my legs, I felt two of them position themselves in front of me: a Boston terrier and a dachshund. I cried over the flooding memories.

Turning behind me, I reached out for my friend. His body shimmered a glowing white and I felt a new tear in my body that ripped right through my heart.

Before I knew it, my friend stood before me once more, his soul among the creatures I loved and couldn’t save. Only, he was younger. The thirteen-year-old that I knew and grew up with. The one that called me directly after school every Friday to see if I wanted to stay the night. The one who I explored our hometown with for the first time and took me everywhere with him, because he wanted me there. The first friend I ever called my brother.

He and the others turned and advanced on the figure and before I knew it, I was enveloped in a white light as if a nuclear bomb when off. I couldn’t see or feel anything. I didn’t need to, because I knew what happened.

Though we spent years apart, he in many ways, saved my life.

They all did.

Without them, there will always be parts of me that’ll be in pieces.

But those are the pieces I hold most dear.

Dedicated to:

Sean

Elvira

Milo

And all of the beautiful and wonderful creatures out there.