Forgiveness is Not Goodbye #NYR2020

New Year, new flash! A group of author friends I know has a system of flash challenges associated with seasons of the year. I missed out on Monster Mash, hosted by Siobhan Muir, in October and Tipsy Santa, hosted by Ever Addams, in December. This New Year Cara Michaels is hosting the New Year Revolution flash fiction blog hop, with a chance at one of two prizes! The challenge ran from the 13th of January until tonight. I’m coming in just under the wire here to submit my piece of flash.

So without further ado, here is my addition to the New Year Revolution blog hop! Be sure to share and/or comment across Twitter, Facebook, and elsewhere using the #NYR2020 hashtag. Don’t forget to check out the other tales under the tag, too!

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Forgiveness is Not Goodbye

It started with accidents.

Accidents that we mostly thought nothing of at the start.

‘It doesn’t happen if I’m up before 8am,’ my mother said.

At what point though are accidents not true accidents?

Devolving came quickly after that. First the lethargic nature. Then the sickness and pain.

‘He’s getting old,’ we said. ‘It’s probably just his age showing,’ we said.

How could we have been so right, and so wrong at the same time?

~*~*~

The car ride to the emergency vet’s seemed like one of the longest rides I have ever taken. We got the call this morning. The needed surgery that may, or may not, have given him a few more years of his life was getting riskier. Complications could run rampart. Odds of full recovery were getting slimmer.  He’s getting worse. He’s suffering.

‘Do you still wish to go through with the surgery?’

This car ride is our answer.

I’ve never liked hospitals. They make me uneasy, they make me tense. The stench of chemicals and unnatural life. The essence of death and birth that hangs in the air in constant war with each other. The silence that is only interrupted by the sounds of Death’s scythe tapping across pristine tiles in a rhythmic approach to rooms.

Veterinary hospitals are almost no different.

Stepping into the white-tiled reception hall and waiting room made my heart clench and climb into my throat. It was taking all my will to not dissolve into a sniveling mess, and now was no different. An adorable black Labrador, Shepherd cross puppy before me both managed to distract me from my pain and also make it hurt more.

I remember when Snowball used to be that small and that cute. Well, he’s still that small, but he’s only that cute now when he’s freshly groomed.

Guess we won’t be making those appointments anymore. . .

Time seems to stand still as we wait to be seen. I can’t keep my eyes from roaming over the animals and people there, reading their faces, feeling their own emotions mingling with mine. My mother’s voice is meek when she talks to the receptionist. I hardly remember myself speaking up, explaining why we came, pet-less as we were. Somehow I know I kept my voice level, kept my composure unlike my mother’s unraveling state. The sympathy in her eyes hurts as much as what I know I will have to endure soon.

From there the wait is eternally short. The exam room we are led into is bare in comparison to what I expected. The paperwork is damning when the receptionist comes back in. I again find myself speaking for my mother. Small talk, mostly observational and immaterial, is all that keeps me centered when she leaves until that door opens again.

The nurse brings in a small bundle, swaddled in blankets. Only a white, scraggly head pokes out from the soft indigo. I can hear the heavy, ragged draw of breaths as Snowball’s set down. Small legs stumble when he takes the start of his last steps. Disoriented. Weak.

Terrified.

Warm brown eyes have lost their wild lust for life when they see me. Pain clouds them. A Soul tired look. It’s as if he’s looking right through me, already gone.

 Does he even recognize me?

I can’t allow myself to think those things right now.

So I sit myself on the floor, numb to the fact my stillness causes my legs to eventually go to sleep, and leave my hand outstretched. Waiting, again. My poor baby boy will hardly come near me. How can I blame him? We left him alone in this big, scary place overnight. We are his whole world, and to him we abandoned him.

Trust must be rebuilt.

I know not how much time passes before Snowball allows me to be close, to comfort him, to murmur sweet nothings. To love him one last time with tears in my eyes.

“Are we doing the right thing?” I ask in a shaky voice when the time comes.

The vet pauses just long enough to look up, but my eyes are on the cloudy white liquid seeping through my dog’s IV, and the syringe of pink now hooked up to it. Out of my peripheral I see her nod. “You are.”

I am the last thing he sees.

Deep down I know with complete confidence she is right, but how do I give my broken heart that absolution?

746 words / © 2020 Daelyn Morgana

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In loving memory. . .

Looking Forward

I’m well aware this entire blog has been quite silent for a couple years now. 2017 was the last year in which I more consistently blogged, but even then I think it was more just #SnippetSunday hops toward the end of the year. In reality, ever since I started a full time position at the evil day job a few years ago now my motivation, time, and energy has been drained dry on a daily basis. It sucks. A lot. 

A few years back (consequently also back in 2017) I made a similar blog post here listing out my goals and resolutions for the new year. In complete honesty, I am downright horrible at sticking to goals and resolutions. I’ve probably said that before but I’m saying it again. A part of me has long since given up even making any. Something about this year feels a little different though. 

Perhaps it’s the fact it’s a new decade as well. Or perhaps it’s the signs I’ve been seeing that are telling me this is the year, my year. Or maybe it’s the fact that the other assistant manager at work finally took the plunge he’s been talking about for more than a year: up and quitting on January 1st because it’s time to get out and move on. He’s right, I’ve realized. I’ve spent the last six and a half years in a job that sorely underpays and works me to the bone. My passions have suffered for it. Writing. This blog. Even my other hobby loves like horseback riding have been sacrificed for something I don’t want to do the rest of my life. 

So, he’s definitely right. It’s time to get out. It’s time to actually make it happen. I hate change. More accurately I hate the anxiety of and the effort change takes, the time it takes to find a system that works again. But the system I am currently in has long since worked for me. I can’t stay in this one for very much longer. So it’s time to start job hunting for something new. Time to find a new routine that will allow me to keep up with my writing consistently and be able to enjoy life a little more again. 

For the time being I have, however, found a new trick that may allow me to get somewhere while I search for a new normal. I have always wanted to be able to take things on the go with me to do when I have stolen moments of free time at work or camping or anywhere else for that matter. I’ve never found an easy way to do that. Or I’ve never found I have enough stolen moments to make it worth it. Writing in small bursts on the go has never really worked out for me unless it’s random spurts of brainstorming. I seem to only be able to work efficiently on anything writing related if I am given ample time to sit down and actually be immersed in it. That’s why Camp NaNoWriMo and NaNoWriMo are good for me. It’s the consistency and fire under my ass that I need. Stolen moments don’t work for me and writing.

At least not novel and story writing.

You see, what I’m discovering is that maybe I can utilize those stolen moments of lunch in some other way. Maybe I can use those stolen moments to read. (I seem to have pledged myself to the 2020 Goodreads Reading Challenge.) Or maybe I can use those stolen moments to work on blog posts. See where I’m heading with this?

Ever since I fell off the grid here I’ve been telling myself “what if I forget about a blog schedule of any kind and simply just put something out once a week? Doesn’t have to be a specific day, doesn’t have to be a specific set of posts, just something once a week.” I thought about it a little more, and then thought about it some more. While I hate being inconsistent and not having a schedule to my blog posts I began to realize that perhaps, with the unpredictable retail job I have, that randomized once a week posts might actually be what suits my schedule best. I’m pretty sure I might have mentioned that at least once last year and then just never actually stuck to it, but again, this year feels different. 

So that’s the plan at least. Once a week, at any given time in the week, I hope to put something about something related to writing or books or gods only know, released here. I spent the last several days of the new year tinkering around with ways to effectively do this and my working in progress solution has come out to be stolen moments, my fairly neglected Kindle, and a bluetooth keyboard allowing me to type and write in odd places while offline. This way I can have things down and all I have to do later is connect to the web, share to my laptop, edit up the post, and click publish. That’s exactly how I’ve written this post, in fact. We shall see how it goes.

For those of you writers out there faced with evil day jobs that suck up all your time and energy too, how do you find the systems that work for you to still pursue your passions?