Emily's Seams

The casket was white. The flowers were pink and white. My decrepit aunt, Jude, had picked everything, even the black dress and nylons I was wearing. I guess she thought that I would have been too upset to do any of this myself. True, I don’t know who would have done it if she hadn’t, but it’s not because I was too sad. I didn’t care. Julia was gone. Did it really matter what colour the flowers were or how shiny of a box we put her in?

When I was younger I used to daydream that I had super powers. Something about me had to be special and I convinced myself whatever this hidden talent of mine was, it would show itself when the time was right. Just when my special gifts were needed the most. Of course most people dream about this at some point in their life. We can’t watch hours and hours of television shows and movies about the only one who could save us all not to imagine, not to hope, that maybe that would be us someday. We would be that special one in a million to be loved for how important and unique and amazing we were. Of course, we all get older and this fantasy dissipates but it does not disappear. Instead, our super powers morph into things like being the most beautiful, the highest paid, the best. For me, this natural progression happened just as expected, but there was always a tinge of that childhood hope leftover. I wanted to be able to fly or speak with animals. Maybe I could move things with my mind or I could see the future. Some kind of special above that of most.

But as they lowered her into the dark ground for a cold and lonely eternity the surprisingly brutal truth that I was not special finally set in. Because if I had been, even just a little, I would have been able to save her.