my last happy summer
by Mileva Anastasiadou
before the world ended, wasn’t matcha cool or makeup and sleek hair cool, because I already could see the end coming fast my way. It was mostly coffee and cigarettes cool, dark but also sunny and hot and watermelon and ice cream and iced alcohol drinks carefree.
My last happy summer, before the end of the world, love was still around and it shone and I was busy, not the ‘talk fast, I’m in a hurry’ kind of busy. I looked composed like nothing bad would ever happen but also devastated in a ‘I know something you don’t know’ way, but I wasn’t in the mood to talk about it.
My last happy summer, I was still happy but I already knew the end was near, and I stayed away from loss as if it was contagious because I knew nothing about loss yet but I knew that it hurts, I knew songs and movies and books that described the pain, but I couldn’t feel it yet, and I was still certain it only happened to fictional characters.
My last happy summer wasn’t yet my last happy summer, because I didn’t know yet how soon the world would end, and I kept a safe distance from loss, I had a sip perhaps as if I was into loss gymnastics, I tasted it, and it felt bitter and it burnt my tongue and I spat it out, and I could tell I wasn’t immune as I had once thought, but also I still was, because change was happening, but I could still ignore it.
My last happy summer, I found out about all previous happy summers, from back when I didn’t know how happy they were, because Dad was always there but I never noticed, and he never promised, but I trusted him enough to never ask if he’d leave, I took him for granted, like I took the world for granted before it ended.
My last happy summer the world still smelled like teen spirit, and I was angry nobody talked about Madonna or when I met young people who didn’t know her, and I was surprised at how the world changed little by little and how it’d change more soon, and Dad was sick, but he was there, and also he wasn’t.
The world has now ended, and I don’t like much what’s left of it. The world has now ended, and I am grateful it lasted this long. The world has now ended, and I no longer expect happy summers, but the moon still cuts through the night, a bright, mocking constant in a rigged equation, and life moves on, and loss must be very contagious, but some people are lucky to catch that strain of the virus with a long incubation period, and although they know they can’t escape, they try to play safe and avoid risk, they think they’re immune and when loss hits, they act surprised, like I did. But everything changes, it changes fast, as if time accelerated after Dad left, because if Dad said goodbye, then everyone will.
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