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Daily Deviation
Daily Deviation
March 12, 2012
Obsession by ~UntamedUnwanted The suggester says, "The author imbues the stark, cold entity of numbers with deep, radiating emotion and significance."
Featured by thorns
Suggested by LadyofGaerdon
Literature Text
It takes 14 minutes and twelve seconds to walk to your home from mine every day. Your mother never fails to smile at me when she opens the door. I never fail to notice that it doesn't reach her eyes anymore.
You leave your door open an exact two point three centimeters. I don't think you do it on purpose. There is something wrong with the wood that has left it that way. I pause one foot outside the door and listen to you cough, trying to determine how sick you feel today. I hate that every time I think you are particularly ill, I am always right.
Six months, seventeen days and fourteen hours. That is how long its been since the doctors told us you had an illness. I sat there with your parents, listening to a man who said words like 'terminal' and 'leukemia', and counted the number of times he said 'patient' as if it were your name (Seventeen).
The blood bank says one unit is four hundred and fifty milliliters and I watch as they put the needle into my arm to pump out the blood into a little plastic bag. It takes exactly five minutes twenty one seconds, because I'm holding my arm so tight. If I could give you all my blood so you could feel better for just a day, I would.
It has been seven days, twelve hours and fourteen minutes since the ambulance came for you. Six days, fifteen hours and seven minutes since the doctors told us they couldn't help you anymore. I am counting the drips of the glucose as it goes into your arm, my body wrapped around yours, trying to pretend this is a bad dream.
You say noisily, a laugh escaping your parched mouth, that I am obsessed with numbers. I want to tell you you're wrong. My obsession is you. I say nothing. This is the first time you have laughed in one month, three weeks and two days.
*
Did you know that when someone dies their body weight drops quite suddenly? It is not really noticeable unless you have held them close whilst they are dying, praying to every god that you won't lose them. It is just a touch. But it's there when they leave you.
21 grams. That is the weight of a human soul.
You leave your door open an exact two point three centimeters. I don't think you do it on purpose. There is something wrong with the wood that has left it that way. I pause one foot outside the door and listen to you cough, trying to determine how sick you feel today. I hate that every time I think you are particularly ill, I am always right.
Six months, seventeen days and fourteen hours. That is how long its been since the doctors told us you had an illness. I sat there with your parents, listening to a man who said words like 'terminal' and 'leukemia', and counted the number of times he said 'patient' as if it were your name (Seventeen).
The blood bank says one unit is four hundred and fifty milliliters and I watch as they put the needle into my arm to pump out the blood into a little plastic bag. It takes exactly five minutes twenty one seconds, because I'm holding my arm so tight. If I could give you all my blood so you could feel better for just a day, I would.
It has been seven days, twelve hours and fourteen minutes since the ambulance came for you. Six days, fifteen hours and seven minutes since the doctors told us they couldn't help you anymore. I am counting the drips of the glucose as it goes into your arm, my body wrapped around yours, trying to pretend this is a bad dream.
You say noisily, a laugh escaping your parched mouth, that I am obsessed with numbers. I want to tell you you're wrong. My obsession is you. I say nothing. This is the first time you have laughed in one month, three weeks and two days.
*
Did you know that when someone dies their body weight drops quite suddenly? It is not really noticeable unless you have held them close whilst they are dying, praying to every god that you won't lose them. It is just a touch. But it's there when they leave you.
21 grams. That is the weight of a human soul.
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When I was seven, I was diagnosed with emotions.
"Poor girl." I heard them say. "She'll never survive this one."
I laid with my face towards the ceiling on the cold examination table, listening to them discuss my fate. I felt something breaking in my chest and something burning inside my throat. A small tear slipped down my cheek.
"Doctor! Look at this!" Shrieked my mother, "Something is coming out of her eye."
The doctor rushed over to me and wiped the tear from my cheek. He touched the top of my head as he whispered, "I am so sorry." And then he turned to my mother. "It's a tear. It means that she is sad."
"Sad?" My mother asked inquis
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10 Reasons To Buy Toilet Paper
1) To stuff my bra in hopes that you'll see me tonight
2) To dry the tears from my eyes when you don't
3) To blow my nose and try again tomorrow
4) To keep in my pocket just in case
5) To dab my lipstick before our date
6) To fix my mascara after you say you love me
7) To clean my glasses and see the truth on your collar
8) To wipe the crap off of your lips when you swear I'm the only one
9) To use every roll to cover your house in blankets of white
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She was only six when the funeral homes started sending us advertisements, all competing with each other to be the best, to win her business. To win our business, more like; six is hardly old enough to understand what's going on. It's not old enough to understand why everyone is covering their mouths with their hands and failing to hold back tears when you walk into the room, or old enough to understand why people begin to outright sob when you start talking about what you want to be when you grow up. Once it was a doctor, before that it was a fairy princess, but right now it's a policewoman.
And of course all the children have heard about t
Suggested Collections
Featured in Groups
100 Themes: Obsession
EDIT: 21 grams may or may not be the amount of weight we lose when we die. It may just be false. The idea in the story is, a girl so desperate to believe that despite being so rigorously obsessed with numbers, and what is factual, she wants to believe in a soul too.
This girl is me.
I wrestle between science and faith everyday. I would like to share that with you, a non fiction piece, a part of my life.
Sometimes we so desperately wish for something miraculous to be true because we are so completely broken inside.
I want to thank all of you for your kindness and your love, your warmth. I should say it more often. You inspire me, your words do, to write so much everyday. Thank you. From the bottom of my heart.
EDIT: 21 grams may or may not be the amount of weight we lose when we die. It may just be false. The idea in the story is, a girl so desperate to believe that despite being so rigorously obsessed with numbers, and what is factual, she wants to believe in a soul too.
This girl is me.
I wrestle between science and faith everyday. I would like to share that with you, a non fiction piece, a part of my life.
Sometimes we so desperately wish for something miraculous to be true because we are so completely broken inside.
I want to thank all of you for your kindness and your love, your warmth. I should say it more often. You inspire me, your words do, to write so much everyday. Thank you. From the bottom of my heart.
Comments674
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that last line, so clever, such a perfect way to end this prose and i love how this is just so...so real. i can feel it like it's coming directly from your mouth to my ears, like we're best friends sharing our stories...truly a masterpiece of writing right here!