Frostbite Nation by Jacqueline Cioffa

There are few things I know. I have never seen or imagined some better, happier version of me from the future.

No matter how hard I squeeze my eyes tight, I’m blindsided. I can’t map it out.

I visualize serenity, the modern beach home, transparent, quiet and clean. Made of clear glass to see the silly sun rise in the mornings, and mourning moon smiling back at me.

Perched high on a bluff, roiling waves crash below in a somber rich rhythm that soothes the wild child’s soul. The sun’s restorative warmth cuts right through the glass hitting my cheek just so, the wide open invitation to rest tired weary bones, and rejuvenate the mind freeze.

A four pegged, barebones desk and an antiqued typewriter sit off in a corner facing the north star, clean, clutter-free and cozy. White, oversized sofas are inviting and available for lounging. Lazy day Sundays are not the pre-requisite or prescheduled, they are the norm and everyday order routine.

The expansive ocean is warm and inviting, and the sea breeze feels like home. Almost, exactly like being at home safe inside the bubble of four walls and imagination. The skin feels wet from the ever present rising mist, dewy and reminiscent of salt.

Vegetables in varying colors and shapes decorate a wooden bowl. Plentiful, there is no hunger in my home.

The night sky is almost black not quite a midnight blue. Silver stars and a happy harvest moon fill me with, hope.

Dare I say. Hope. How dare I?

I see things differently eyes closed than how they appear. How can the world look so ugly, be so bloodied, hateful and cruel. Have we not learned anything after all these one trillion years?

How not to treat others kindly, how not to forget words like hate, greed, murder and rape.

Have we not raped each other’s souls?

Where do we go from hate to hate to hate?

It’s an evolutionary unevolved spin cycle, I suppose.

Take the word human, humane out of the equation. Throw it out to sea, it returns with with the tide pools, washes back to shore. Little itty bitty children play by the rocks, build sand castle dreams right there on the shores of our beaches and homes. Our children play on the same soil, the same good earth we call home.

Where are the pretty words like want, kindness, serenity, empathy, beauty and a sense of purpose.
     

Where did the plain, flowery words go?

Did they get lost inside the coarse sand granules, kicked aside, buried so deep under the Marianas Trench we can no longer reach them with small fingers and outstretched hands? They slip and slide out of reach, and our grasp gets harder to hold on to.

To hope.
Follow the rules they say.
Rules learned as children, yet cruel fate intervenes.
Are we meant to be only unhappy, bound and determined to be defiant?

Life is beginning and end.

End of what? Massacres, more blood, sweat and tears?

End of what? Massacres, more blood, sweat and tears? No, No, No.

End of what? Massacres, more blood, sweat and tears? No, No, No. Say it isn’t so.

There is too much pain, too much suffering in this place, too much hate.
The karmic scales are way off kilter.

Are dreams so far and away from reality I shutter to think, my fingers and toes numb from lack of heat.

As I sit in my newly warmed comfortable dream home, I cannot help but worry.

About the less fortunate, left out in the cold.

What future might they possibly see?

Do not send me some fucking quote, “how happy, enlightened you’ll be if only you practice A, B and C, when we’re already way past Z.’’

The future doesn’t exist, plain and simple. This second is it. This one tangible second and then poof its annihalated.

So I dream of nothing, and everything. A new world order where bloodshed is not on the menu.

Come what may, I will be gone before May.

The future and past moments already given away freely and without want. I expect less than nothing but hope to see flora bloom wondrous in late May.

I can’t help but wonder if fate has a different future in mind.