All That You Love Will Be Carried Away

I.

In a week or a month you will find that your necklace is gone. That one you bought in a marketplace in some ancient city you have not thought about in years. As for the necklace, you cannot quite remember when you wore it last, only that it was on a date with him. Of course, he is Gone too.

II.

In a year it will be your new kitten. Grown now but still curious, he will find his way beneath the tires of a delivery van or into the jaws of a fox. Or, perhaps, his weak heart will simply give out as he sleeps upon your pillow. Loss need not be Violent.

III.

In five years your father will die. They will tell you that it was some exotic-sounding condition of the arteries and veins. They will say, “if only we had detected it sooner”, “he died quickly with little pain” and, “it is an inheritable condition”… You will never feel Invincible again.

IV.

Two years later you will lose your job and with it will go the lunchtime talks with Debbie. It is not the job you will miss, but somehow you just aren’t able to stay in Touch.

V.

In ten years they cut down the Elm tree on the corner. It’s been there since your grandmother owned this house and you played beneath it as a child. It seemed like the biggest thing in nature until you discovered love. Nothing is bigger than Love, unless it is Loss…

VI.

In twenty years your hair will be grey. Your wrinkles will suddenly seem deeper than before, but perhaps that is just your new glasses. With bifocals, creeping Age is always right before your eyes.

VII.

In thirty years you will pass away. It is not what either of your parents died from; they have pills for those things now. You are hit by a delivery van while reminiscing about a kitten you once owned. You don’t Feel a thing.

VIII.

A few months later your children will sell your house and it will be demolished to make way for a new apartment building. Your favorite watercolor print, “Lilies in the Afternoon”, the only painting to have ever really moved you, will still be on the wall above the stove when the roof comes down. No one will want it.

IX.

Later, much later, a young man will inquire as to the availability of a certain book. It is the collection of short stories you published just after finishing college. He will be saddened to learn that it is out of print and has been for quite some time. Your Work was too colloquial it seems.

X.

Eventually, time and events lose meaning.
All that you love will be carried away.


by Clayton Dean

Title borrowed from the Stephen King short story of the same name.