I've been thinking a lot these days about that day in the alley and the things that almost happened. I think a lot about the "almosts" of life. I don't know why the subject is plaguing me so much lately. It might have something to do with B, and how many times he almost died, and how it's really just hitting me now how close I have come to "almost" losing him and how close I may still be to losing him in a different way. Lately, all the almosts just seem to float down around me like flakes of snow. They are so small but so plentiful and soon they cover the ground, leaving only a white blanket to be seen.
I wonder what would have happened if things had gone differently that day. I can�t call it a spring day or a fall day, because I don�t remember. I can tell you it wasn�t summer because school was in session. And I know it wasn�t winter because I was wearing shorts. They had elastic around the waist and I remember his hands reaching in the waistband and trying to pull them down. His hands were clean. He was a clean boy. Well kept. I felt so dirty though. I remember my face pressed up against a fence, peering into a yard. I know that the yard was empty. There was no one there to hear me if I cried. I still don�t know how I got away. He was so much bigger than me. He was so much stronger than me. I was just a little girl going to get her doll.
I wonder how things in my life today might be different if he had succeeded in his goal. I wonder about the state of my soul. Would it have rallied to the desecration and risen up like a phoenix? Would I be stronger today because of the experience? Or would my soul have floundered and flickered away to nothing? Lately my soul has seemed so much like a tiny flame, a flickering candle, struggling against the wind and trying desperately to stay alit. I do my best to shelter the tiny flame, surrounding it with the windbreak of friends. But sometimes the wind sneaks through the cracks of the people in my life. I see the flame flicker. It has yet to go out. What will happen when it does?
I think it was that day; the day with a warm afternoon and a late sunset, the day of alleys and fences, the day with the promise of roller skates and the day when I ran so fast, it was that day that the fear took root in my soul. It was that day that I knew. I learned that I would always have to look over my shoulder. I would always have to question the intentions of strangers and even of friends. I would always have to wonder, to worry, to believe in the worst. To expect the worst. And to know that the simplest of dreams in life would always seem to be just outside my grasp.
When I remember that day, I can�t remember any particular smell. I don�t remember any certain sight. I remember the sound of his feet on the concrete behind me. And I remember his hands on my waist.
