Today is not Yesterday

After a catastrophe happens,the victims are reduced to just a corpse with a phone number that must be contacted or an address to which the corpse must be delivered.

Today is not yesterday.Only yesterday I had woken up to the depression on the pillow on your side of the bed,unmindfully entwining around my fingers,a stray strand of your hair.Only yesterday I had gone about the day's work with your smell comforting my senses.

Today is not yesterday.Today you have been reduced to a two dimensional photograph that fail to contain your person.The screen of smoke arising from the incense obscures your face,hiding the little nuances that had ever failed to escape my eyes.I close my eyes and try to remember the shape of the birthmark on your neck.Was it on the right side or the left?I try to remember,it seems very important all of a sudden that I know.But, you are already eluding my memory.I can't recall.I give up.

As I sit there before you,just as another part of the many people who have lost their loved ones,I can feel you being dragged away from me ,the warmth of your familiarity being denied to me.I can already hear people referring to you as 'one of the forty people people who died in the blast'.I can already realize your flaws and your goodness,your life and its stories being reduced to just another victim of the recent upsurge of terrorism.

As I remain seated there before you,I realized that today is not yesterday.And never will it be.

Reviews

[Laura]

I like the detail about needing to know the placement of a birthmark. It's strangely comforting to be able to hold onto those small details, as if you don't hold them, the bigger picture--the one that really matters--will dissolve. A powerful piece in a time where too many stories of nameless victims are circulating our worlds.

[Joe]

At first in the firsy paragraph its seemed a description generic to tragedy. But as I kept reading the story seemed to unravel in a really beautiful way. Elements like the birth mark and inscence really accentuated the details of the story in the way the were described.

[Carol Cashes]

Sad to lose someone you love and hard not to rail against anyone diminishing their life. Sad but sweet.

[brinda]

Thank you.And you are right..to 'forgive and to forget' is a lot harder than it sounds