By: Charles X. Madruga

The filtered morning light shone quietly bright, and I, coasting my way through an in-between place – being faintly awake and the silence of sleeping in an evanescent dream. Drifting away through my unacquainted state, it was a murmur, it was a blur, and the softest voice of a little girls’ sang:

“In my life I have seen

 people walk into the sea

 just to find memories

 plagued by constant misery

 their eyes cast down

 fixed upon the ground

 their eyes cast down…”

Sometimes things are most beautiful out of context.

“Hold on just a second, don’t tell me this one. You know I know this one.

I know this song, I know this one, I love this song,” I whispered to myself

as I thought about why today would be any more of a day than yesterday or tomorrow. Or if that was just a lie that I heard optimism say. Pessimism lies too, more deliberate

and obvious.

It’s just that optimism gets your blood pumping first.

It felt like eavesdropping on the beating of another heart. Her cracked whispering lingered from rooms away and trailed off in a resonating sound wave of innocent perfection,

carrying slowly and gently through the stairwell’s window, and fading out into the neighborhood like a blissfully safe, cool, and warm summer evening breeze.

My footsteps creaked the hardwood floor. I stopped walking. I stopped breathing. I didn’t want to make myself known, to myself, or to her – still somewhere else. Before breathing, before having enough time to tell her, “this can’t be it, you can’t be done”

– with her little words, so softly she sung:

“I’ll keep my eyes fixed on the sun.”

I smiled.

“I’ll…”

Her voice trailed off.

“… keep my eyes fixed on the sun.”

And it all felt familiar in the most unfamiliar way.