Choices

She knew it was all a dream and that she was smack in the middle of it; she also knew she’d awake, of course, and - poof! - everything would be the same as always. Except that when she actually woke up, everything was the same, but the same as it had been in the dream.

Which is to say that she had been given a gift. It had arrived out of nowhere and now was in her possession. It consisted of a soft white cloth swaddling a small blue box that opened to reveal a note that read: You are hereby allowed to relive your life. Change whatever you like, or change nothing at all.

There was no signature. Anonymous. Good or evil? Why had she been selected to receive this gift? Or were there others who were also thinking they should feel grateful for it and weren’t asking any questions? The offer conjured up thoughts of immortality, depending on how one structured the second chance at life. Just choose to be immortal instead of mortal, and your life changes, right? In fact, now it goes on forever. She was leaning toward doing that, then hesitated. It was for good reason.

She couldn’t be happy if she were the only immortal in the world. Her life would be continuous loss, as she went through it year after year while all the others were disappearing, countries were disappearing, species of flora and fauna were disappearing, buildings of beauty and elegance were disappearing. She also knew that changing one thing or person in her life wouldn’t be adequate. It was either swap out her entire old life for the one being dangled before her as hers to design, or make no changes at all. Refuse the second chance,

After a careful inspection of the little blue box, like a slice of sky cake, she admitted that it was real and began to think about what things in her life she’d like to alter. After all, she wanted to be ready when they finally gave her the sign to start altering things. This was none other than than a second chance at life. She felt she might deserve that. A second chance. Here are some of her ideas.

She wanted to move her birthday from November to April, wondering if it might not be a good idea, since April was the ‘cruellest month’ according to T.S. Eliot. November was so dreary; April full of spring.

She wanted to forget all the scenes of cheap roast beef and two canned vegetables during her childhood, wanted to swap them out for wagyu beef and roast carrots and celeriac. Or maybe just fish, no meat. Or just tofu, cheese, legumes. Anything but the eternal roast beef.

She thought about how she’d always wanted to punch her traitorous boyfriend in the face and break his glasses, maybe even his nose or a tooth, but then she felt sad about that impulse and knew she could never go through with it. There were bigger fish to fry.

She wanted to spend ten months, not the ten days her father got off from the foundry for vacation. Ten months of the year at the camp on the big river sounded exquisite, but then she began to worry a bit because the camp had no heat and in the north it can get pretty cold. There was also no drinking water, which made her wonder if she could get it from the well. Maybe the facilities have been updated, though.

She continued to ponder what could be improved or eliminated from the days she’d spent on earth, but there was so much to consider. Some changes could create problems if she shifted things around without thinking about the effects. For example, she’d happily swap her old childhood home for a newer, nicer one, but she might be bored in a different house. Hers had been huge, with the world record for nooks and crannies. The dirt cellar was incredible and the dust was so fine that items from decades ago had disappeared into it. She wondered if the jars of strawberry jam sealed with paraffin were still there, or if the mice had taken care of that. (They liked the wax, apparently.) No child from a modern home can figure out what I’m saying.

There had been some trumpets from a séance held by her grandparents to talk to their dead daughter, but she had never located them despite her mother’s indication that they were ‘up in the attic somewhere’. Why did things that were so old and even from before her seem like things she wanted? How much did she want, anyway?

She wanted the barn back, and the chickens, the rabbits, the rock garden with the hens and chicks sprawling over the rough hewn rocks. The hyacinths and three colors of iris, too. And the jasmine, the primrose bush, the honeysuckle. Why? She had some of those things now. Did she need the originals? The summer rain, though. That would never be the same. She would leave it there.

She was undecided as to whether she should change inanimate things or should focus on people (like the lousy boyfriend). Or perhaps she should think about altering some of the choices she’d made that hadn’t been very good, or people she’d trusted, bad purchases, and so forth.

She then made the mistake of thinking about the thing she most had the need to change. The thing, the horrible, mean, bad night thing in the world. That thing. It needed to be gone. Her second chance depended on its never ever having been a part of her life.

She immediately realized that she was caught between telling the story so that others would see and bottling it up inside her while she went through life in denial. The psychologists probably had twenty five terms for her mental condition, but she just called it being scarred. She felt there must be other people out there who felt the same way.

How to go from being scarred to feeling legitimate? (My terms are chosen very consciously.) What creates scars on or in us and how do we still rise? (Thank you, Maya Angelou) She relied on the flowers and bushes surrounding her house to move past the memories she had chosen to forget but could not.

She mused, today someone told me my body scarred hard. Why do I have to know that? It only hurts more.