When We Fall Apart

“It’s falling apart.”

“It’s always been falling apart.” As I walk away from the glass dome, I poke him in the head, doing my best to smile as I call him, “silly goose.”

And then, I feel it.

The ship gets rocked with the blast. With fire cracking tectonic plates to bits. Crumbling lives, calling for rescue. A million things left behind.

Destroyed.

I feel the shockwave. Tremors of love and loss. Of desperation and pain. Of joy.

Of hope.

Beneath the glass dome of the ship, he stands and watches as it happens, and I can’t blame him for not looking away.

The world beneath us burns.

Papa Bear

Honestly, at first, I was terrified of the bear.

Completely and wholly terrified.

It was huge.

Massive.

And I was so tiny in comparison.

I mean, that thing could sit on me and I’d die. If it accidentally tripped and fell on me, that was it. Call the funeral home, I was a goner. You know? Or, if it got too excited and swung at me, it could knock my arm off. Or my head. Something as powerful as that wasn’t just scary.

It was terrifying.

But… somewhere along the lines, I stopped.

Stopped being afraid. Stopped being intimidated. Stop seeing the bear as a monster, and started seeing him as a bear.

Just a bear.