Fazmina ImamudeenThe wind up there had teeth.
It bit through my blouse, whipping words I’d never said into the city’s hum.
My hands gripped the cold railing,
Staring at the sleepy hollow.
This was it! The final silence, the end of the noise in my head.
Then, a tremor.
A dull buzz against my thigh, stubborn as a second heartbeat.
My phone.
A text.
Now?
In the blurred hour where today bleeds into tomorrow,
who dares to speak?
Yet the thought was a hook in my chest: I have to know.
It’s absurd…
to hold the weight of ending everything in one hand
and, in the other, a phone with 3% battery.
The world narrowed to a dimming screen.
I stepped back. Asked death to wait.
Inside, the floor felt alien, too solid.
I sat and read.
The text was nothing.
It was a meme from a friend who couldn’t sleep.
“lol this reminded me of u.”
I put my phone to charge, out of habit.
A dead battery cuts me off from the world, you see.
I closed my eyes for what felt like a second,
and woke to morning light instead.
They’ll want a story about a voice, a light, a hand on my shoulder.
I have none.
There was no revelation, but surely a distraction.
A grand purpose would make a better tale,
but it was just curiosity.
Maybe God lingers in dying batteries.
Maybe angels hide in the ordinary:
exhaustion that pulls you inside,
hunger that makes you eat.
I have no wisdom to give.
So here’s to the small things that don’t mean anything:
interruptions, accidents,
the random beep of a message,
the bus we miss, the coffee we spill.
To waking up tired, broken, and confused…
But waking up.
Somehow.
