Freedom

It was cold that day. I remember the way the salty sea air whipped about my unwashed hair.

I remember the feeling of the sand on my bare feet. I remember the dark clouds and frothy waves pushed along the surface of the ocean as wind whipped inward towards land. I don't know why but I was only wearing a T-shirt. I remember flecks of snow drifting down from heaven.

The weather wasn't the important thing. Not on that day. The important thing was what I decided that day. That I was leaving. I almost couldn't feel the biting wind, or the tiny serpentine pricks of snow as it lithely fell against and melted on my skin.

There was that odd feeling of freedom that blocks out all lesser sensation on that day, and I savored it, drank in every minute of that grey day. I knew the feeling would fade, and it did, but for those few brief moments, it was in full swing.

My house was on fire. It was nowhere near where I was but I knew it was still lit up like a crematorium. My wallet was filled with viridian corpses.

Everything I had known only a week ago was burning. Everything that I had used to justify my existence only a day prior would soon be a pile of smoldering ashes, blown through the air like so many snowflakes dotting my skin with their precipitated deaths.

I danced then, screaming at the sky. Tears ran down my cheeks. My toes curled and tore through a billion grains of sand. I cut a swath of delight through the uncaring scalp of an indifferent world.

It was at that very second that everything I ever did lost all meaning. Everyone one I had ever wronged. Everything I had ever done that wasn't right. Every memory and regret that festered in my chest was forgotten. They drifted out of my open mouth, a wave of sound ascending above me and lancing into the heavens, only to be dispersed upon the world.

I remember falling to the ground and thinking: I am born again.

In my mind's eye I saw my house on fire, and laughed.