Ten Seconds

by Bridgette Shade

I bet we’ve met once, maybe in a waiting room. Maybe our moms were sitting next to us in plastic chairs while we worked a chunky puzzle, hoping the pretzel rod would be worth the shot in the arm.

Maybe we went to school together. Maybe we both looked forward to the Scholastic Book fair and cardboard cartons of orange drink. Maybe we collected gummy bracelets from vending machines. Maybe we liked pizza and Dr. Pepper and playing kickball.

I’m sure we learned the same rules about commas, and even if we’ve since forgotten them, I bet we both remember the feel of the pencil in our hands, the hard sound of graphite.

Maybe we sat in traffic together. Our tires spun on ice, or the weather was hot and we called out to one another through our open car windows. Maybe it felt good to talk about why we were stuck.

I’m sure we both know all the words to our favorite songs, and we sing, even if only in our heads. We memorized the Pledge of Allegiance, too, and for twelve years, we recited it every day between September and June. I’m not sure if we thought much about what we were saying—if we considered what the words meant—but I bet we both helped our kids learn them when it was their turn.

Maybe we both hammered campaign signs into our yards this election season. Like mine, maybe yours was stolen. Maybe you also felt that thing in the front of your skull, that blinding anger, and you brainstormed a hundred forms of retaliation in ten seconds. Ten seconds because that’s the time it takes to recover. Ten seconds until we can see clearly again.

Maybe you have been watching the news or avoiding watching it, too. Maybe you have wondered if hateful words make your neighbors feel powerful. If it feels good to hear someone speak cruelly so long as he is speaking to someone else. Maybe you wonder if it was one such neighbor who stole the sign from your yard before they’d had a chance to finish counting to ten. Before they remembered the way we used to make a human chain. How when we decided to stick together, we did. Maybe we have spent so much time wringing our hands that we have forgotten what it feels like to hold them.

And maybe, like me, you lost someone this year. Maybe she was alive one day but gone the next. Maybe you dream of washing dishes in her kitchen. Maybe you imagine she is the moth who flies out of the cabinet beneath your sink and presses her wings against the window pane, close enough to feel the sun but not to touch it. Maybe you are certain of nothing anymore. Maybe all you want is one more chance to say I Love You.

Those words mean something to us both; I’m sure of that. We learn to believe in words long before we know anything of letters or language, of left and right, of blue or red. One Nation, we say. Indivisible. Liberty and Justice for All. Do the words we say matter? All of them or only some of them? Which words honor our mothers and sisters, our brothers and fathers? Which words honor our allegiance to one another? Who gets to decide?

We do.