//------------------------------//
// Of The Cuff 
// Story: Is The Question 
// by Fireflower 
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To Whom It May Concern,

I want to start off by apologizing for not speaking up sooner, especially considering what has happened recently in the past: as far as I can tell, I haven’t been able to muster the courage to speak in public or private for longer than a mere minute no less; with that said, I believe this would be inexcusable to keep quiet much longer since even now, I feel strings latching onward.

Merely about one decade has passed since that fateful day in January, a day in which I’d wished to had taken seriously than ever: you may think that it wouldn’t matter considering this is but a measly letter though this is mine only method of communication; after all, this would be something she’d write whether or not you–know–who is nearby, a relatable possibility as it were.

Basically, I should’ve been honest with myself since by this point, I’m already at wits end staring down at the abyss before me as is: so much has happened within that timeframe I wish I could tell you everything far beyond this sheet of paper altogether anyways; alas, I fear it’s only a matter of time until I find myself under complete control once more, much like before in past.

Either way, it’s rather sad that my life as I’d thought I knew, much less had, is no different from others like, and unlike, me here: every waking moment of our lives since birth filled with meaningless dates, times, and locations mere iotas away from ceasing to be; even the rich and famous are under the threat of being forgotten by both time and space as well as their own peers.

Recently, I can’t help myself but feel I’d wasted my own life, despite and because of my efforts, even with its every passing moment; not only that, every time I look at individuals such as herself, I think of how these details will all return back to nothingness one day: birthdays, graduations, weddings, births, and other miscellaneous ceremonies with their rites of passage.

Likewise, I dread the polar opposites of not only my fate, but the fates of others and the statistical inevitabilities all the same: no matter how hard we try, we could never seem to escape the reality of what happens, past, present, and, dare I even say it, future; even now, the time borrowed for me will be used against me as well as vice versa, due to the unknowns thereof us.

“Are the best parts of life really just finding momentary distractions to keep yourself busy so you don’t think about the harsh realities of life for a second?” that is the question that has been in my head for almost the most recent third of said decade, uttered by some tortured soul contemplating something some prince would say as he held up what little remained of another life as we knew.

Nevertheless, I’d been thinking of such things before and after, even as the words entered my head like solutions in a universal solvent: truths and consequences as well as falsehoods and choices, each with their own correlations and causations related and/or otherwise; I could never find the resolve to record every single one of them, even if I’d gotten paid for them either way.

Decency also happens to be slipping and sliding away into the past, as least as far as I’d seen it before my own weary eyes already; even in our own homeland, it seems that history repeats, even with the caveat about doom and gloom that carries on as it had been: loose morals, broken sanity, fleeting love, and tainted knowledge, all of which make up the worst in modernity as is.

Such is the life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, and equality of opportunity presented to us since birth, only to be squandered away; the internal and external conflicts has succeeded in splitting all of us into at least two separate yet equally significant factions no less: even the notion of rejecting binary truths had been a recent invention to maximize confusion and delay for profit.

As such, I’m still glad there are others beside me whom can keep going on in life like nothing is happening to them in any which way; I don’t think I would do the same, knowing that it’s only a matter of time before whatever history, black or white, crashing thru: whether it’s been no less than several millennia or even more, we’d always taken the present for granted, even moreso.

Romanticism and enlightenment have always been at odd with each other and themselves, so much so even I’d seen it all at last: time tenses without a schedule to make of it for a compromise or consideration, at least not without some hidden agenda as is; it’s not even new nor is it young, just two sides of the same coin than can easily be melted down should external temperature arise.

Eventually, you begin to wonder about every choice we’d made, whether for ourselves or others like, and unlike, us, piece by piece; even afore the end of it all, we spend every waking moment of life as we thought contemplating, regretting, rationalizing and whatnot: either way, you’ll begin to realize at once that, like it or not safety is an illusion, oblivion catching up with us all.

Gone are the days were even the young can live their lives free of strife and misery, like the tradewinds of yesteryears as such; now, it just seems that all they’re good for to others, like and unlike them, is weaponry and victims, be if in wartime or peace: even I’d given up on peace due to how much I’d frittered it all away with every meaningless gesture, polite and/or rude no less.

Of course, that is all that I can say for that matter for I can feel them pulling onto me right now so I’ll say goodbye…

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