Good Things

Written by Jacob Ibrag

I’m always questioning good things. It wasn’t always like that, I used

to follow my nose and let things kind of just happen. I had this unbeatable

go with the flow attitude which made almost everyone I knew nauseous. My

friends would love to make fun of how happy I’d be for absolutely no reason.

‘Life is reason enough,’ I’d tell them as they would roll their eyes back and

walk the other way. Then without any warning at all, the sun in the sky was

eclipsed by a smile with kind eyes. I knew she was a keeper the moment my

friends told me they thought she beat me in being weirder. For the next

several days we followed each other’s noses into nooks and crannies that

neither of us would have ever imagined finding ourselves in. It was exactly

what you’d see in movies in those montage sequences where the boy

and girl would Marco Polo inside jokes and realize that they were each

others worlds. As the days evolved into weeks and then months, it became

harder to say goodbye so we moved into my tiny studio apartment. With

all of our things climbing to the ceiling and the place being tinier than

an ant hill, somehow it brought even closer together. I remember

going to the jewelry store with her one day and seeing this older couple

get refitted for their wedding rings and thinking that I wanted that

exchange with her. I wanted us to grow old and hold each other when

the weather got cold and go skinny dipping when the sun and ocean

decided to send us over an invitation. So secretly I got her a ring with

all the money I’ve saved which at the time wasn’t much but meant a

lot to me. When I started to walk back home, I could barely keep a

straight face as I kept smiling and imagining her reaction to when I was

going to ask her to join my hand into the journey of forever. As I neared

towards the apartment, I saw a swarm of blue and white lights encircling

the block. Officers and neighbors  congregating in front of what it

appeared to be an accident. ‘What happened here?’ I asked a little girl and

she looked at me as if she saw a ghost. ‘The pretty lady across the street

was hit by a car.’ Clenching my teeth and tightly holding her ring, I ran

towards the puddle of red. Sifting through the people with faceless

expressions, I finally arrived and died on sight with the truth planted

before my eyes. Collapsing by her side and hugging her lifeless body, I gave

up on the good things. The movies were a lie, they never prepared us

for the pain. Years later and I can still hear her honey smooth voice

in the middle of the day, ‘my nose lead me to your soul.’

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Photographer Unknown