A Fragile Uncertainty
where a drizzle becomes a downpour
We existed in a bubble. I guess that was why it was beautiful, the heart aching fragility of it all. Everything was an almost. We almost weren’t, and in the same breath, we almost were.
I open my eyes and there are china plates breaking all around me.
I stare straight ahead. The pieces fly in all directions, suspended in slow motion.
It is absolute chaos: the sharp, cracking sounds, the flying shards.
I feel untethered, yet a grin tugs at my mouth, my chin lifts, and a laugh escapes my ribs.
“Hi, is this seat taken?” a voice had asked.
In the space where a drizzle becomes a downpour, I am running.
Raindrops strike my bare arms, my face, some trapped like weight between my eyelashes.
I laugh and look back, tugging the palm nestled closely in mine, watching a matching grin stretch across your lips.
“We are all gathered,” the priest says in a solemn tone, “to witness the joining…”
His voice fades into a drone. I can’t take my eyes off your face. Your smile is warm, besotted, entirely in love.
Then the crowd shifts into my line of sight.
I black out.
When next I come to, I am standing among other bodies, my arms outstretched, raised upward.
The wedding song is playing. The newlyweds are mumbling sweet nothings to each other.
I close my eyes to the sight, force my bones to move, and then,
I dance.
A Note from the Studio
I used to share short stories like this exclusively on my Instagram Stories which we know is fleeting. But I wanted a space for permanence. A place where these words could stay on a digital wall rather than disappear in twenty-four hours.
To clarify: this piece isn’t based on my own life. It’s a glimpse my mind took into the life of someone else, a sudden window into a stranger’s heavy moment.
Wherever they are now... I find myself wondering if they are doing okay.
Basheera Ohuni Abdulsalam
Visual Artist, Writer, Dreamer.