How to Save a Life

A life is a spark is a light, the flame flickering in the wind and dancing as your breath whispers across the wick, fragile and beautiful and oh-so-ephemeral. Life is not forever; it ends, gets cut short, the tape ejected from the VHS player as the newer generations of DVDs and Blu-rays spin on in their compact players, the movie of their lives lasting longer than yours ever could have thanks to modern technology, modern medicine increasing the storage space in the newer models. You can’t help that you were born in a time long gone, can’t help that you’re obsolete compared to the newest foot soldiers in life’s great army. No one chooses when to be born, we get what we get, and we are new and shiny and exciting until the next round of children are created, their needs more immediate than our own. You’ll start to waste away, dying slowly and painfully of neglect that no one realizes they’re committing, leaving you to care for yourself even if you aren’t ready. But I might have the cure, might have a way to save you, if you’re willing to let me try.

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There was something about living in a neighborhood like this one that made a person wish for a lot of things that they knew would never actually happen. The houses were old, siding dingy and painted wood window-trim peeling. They were probably very beautiful when they were new, but now they were nothing more than crumbling monuments to the past, the outsides finally giving up their pretenses of happiness to reveal the ugliness and stress that lay within. Everything was close in this neighborhood, the houses nearly touching in some spots.

One such spot