My Last Words

My Last Words

By: Sarah Carter

I found him, in the gutter. His eyes, glazed over, and staring up at me. I now look down at him, and look at the details I missed at first glance; his fingers are now limp and spread apart, on his left hand there is a wedding band. The woman who put that on his finger will be weeping as she changes her status from 'married' to 'widowed' in her mind and in her heart, and to all of those who know her and of her. That same woman will have to tell their children, if they have any, how their father was killed. That same woman who kissed this man's now partially open mouth a thousand and one times. The way his jaw is hanging open, like before he died he could say anything-and he almost did- but now it's too late. He has since died and the tendons that once held his jaw shut have been cut loose by the knife that is death, and spilled his secrets out to no one in particular. But I heard. I heard his final cry for help as I stepped over the gutter that day, at first I was shocked and confused but now just the latter. I contemplate what to do now, I know I should call for the police, but I physically cannot. Instead I just think. Think about how quickley life can be taken, sometimes more quickley than it is given, how one day it will be me; either in the gutter, in a hospital bed, or deep in sleep. It doesn't matter. What truley matters is the fact that in our lives we do not get to choose when or how we die, whether it be a natural cause or at the hand of another man, but we do get to choose when and how we live. Because I found him on this dreary day, in that dreary gutter, his mouth hanging on his last words, I know that I won't need to have those last words- because I will speak up, because I won't be silent, because I will dance in the middle of the street in the pouring rain and sing until my heart is content, because I will find the oppertunities that life will offer and I will seize them. If anything, my last words will be spoken to myself, not just to anyone, congradulating myself on living the best life that I could live. Those will be my last words, what will yours be?