5 Minute Freewrite Day 398: Cracking Up

They say that love triumphs over everything. I’m not one of those.

Don’t think of me as just a bitter man, I’ve never denied the beauty and usefulness of love. But in all of my years alive, I’ve seen it die.

When my hair was still black, and I couldn’t reach the kitchen sink, my family and I lived in a small house in the quiet part of the city. A mother, a father, and three childs of which I was the youngest.

We lived well for a while, because we were happy, refugees and inmigrants that finally found peace after so much war. Things were nice even though money wasn’t abundant, but after a while, past traumas and unsolved desires thought dead resurfaced.

Now the family that laughed so much at adversity discussed more than it celebrated, and everyone cared more for filling a bank account and having stuff. Even the child whose first big celebration had been finally helping mom wash the dishes.

Time passed and each one went their ways. Last time us siblings saw each other was in our mother’s funeral. We stood silent, and I saw the walls of the old house cracking.

Now I’m the last, just remembering, counting the many wounds in the old house walls. It will soon be demolished, and with it, only I will be left to remember the dusty and almost forgotten love of a dead family. I laugh, bitter and sweet, and I found myself cracking up at old jokes that no one would get nowadays.