Feeling Life

“You started to feel life, don’t you?” Arline interjected.

The ringing of her cellphone snatched Arline’s attention away from her computer. Glancing at the phone to her left, she read the caller’s I.D., then let it ring a few more times before connecting, “Yes, Carla.”

“I need a job,” Carla, her older sister, said at the end of the line.

Surprised, the phone slid from Arline’s grasp and hit the carpet. Shock held on for a few more seconds as Carla called out, “did you hear me?”

Reaching for her phone, Arline grabbed it, saying, “Say what?”

“I need a job?” she repeats.

“You are almost sixty. You didn’t want to work when you were younger and have body parts that stood still. You are older and have body parts that need crutches to stand up. Now you want a job?”

“What body parts do I have that need crutches?” she threw back.

“I’ll leave that to your imagination. But still, I can’t help you,” Arline said.

Carla sighed, then begged, “Can you at least recommend me when I find one?”

“You are serious!” Arline let out.

“It’s time I help myself,” Carla released.

“You started to feel life, don’t you?” Arline interjected.

“Yes,” she admits. “And it hurts. I have achieved nothing in all of my fifty-eight years on this planet.”

“Well,” Arline shared. “Some of us feel life early, live and do the right things. Others . . . .”

Carla cut in, “Like me, take so long to feel it. We live a life without a purpose or meaning. And when we start feeling, we end up fighting life at an old age. Why me?”

“You are asking the wrong person,” Arline said.

“Who should I ask?”

“Life!”

I know many people who just live without feeling life’s real meaning and value.

They missed life, real love, and happiness. When they started feeling life and its components, they were too old to enjoy it because they must fight life to survive. With youth, a fight for life is easy.

Can you feel life?

Thank you for reading this piece. I hope you enjoy it and savor more from some brilliant writers on this platform.