Live

   She found the ink stamp in her child's toy box.  She had no idea how it had got there.Time stopped still for a moment, the way it does, when it seems like the very fabric of life, has been slightly altered.

     On the side of the stamp, the letters Live were spelt out. She had this feeling that it was a message just for her. It seemed to be pointing towards something, it was digging at something, that she had long ago buried.

   Since having the baby, life had changed so dramatically. She was so in love with that precious little spark of humanity.  She was so totally absorbed in that tiny little guys life, that everything else had been pushed to the side and was coming a very poor second.

    Her life appeared perfect, too perfect maybe. Sometimes whilst he was asleep, she'd feel so alone, an aching for company aloneness. She spent so much time focused on him, that it left meager time for anything else.

    The only relief she had from her house-hold duties, were a few brief hours after Dinner. She would sit and watch television with her husband Adam. When she spoke it was usually, Jeremy did this and Jeremy did that and then it would be time bed. For who knows how long. Sometimes 2 hours and sometimes 4-5, but he'd rarely sleep through. 

     She'd named him after her Father, a man she was only just getting to know, before fate and a heart attack had gotten in the way.

    Sometimes whilst Jeremy was napping, she would catch her mind's inane wanderings and wonder to herself, if there was something else to life. Something she'd missed.

   She stamped the ink stamp down on the back of an old bill.

    The letters spelt out in bright blue ink, Live. Live, the word pierced her consciousness and tugged at her, for its attention.

     She wondered at the mystery. Her mind busied itself with various scenarios, as she stared out the handprint smeared, sunlit window.