100 Theme Challenge #44

44. Young

To be young is at first a gift freely given, but rarely acknowledged; a state of living and mindless tries and fails. The best could be discovered by getting lost. Booze, party, sex, daydreaming were part of everyday. They were the babies of the society, still learning to walk without falling; still learning to learn. A young one wouldn't realize how their body was sacred until it began decaying, until it turned against itself, and not a single day would pass without pain and suffering. Sometimes memories would be the only thing keeping one sane, for feelings and colors weren't as dull and corroded by hurt. Life would become nothing but a dull blade.

Charlotte was living in a retirement pension on the West Coast of the United States of America. The sounds of the beach near her home reminded her of her youth. Bright, blue sky, the sound of the waves crashing against her calves, modest swimsuit itching as sweat poured down between her shoulder blades. She liked to sit under a beach umbrella and watch people around her, mostly young ones. Looking at them, so filled with joy and vivacity, she felt at peace, and for a moment, she'd forget her family wasn't there for her anymore and that she needed to rely on a catheter for her body not to infect itself. Her soul felt old most of the time, life tasted ashy and rotten like the food they offered at the cafeteria. Each day she'd watch the friends she had at the pension fall into delirium, afraid to realize that yes, that was life now. Shitting on themselves and having a bath once a month if lucky. She grew accustomed to the smell of death, the heavy pot-pourri parfume not even able to hide the dead corpses' found in the morning.

Sometimes children would visit them to entertain them, singing silly songs, which only helped Charlotte to remember everything she had lost, what she regretted most. She would never see her grandchildren again, but she couldn't even remember if she had any in the first place. Her children had dumped her in that pension and disappeared God knew where with the last of her money. But did she have any money left? Yes, she thought after a moment, her husband had given her quite a good sum at his death. He had left her a few years earlier from a heart attack.

The worse of it all was the knowledge, the vivid knowledge, that life and memories were slipping of her hands, and there was nothing she could do to alter her own decay. Her loss of reality was more often, and only the warmth of the sun on her face and the smell of the sea could help her grasp glimpses of laughter in the depths of her mind, round cheeks hurting from smiling, grey eyes gazing tenderly at her… And she sat each day at the beach, waiting for her turn, for there was nothing else for her but to mourn her youth.

(What is 100TC?)