~~~
Sixteen years had passed since Jim’s eighteenth birthday—the day he decided not to press restart on his life.
Now thirty-four years old, Jim had moved on in his life. He had married in his late-twenties, though it did not last long and he was divorced soon after. He had married a woman who had pressed restart three times before. An odd choice for him, he had thought, but Jim gave it a shot anyways.
The couple never had children, an issue that Jim would argue was one of the main reasons for the split. He had contemplated having children, but in the end decided that he did not want to bring children into the world that it was now. He did not want to be the reason that another person had to make the choice of pressing restart. It was too difficult of a decision to force someone else to have to make. His ex-wife, though, had different ideals.
Another reason for their divorce was the lack of a connection with his ex-wife. For that matter, he had never felt a connection with any woman he had ever been with. Not like the one he had felt with Kira.
Every relationship Jim had with a woman ended the same way—it came back to Kira. It always came back to her. No matter what he did, and no matter what he tried.
Jim had never forgotten about Kira, but he had never sought her out or tried to find her. She would be sixteen years old now, well into her new life. She would now be the age that she was when Jim had first met her, and she was just two years away from having to make the decision of whether or not she would press restart on her life for the second time.
Because of her age, Jim had been thinking more and more about Kira. Now being the same age as when he met her, he thought about her more and more. She would now be just as he always pictured her to be in his mind.
He wondered if she had found someone new. He wondered if her new life was what she had hoped for in her previous life, though she would not know it even if it was, having no memory of her previous life.
It’s not that Jim longed for Kira—though he certainly missed her since they said goodbye sixteen years earlier—but he wondered if she was happy. He wondered if she still felt the fear she had felt before—he still certainly felt the nostalgia for what they once had. And he wondered if he would ever see her again. He thought about this nearly every day now. Maybe he would run into her and he would be able to see with his own eyes that she was now doing fine.
With it being sixteen years since he had decided not to press restart, Jim paid a visit to the place that he had spent much time—the bench. Though just a bench, and somewhere that he and Kira had come upon happenstance, it had now come to mean something.
The bench was the place Kira had told him that she was going to press restart. It was the place where he and Kira had said their final goodbyes before parting. It was the place Jim had sat as the final hours ran out before he could no longer press restart on his own life. And he had visited this spot many times over the years. It was a place that flooded his mind with memories of his past, sending him into mixed emotional states every time he sat there.
It looked different than it had sixteen years earlier. The garden across from the bench was overgrown and the trees throughout the park were much larger, its branches reaching far beyond what they once did. The bricks on the low stone wall that surrounded the garden were showing their age, the once clean white bricks now a discoloured yellow. A large crack ran up the pillar towards the clock that hung below the globe light. The wooden bench Jim sat upon was splintered and rickety. But despite all of this, to Jim, it still felt the same.
Not only did Jim want to visit this spot because of the day, but because he had a feeling about today. He felt good.
Jim had always felt a connection with Kira, a kind of energy that he could feel in the air. But that energy suddenly disappeared when Kira pressed restart. Recently, Jim had begun to feel the energy once more, a sensation he had come to forget. He could now tell that Kira was back, and she wasn’t far.
As he sat on the bench and looked around, Jim scanned the faces of those that passed by. He sat there, watching the people move through the park, hours passing. As the sun moved through the sky and it began to lower, darkness began to creep into the park.
Suddenly, from the corner of his eye, Jim saw a flicker of light. He turned to look towards the garden. The globe atop the pillar that the clock hung on had lit up, its yellow glow shining surprisingly brightly, bringing light into the darkening park.
Another brief moment passed when finally, at long last, Jim saw her. After sixteen years of living off of memories, there she was.
Kira was walking hand in hand with a boy her age, a wide smile on her face, as happy as Jim had ever seen her. They playfully bumped each other, laughing loudly. The picture before him was very reminiscent of when he was sixteen years old and was with Kira. She looked exactly the same as she had back then.
Jim felt wonderful as he watched. Not only to see Kira again after all these years, but to see that she was happy.
If Jim had learned anything over the last several years, it was the importance of living in the now. What was will often feel better than what is or what will be, Jim had always known. But he had only recently learned the importance of appreciating every moment as he lived it.
The now is not just about preparing for what will be. It’s about taking in what’s around you at every moment and living in the present. One day, the memories of now may be all you have.
And Jim enjoyed the now. He watched as Kira passed by. Kira turned and looked in Jim’s direction. They locked eyes, Kira pausing momentarily, a look appearing on her face as though there was something familiar about the man looking back at her. But she dismissed the thought before smiling politely his way. After this fluttering moment, she continued on and disappeared from sight.
In this moment, Kira was clearly no longer afraid. The fear she had felt sixteen years ago was gone. She was happy. And Jim was happy, too. He knew that wherever Kira might go from there, and whatever decisions she might make in the future, he hoped that she would forever be as happy as that moment right now.
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About the Author
Aidan Sisk is an independent Canadian author. He graduated from the University of Regina with a Bachelor of Human Justice degree. He published his first e-book, the non-fiction Surviving University: An Introduction to Post-Secondary Education, in 2015. 2016 marked the publication of 2:34, Aidan’s first fiction publication. Press Restart is Aidan’s first published short story.
Other Works by the Author
Surviving University: An Introduction to Post-Secondary Education
2:34
Connect with the Author
Get in touch with Aidan Sisk on the following platforms:
AidanSisk.com: https://www.aidansisk.com
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Twitter: https://twitter.com/aidansisk
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