Powder (Wo)Man

Chapter 1

I had no intention of living past the age of 30.

 I had come to that resolution quite early on in my life. I wasn't particularly suicidal in any sense, nor did I see death as some large theatrical closure to life. In fact, I recall the exact moment I came to that resolution. It was the time I sat by the hospital bed of my dying grandfather. My parents had left us alone, most likely believing that we would have some deep conversation or connection in those final moments of his. That never came to be. My grandfather and I were never distant, but we were never close either. We spoke briefly about school, friends, his condition in the hospital, before a thick silence crept over us, and I took a particular interest in the floor.

     Eventually my grandfather did break the silence, causing me to pull myself away from my current study of the floor to him. He spoke softly, gently, but not to me. He wasn't even facing me, but rather, the rectangular window next to him, overlooking the grassy entrance of the hospital, a small street that ran parallel to the lawn, and past that, in the distance, a small vacant playground. "A lot or grey cars today..." he said. I didn't take notice to the colors of the cars passing by his window, neither did I bother to look. I simply nodded respectfully. I stayed there a few minutes more, before my parents appeared in the room and said it was time to leave. The image of my grandfather as I was leaving the room did stay with me however. Alone, fragile, lost in the world beyond the window, his attention no longer on this world but one that existed somewhere in his subconscious.

It dawned on me later on that I would soon become like my Grandfather. Death was not exclusive to anyone. One day it would be me in a hospital bed, or in a retirement home, too weak to even move my limbs and too frail to even get up. This thought, for lack of a better word, frightened me, and so, I resolved that my death would come either before or at 30. Somewhere during my prime. An odd resolution, but I never much shared my thoughts with anyone, so there was no one to question me. Of course, this was more of a subconscious thought, rather than a continuous one.

It wasn't until I graduated high-school that my thoughts on life and death began to change.

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My transfiguration began on a cold February morning, years ago from today. Back then Spring was always cold; the winters seemed to keep quite a tight, suffocating hold over the climate, one that they refused to let go. For someone who was had been jogging for most of the morning, it wasn't exactly the most ideal weather. I'm not sure if that town changed much after I had left it, but I do know that those winters still keep their hold.

"You're zoning out again." said Amelia.

I paused and came to a slow stop, both to catch my breath and to properly answer back to her assumption. "I'm fine...just focused." I said, placing my hands on my hips. She slowly came up, breathing heavily herself.

"Well loosen up, you're slowing us both down." We both chuckled at the thought. I nodded, looking from the ground up to her.

"Well early morning jogs aren't exactly something I'm used to." I replied in between breaths. She kicked her shoes lightly, before smiling and looking down the road.

"Well, you should have thought about that before you agreed to do this with me..." She said as she turned to lightly punch my shoulder."C'mon..." She said, already jogging past me. "We still have a lot of ground to cover. " I shook my head from one side to the other, and followed her.

I met Amelia in the summer of 2012. I was unlike most young boys my age, and she was unlike most young girls. Our mutual strangeness brought us together and as a result we had been friends ever since then. She had convinced me that day to go out on a jogging run, which I hated, but I knew better than to go against Amelia when she changed her mind.