THE LAST KISS

Nick Flynn

The Queen, asleep in the forest, her body laid out on a stone slab. Moonlight on her cheek, the blanket that covers her is blood-red. A willow weaves a mottled canopy of dark above her.

This, like many fairy tales, centers on a kiss.

If the Prince finds her in time he can wake her, but he is unsure which path to take—maybe the ravens have (once again) eaten all the breadcrumbs. If he gets there too late then she will never wake up.

The moral, if there is one, is that there really is no way to know when something—anything—that you do everyday, or even something you’ve done only once, will turn out to be the last time. The cup you drink your coffee from each morning—your favorite cup—is already broken. If you can think of the cup this way then you will, perhaps, hold onto it more tightly. Perhaps you will appreciate each moment you still have with it until it does, finally, forever, break.

Everything is already broken.

The kiss that comes to mind, if asked, is the last kiss I gave my mother—it rises up, unbidden. It’s dusk, she’s upstairs, lying in her bed, coming out of—or going into—another migraine. It’s just after Thanksgiving, I’ve come home for a few days for the holiday. I’m living outside of the house by now, finishing up my junior year at college. My mother is still young—forty-two, still beautiful, still desired—young enough to start over. Her boyfriend’s been in jail for a couple years now (he got caught smuggling drugs). He’s up for parole in a month, but while he’s been away she’s been seeing someone else. I’ve been out with friends, likely getting high in our cars in the Peggotty Beach parking lot—these days I am always getting high. I’m home now to say goodbye, to let her know I’m about to get on my motorcycle and push on, ride back up to school. I climb the stairs to her bedroom. The lights are off, a tiny orange bottle of white pills within reach. Her eyes are closed, her blanket is red, her skin alabaster—maybe she’s a little high herself, or a little hungover. The Queen is in pain, maybe mortal pain. If she doesn’t open her eyes she might never open them, the Prince knows this, he’s been wandering this forest his whole life, the breadcrumbs all eaten. The Prince leans over her face, as he had done so many times, to whisper the words that will keep her there, only the words don’t come, or they come out wrong. Can I get you anything? The voice coming out of him (see you soon) doesn’t even sound like him. Kiss her, it murmurs & so he does & her eyes open & the spell, for that brief moment, is broken.