future, tense
we will get there
Sometimes the world disappoints us, tears our expectations down to bones that quake at the uncertainties the future promises. Sometimes darkness doesn’t seem to end at dawn but like a fog cascades into a contaminated daylight. Sometimes every wish becomes a lying fantasy of a life that never will be lived. Sometimes we believe the fiction that nothing can be what we want, nothing can be what we desire, believe, yearn for.
But all the time the day ends, and the darkness ebbs, and every time the light is there, behind our eyelids and beyond our grasp, for now, while it feels like a taunt, an insulting fleeting glimpse that seems to be there just to make the dark feel colder; we cannot see what’s there.
What’s there is the void we fear. What’s there is the uncertainty, the pain of discovery. What was will not be again. But as surely as it was there is brightness out there, beyond the now, beyond the moment of despair, there we will find it. And finding it and feeling its embrace we will know it was there, drawing us to it even as we were sure we had fallen forever.
In darkness it beacons, not lighting our way as we so badly want, not holding us close as we so need to be held. It has a permanent patience, a small stance, a real resilience. Not flashy, but full, not gone but not gentle, the future is there, and we will be too. Not knowing when, nor how soon, nor if we can bare it, but we will be there, and only then will the edge of the storm mock us from memory declaring our despondency more fleeting and false than we knew.
The future isn’t waiting for us. We are flying to it as we stand still. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.
© Copyright February 5, 2025, David August, all rights reserved davidaugust.com
David August is an award-winning actor, acting coach, writer, director, and producer. He plays a role in the movie Dependent’s Day, and after its theatrical run, it’s now out on Amazon (affiliate link). He has appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live on ABC, on the TV show Ghost Town, and many others. His artwork has been used and featured by multiple writers, filmmakers, theatre practitioners, and others to express visually. Off-screen, he has worked at ad agencies, start-ups, production companies, and major studios, helping them tell stories their customers and clients adore. He has guest lectured at USC’s Marshall School of Business about the Internet.
