NOM DE PLUME

!ISSUE IV SPRING 2016

CREATIVE WRITING CLUB !!!!!!!!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!The sole responsibility for the content of this publication lies with the authors. Its contents do not reflect the opinion of the University Students’ Council of the University of Western Ontario (“USC”). The USC assumes no responsibility or liability for any error, inaccuracy, omission or comment contained in this publication or for any use that may be made of such information by the reader

!!!!!!!NOM DE PLUME

ISSUE IV SPRING 2016 !

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Lindsay Tranter

!EDITING COMMITTEE

Diego Gonzalez Jenny Ge Joan Lee Liz Hrib

Meg Desmond Michelle Chan Wah Rayna Abernathy

Tabitha Chan !

COVER ART Corry Faulkner

!LETTER FROM THE EDITOR !!!!Dear Reader, !It is with great pleasure that I present to you the 2015-2016 issue of the Creative Writing Club’s journal Nom de Plume. Included in this issue are poems, short stories, photography and artwork created by amazing undergraduate students at Western University. I hope you enjoy reading these submissions as much as we did compiling them. !

Best regards, Lindsay Tranter

Editor-in-Chief !!!!!

CONTENTS POETRY: 1. 1327-1344 Adam Mohamed 25. Stay Jayce !SHORT & NON-FICTION 2. It Blooms From the Dark Marjorie Quinne 8. Phospherescent Cassandra Hunter 11. Plus Sign Brenna Pinckard 18. To the Moon and Back Helen Ngo 28. When Life Calls Alero Ogbeide !ART & PHOTOGRAPHY 7. Photography Keira Lindgren 24. Casual Philosophy: Internalised Aestheticism JM Glatt 34. Untitled Artwork Corry Faulkner !!!!!!!

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1327-1344 By: Adam Mohamed

and I’ll be waiting

and I’ll be waiting

for promises never made.

She said, after such a blimp

of time, we’d band back

thickening against each other;

!that we’d flick the stars

scoring skies in a game of marbles—

destiny loitering back and forth.

!I flayed truth from flesh

for something further, inner;

Petrarch waited the weight of a life.

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It Blooms From the Dark By: Marjorie Quinne

He's not really like anyone you've ever met before; well, that's only a half

truth. The kind you tell yourself because you're trying to remember that he's

best friends with your cousin. The same cousin you consider a brother.

They look at each other like brothers, too. Brothers in arms. Soldiers.

They've both seen war, seen the horrors that come with the sand and gunfire

and smoke. Then one day returned to a life of bills and Sunday dinners and

Thursday beers like nothing was ever different.

It took Tuck a while to adjust when he first got back. To not drop at the sound

of the cupboard door slamming or to rise before the sun because the darkness

was safe.

So you kind of get it—the way his best friend will stare off into space, past

you and through you all at once, before coming back, those blue, blue eyes

harsh and cold like ice. But still, there's something different in the way the

stare melts when he realizes you're just you and not some mirage in the

desert.

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It's in the way he watches you when he thinks you're not looking and the way

he smiles when you ask him if he'll be staying for dinner. He's always around

lately and you're always cooking (because God knows Tuck would forget to

feed himself if you didn't), so it's assumed, but there's still a quiet kind of

spark there when you extend the invitation and a warmth inside your chest

that you still haven't been able to place.

He's older than you, only by a few years really, but sometimes those years feel

like canyons and gorges and all manner of great divides because the things

you see in his eyes scream horror and truth and you're not sure any person

alive should have that kind of insight into the world. But he does and it

intrigues you as much as it frightens you.

Sometimes he gets talking with Tuck, late after dinner, when they think you've

retired for the night. Those are the nights the whiskey goes back and forth

and the finger widths turn to inches, each swig chasing a tale of nightmares,

and you make the coffee extra strong in the morning because you know they'll

both need it.

There are demons that rattle around inside his head and sometimes he'll talk

of them. You always sit and listen, offering very little because you have no

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idea how to relate to the things he's seen, but the talking seems to help, and as

the weeks progress the conversations become longer, turning to other things

that you can comment on: likes, dislikes, the benefits of ricotta cheese in your

lasagna.

He asks you out after a few months of lingering glances and stolen touches.

There's a park nearby with an ice cream vendor that only opens its doors for

a few weeks in the summer. It's a little known secret, but he takes you there

and when the cones are gone he slips his hand around yours, eyes on his shoes

until he's certain that you won't pull away.

Then he smiles the kind of smile that crinkles his eyes and twists his lips into

something soft. Something from before the war and at the end of the evening

he walks you home (your actual home, not Tuck's where you crash more often

than not) and kisses you on your door step. It's cliché and would probably

induce an eye roll from your neighbours, but the truth is no one's ever kissed

you like this, with the kind of steady thrum that sets your skin on fire.

When he pulls away to whisper good night his breath is mint and chocolate

across your face and that's how you remember the kiss: soft and sweet.

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It starts like this, with quiet evenings spent on walks or at the movies or

beating Tuck at cards, but the evenings press into early morning and soon he's

there with you when you wake, arm tossed over his eyes to hide them from the

sun that peeks between your curtains.

You laugh at his groan and press a kiss to the tip of his nose because he hates

the mornings as much as you love them. When he cracks an eye to peek over

at you, a smile thinning across his face, you can see that the shadows that so

often haunted his eyes have faded and the scars of war are just that: scars,

reminders, but they no longer feel real he tells you.

Things are different now.

And they are.

So you get a cat: a motley little black thing with orange eyes and a limp, but

you've never shied away from taking in damaged souls, and together you feed

it and love it and it feels like a string of permanence etched between you.

Then there's suddenly coffee in your cupboard, even though you only drink

tea, and you wrinkle your nose at the smell, but he always does the dishes in

the morning so you let him enjoy his black sludge and you sip your

chamomile and the grin he gives you over the paper is teasing.

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When the brakes finally give out on the clunker you've been safeguarding

since college, he convinces you to get something more practical—something

safer. Maybe an SUV with lots of trunk space, he suggests. And the look he

gives you when he says it's a seven-seater speaks about a future together.

That's when you know you love him.

And you realize that love can bloom from the darkest of places, squeezing out

of tightly locked hearts and between ill-scarred fingers. It stitches and laces

these broken parts of him to you. And the lonely spaces inside your chest

brim with weight that feels right and whole all at once.

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Photography By: Keira Lindgren

Phosphorescent By: Cassandra Hunter

! A cloud of charcoal smoke puffs out of the exhaust; you try not to

breathe it in, but it makes your eyes water and a stray tear makes itself

comfortable along your lashes. As it pulls up in front of you, you try not to let

your pant legs splash in the puddle that sits to your right. Stamping your feet

gets any extra snow to let up off the sides of your shoes and you take the

small leap between the curb and the doors. Prying your fingers apart from the

desperate hold you have them in, you up-end the warm, slightly moistened

coins into the small machine, nodding to the driver and mumbling a rough

‘thank you,’ when offered a transfer.

Your fingers stiff and tingling with the chill, you rub them together, the

vehicle sputtering and coughing to life, merging into traffic without ease but

successfully. It’s late — other passengers are few and far in between and sleep

sits in some of their movements. Their eyes are cast downward, coats pulled

tight around necks and up to their ears, and as the bus shudders forward

hands fly to the metal poles at their sides, eyes widening with the sudden

precarious rocking of their tired bodies.

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You can’t see out the windows. Only the blurry colours that the lights

become, shadows that fall through the foggy glass and kiss your nose, cheeks

pink. Running chilly fingers through your pockets, you find the stray tissue

you shoved in there earlier in a moment of respect for the future. It feels

rough on the raw skin of your nostrils, but it does the job.

You let out a breath that stuck in your lungs and shakily move your feet

to a seat nearby. The rough texture of the material scratches against your

pant leg and you close your eyes, shutting them tight before breathing out

once more and begin to survey the people around you. They do the same, but

before your eyes can meet, one or more persons will shift theirs discreetly and

you imagine the silence to be the presence of the night. You are solitary, but

in the company of wanderers, caught in the moments of their lives where

they meet yours and you’ve become an entanglement of minutes together

that are far longer for some and shorter for others. They are full with the

tension of the night, you can feel it blow against your fringe and tap the tops

of your hands. You think, as you glance at a woman with a small child in the

seat next to her, small hands splayed out against the glass, that the eyes of the

night are fickle, full of thorns, but loving in its cold blending of life.

Phosphorescent, in the strokes of dying, breaths left of light, you close your

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eyes once more, the touch and go screeching brakes echoing between

passengers. And for that last second, you revel in the silence but for the

echoes, before you reach up with warmed fingers and pull on the tight cord,

the ding the last thing to speak in phosphorescence.

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Plus Sign By: Brenna Pinckard

It began with a bottle of cheap red wine. Its name was a French word though

I’m positive it was not made in France, and it tasted the way that candle wax

looks. I wouldn’t have drunk it usually, but it was a holiday gift from my

landlord, and since I had just lost my job three days prior, I wasn’t in the

position to disregard free alcohol.

Every time I pulled my glass from my lips, my face contorted into a

grimace at the heady, bitter aftertaste, and I think that’s why he noticed me. I

was at my friend Lisa’s cousin’s Christmas party, though Lisa herself was long

gone by this point, and I stuck around only for the fact that I had nothing

better to do and that the wine was starting to make me feel too lazy and

pleasant to move.

He was not particularly good-looking; in fact, his face was rather

inconspicuous, and as I try to conjure it up in my mind now, I can only

manage a vague outline – a single pale shape – but not any of the features.

Our conversation takes the same indistinct and un-detailed form in my

memory, as I can barely remember a single thing he said to me, aside from

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the initial, “Not much enjoying that wine, huh?” and the later taste of the

rum and coke he fixed me, so sweet that it lingered on my tongue until I

brushed my teeth the next day. I knew on some level that he was not really

interested in me and instead interested in what I could offer him, and vice

versa, but I was willing to keep sipping the saccharine drink and pretend

otherwise anyhow.

***

I awoke early the following morning, as I often do when I have too

much to drink; it was still dark outside, and the sky was lightless as I found my

way out of his apartment building and onto the city street. I was still vaguely

intoxicated then but I remember the way the streetlights cut across the nearly

desolate road and the cold pricking my bare arms and my confusion as I

rounded a corner only to find that I had no idea where I was. I wish I could

say that this sort of thing is not a regular occurrence for me; that I had never

been in a position such as this before; that at the very moment as I stared at

the unfamiliar buildings and barely recognizable street names, I felt a surge of

panic and shame and supreme disappointment in myself. But later when I

climbed into a cab and rested my forehead against the cool glass of the

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window and watched the blurring city move past, it’s lights like industrial

fireflies darting through the night in my semi-drunken vision, I realized that it

wasn’t an unsettling view, but simply a tired one.

I didn’t think anything more of the boy or that night during the next

few weeks, relegating the worthless experience to the back of my mind, until

now that I realize it has been eight days since the day I should have gotten my

period.

***

The problem becomes real when I decide to tell Lisa my concern, as

she is really the only person in my life that I think might listen. I met her at

work when I moved to the city last summer, and even after I got fired from

that job, we’ve managed to keep in touch. I don’t know what I expect from

her; maybe immediate sympathy, or at least her approaching the situation

with her typical logic and rational mind, but instead as I express the issue over

coffee, she simply gives me a deeply detached and vaguely annoyed look.

“God, Steph.” She says, as she brings her Styrofoam cup of black coffee

to her lips. “You need to fucking get your shit together.”

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I want to cry, but I know she is right, and so instead I just gently nod

and continue to pick at my muffin, the pastry crumbling in my fingers and

falling back onto the plate into even smaller bits. I ask her about something

else, changing the subject.

***

I look at ads for jobs as I wait, though as I scroll through them they

barely register. I am too anxious inside, my skin lined with a buzzing and

unforgiving fear. I tap my fingers on the side of my laptop, my eyes landing

on the time in the lower corner of the screen every few seconds, pupils flitting

back and forth.

Once I’ve seen that it’s been three minutes, I suddenly want to go back

to when I was waiting.

I get up and walk across the hall and into the bathroom where I left it.

It lays face up on the porcelain sink, as though it has been awaiting me and is

growing impatient. I step closer and look down. Two pink lines.

I do not scream or cry or laugh or do or feel anything, really. I just keep

staring at it, the lines getting blurrier and blurrier and seemingly less present

the more I watch.

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***

Later that night, I lay in my bed and as I try to sleep, the idea that I

must make some sort of decision assaults me. I sit up in the dark of my room

with the distinct urge to call my mom. That’s what a girl does in this sort of

situation, isn’t it? But then I think of last time we spoke nearly eight months

ago and how terribly it went and I wearily lay back down. I think of myself

stumbling in the door drunk at around six in the morning, the dogs barking

loudly at my arrival, her coming to the top of stairs clutching her worn pink

robe across her body. I watched her from below in a drunken stupor as she

informed me I was no longer welcome at home, that it was time for me to

move out. You can’t keep doing this to yourself and to me. Her face looked paper-

thin, and old, suddenly, as though more time had passed in that one night than

possible. I don’t think I said anything, but I obliged, and though it’s vague,

that’s the last memory of her I have.

As I lie there, I can sense the dangerous, self destructive spiral that my

life is constantly in, yet I feel helpless to do anything about it. I do not know

exactly when it began, or when it had so sharply escalated, but it has simply

become the way things are; become a sort of comforting routine. I am aware

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of it and what it has and does cost me. I’ve lost job after job, and tossed down

drink after drink, ultimately resulting in regret after regret. I know the

meaningless of this depressing pattern, so I’m not sure why there is this dully

pulsing desire inside of me to continue to repeat it.

***

I call my mom the next morning. There is no answer. So, I look up an

abortion clinic and make an appointment. I always knew it was the decision I

was going to make, though it would have been nice to discuss it, to probe at

other possibilities, to pretend I had a life worth bringing somebody else into.

***

When I walk out of the clinic, late January sleet obscures my vision and

mats my bangs to my forehead; a bitter chill bites through my beaten up

winter jacket. As I pull up my hood and walk towards the taxi the clinic made

me call, I expect I should feel as though I’ve lost something, or as though I am

un-whole suddenly, or perhaps I should feel regret. Instead, though, what I

feel is this deliberate and sharp sensation of lonesomeness. It is not a sad

feeling, nor an unwelcome one. Instead, the loneliness is accompanied by a

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whooshing feeling of relief, and a little bit of pride, but most of all, comfort in

its lovely familiarity.

I’m alone, I think to myself.

To celebrate, I wait the requisite two days, and then I buy myself some

cheap red wine.

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To the Moon and Back By: Helen Ngo

Dear Mama,

It is almost midnight as I am writing this to you, but I am too excited to sleep.

The city lights below are sparkling—dancing—tonight, and the moon is full

with promise. It is as if they, too, know that tomorrow is the day. I hope we

are watching the same sky tonight.

You would approve of my choice; of this I am certain. Christopher is good to

me. You would adore him. We met in my last month on exchange at Oxford,

when he asked to share my broken umbrella in the middle of an April

rainstorm. We skipped the rest of our classes that afternoon to share espressos

and spend hours talking, and now look at us. My friends back home thought

that I was being silly. You’re three thousand miles apart, they said. It won’t

last. He’ll forget you as soon as you leave, they said. But it did last, and he

most definitely did not forget. I suppose lightning has to strike somewhere.

When he asked me to marry him last February on the very coldest day of the

winter, I was over the moon. No part of me ever doubted the answer, and I

couldn’t be more excited that we would finally be starting our lives together in

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the same city. Even though we would both be busy settling in, I was not

worried. He is fiercely dedicated to everything he does, but he always finds

time for me. And Mama, he makes me a better person. Even Stephie likes

him. That’s something, isn’t it?

But then he got the call from the Red Cross. They asked him to join their

operation at their New Zealand headquarters—it has been his dream job ever

since he was a child. But they wanted him to move within twelve months. He

called me that night, afraid that I would call off the engagement if he said

yes. Mama, I know you’d never tell a soul, which is the only reason why I dare

to write the words... but a part of me truly wondered. I couldn’t leave Daddy

behind. I could not give up the life that I loved so dearly, even for the love of

my life.

The weeks that followed saw a lot of tears. Stephie also lost a lot of sleep over

midnight phone calls, staying up with me to go over the what-ifs, a million

times over. I couldn’t imagine life without a sister. I’d never tell, but sometimes

her wisdom makes me question whether I am the older sister, or if she is. I

remember the night we were sitting on the porch drinking tea, and she looked

up at the moon and asked, would Mama have wanted you to stay? I knew the

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answer instantly, though it took me a few more days to truly admit it. I finally

called Chris and promised that I would go with him—anywhere. He was

ecstatic, and I was so glad that I had never taken off the ring. Tomorrow,

there will be one more promise made.

In one month’s time we will be moving across the globe to New Zealand,

which will be a temporary home. Daddy has promised to visit as soon as he

can, and I am so excited to show him around. I already miss all sorts of things

about Canada, but I will miss our Sunday coffee dates more than anything

else. I never thought that I would be brave enough to move so far away from

home, but Chris brings out the adventure in me. I am afraid, but also excited.

I have never been so far.

I had always imagined planning these moments with you, though. Do you

remember the way we talked about the plans we had for the rest of our lives?

I used to think that there would be a moment when I realized that I was an

adult, but it never came. Instead, it crept up slowly. I was sixteen the year that

you were diagnosed; not a child, but not yet an adult either. That year, I made

the decision that I would become a researcher so I could fight for you, always.

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Honestly, Mama, when you were diagnosed, I only felt relief. That sounds

crazy, doesn’t it? But finally, we could put a name to the mysterious pain that

had haunted you for all those years. And the doctors were so bright; so

hopeful. Most patients live a normal lifespan, they said. I thought that

everything would be alright after the azathioprine and the chemotherapy. I

thought you finally deserved some happiness. I always wonder, if only. If only

we had figured it out earlier. If only it were fifteen years later. Would there

have been a cure? If only love could have saved you. If only.

Mama, you would be proud of us. Chris will be saving lives with the Red

Cross, and I have been granted a research fellowship with the university in

Auckland. They have offered me the chance to work in a world-class

rheumatology lab, where I will be studying under a very famous doctor who

treats autoimmune disorders—he is bright and enthusiastic, and while I won’t

jinx the chances, his team just might be onto something big. I am so lucky to

be joining them in September. Maybe, we might finally be able to find you

some answers. I will give it only my best.

I still worry about Daddy every single day. He loved you more than you could

ever know, and he only cried whenever he thought that I wasn’t looking. He

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still brings lilies for you every month, but I know you don’t need me to tell you

that. I am terrified to leave him behind. He promises that he will be alright

with me so far away, but I made Stephie promise to check up on him every

weekend.

Stephie will be the most beautiful maid of honor tomorrow. I have been lucky

to have her with me through ten crazy months of planning. Mostly, it has

been a roller coaster of tears and laughter—but what are sisters for? Though,

she does go a little overboard sometimes. She made the seamstress cry last

week when we found out that my dress wasn’t ready, and I had to go back the

next day and bring them cupcakes to stay on good terms before the wedding!

Oh, but she means well. Stephie always does.

She has already promised to visit New Zealand for the Christmas holiday.

Actually, I think she is more excited to take photographs with wallabies (and

flirt with handsome boys with Kiwi accents) than to see her big sister. But

don’t you worry, I will make sure that she does not get into any trouble.

I hope that you will dance with us tomorrow. You always said that I am one

of the lucky ones, and I finally know what you meant. As I walk down the

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aisle tomorrow with Daddy on the most beautiful day, I hope that you will be

smiling.

You don’t have to worry about me, Mama. I promise. All my love, now and

forever—

Annabelle

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Casual Philosophy: Internalised Aestheticism

By: JM Glatt

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Stay By: Jayce

For what it’s worth, I’d wish you’d stay because I won’t be the one to hold on.

Stay, because I am and you are.

Stay, because I know it would be worth it than the mere promises I have

emptied out of my pockets like change to a vending machine and even if

things are uncertain the way they are now, nothing is or will be and I think

that is lovely.

Stay, because not once did I have the courage to be so vulnerable as to brave

the unavoidable that someday I won’t be as happy as I am now, wrapped up

in my thoughts at 3 am for all I could think about is you and how your

laughter sounds like the rolling waves and how perfect it would be to drown

on your shores.

Stay, because I’d rather watch the fleeting sunrise with you by my side than

spend countless sunsets wishing you were.

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Stay, because I crave your warmth and I have been so cold for so long and no

cup of coffee can wake me up like your voice in the early hours of the

morning begging me to linger in your scent for a few more minutes.

Stay, because we’ve gotten this far and it’d pain me to loosen my grip on your

skin, slowly peeling off every fibre of me off of yours and what use would the

sky be if all I do is count my fingers and think of the stars upon your cheeks.

Stay, until I cannot take it anymore.

Stay, until I grow tired of breathing the same mixture of euphoria and regret

as I rue the day I laid my eyes upon your very soul and said to myself that you

were right for me.

Stay, until I look at you with disdain because I cannot stomach the words that

come out of my mouth like intricately strung words so carefully pieced

together as to cause my tongue to blister in my throat because you are more

than just every possible combination of all 26 letters of the alphabet.

Stay, until the nights turn into endless stretches of wakeful agony as our

bodies are intertwined underneath the same bedsheets, your head against my

chest so close to my heart you’d hear me scream.

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Stay, until our mornings become routine I’d dread the sound of the alarm

urging me to stop pretending that I still cared about the way your hair falls so

perfectly behind your back or how my lips somehow manage to find a space

on your shoulders in the dark.

Stay, until my wounds are no more than just the physical kind because you’d

have taught me how to swallow them down like sleeping pills and rest easy

under heavy sedation and I stop feeling the scars itching against my clothing.

Stay, until you can’t anymore.

Stay, because I don’t have the heart to say, “Go.”

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When Life Calls By: Alero Ogbeide

Sitting on the bed made his knees hurt. But then, everything hurt these days.

Ed held a picture of his son, John. His knuckles ached as he stroked the

graduation photo. He thought about how long it had been since he’d seen

that smile in real life and sighed. He didn’t have the heart to look at his and

Rose’s wedding photo.

As he lay his head down on his pillow, all he could think of was how

Life had plucked his loving family from him thirty years ago today.

He wiped the moisture from his eyes with old, wrinkled hands, the veins

in them creating bright blue rivers through his freshly drawn tears. He drew

in a deep breath. Even breathing was an effort.

Just as he was about to give in to Sleep’s sweet caress and offer of

oblivion, the phone rang.

His eyes shot open as his stomach pooled with dread. He reached for

the cordless phone, adrenaline making his body feel feather-light and full of

warm air.

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“Hello?” He paused. “You know I can hear you.” Just as he was about

to hang up, he heard the soft, velvety voice of a young woman on the other

end.

“Go to your front door.”

“What?”

“Go to your front door.”

“Who is this?” He slipped off his bed, and opened his bedroom door.

There was nothing but dark hallway.

“Just do it,” she replied. “Please?”

The stranger’s plea caught him off guard. He halted.

“Well?” The voice urged him. Surprised by her sudden vehemence, Ed

scuttled into the hallway as quickly as his aged legs would let him.

“Have you reached the door?” She asked.

“Yes, yes,” he said, expecting to be breathless from the jog down the

corridor but feeling surprisingly fine. Ed gasped as he turned on the light.

There, on his dark green carpet, were three envelopes.

“How did you get in my house?” He asked, peering at the seemingly

untouched lock. He hadn’t heard anybody knock on the door.

“Open the white envelope,” she prompted.

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“This isn’t a trick, is it?” He asked, even though something in her voice

made him believe that this was real.

“Just open it!”

“Who are you?” Ed tried again. He got no response.

“Fine,” he grumbled.

He inspected the envelope. It didn’t seem to contain anything

dangerous. It was just a flat, square envelope about the size of his hand:

nothing more.

“I’m opening it,” he said to the stranger. The stranger didn’t reply.

As he opened the envelope, a picture fell out. When he flipped it over in

his palm, his heart clenched.

It was a picture of himself, Rose, and their newborn son, John. His

throat tightened as he looked at his own bright, proud smile. The blue bundle

of blankets balled up in his arms with its fresh pink face slept soundly, and

Rose, who was sweaty and exhausted, still glowed with delight as both of

them gazed upon their precious baby boy.

“Where did you get this?” He stammered, swallowing repeatedly.

Thirty years and, still, it hurt just as much.

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“Open the blue envelope,” the stranger said. He did as he was told, too

caught up in his grief to bother thinking about the consequences.

In the long, rectangular blue envelope, two pieces of paper fell out. His

throat swelled as he recognized the hand-writing through the page.

“Rose,” he choked out.

Her beautiful cursive writing with its curly y’s and smiley faces and r’s

that looked like v’s because she wrote too quickly leaped out at him. His tears

fell onto the letter, leaving trails of ink where it ran down the page.

“Dear handsome: this is the first love letter I will ever write to you,” her letter

began, “But it certainly won’t be the last.” He flew through the letter, drinking in

every word as though it were his last lifeline, then squinted at the top of the

page when he’d noticed when it had been written.

“But we met—” Ed began to say.

“Look at the second letter,” she replied, right on cue.

He wiped his face furiously, too focused on reading the second letter to

question her exact timing.

“Dear Diary,” Rose’s second entry read, “I haven’t be able to stop thinking

about him all week. When he came up to the service desk, I couldn’t even breathe! If love at

first sight were real, I imagine it would feel something like this. His smile, the way his blue

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eyes shone when he looked at me, the messy brown hair under his work cap—he was so

handsome. I even wrote him a love letter, I’m so crazy about him. I don’t think I’ll send it

though. Or maybe I’ll give it to him on our wedding day. Who knows? A girl can dream. –

Rose.”

Ed clutched his face, his hands tearing through what little hair he had

left. The overwhelming grief he felt over their absence, his loss—it engulfed

him, making him fold onto the floor as sobs wracked his entire body, shaking

him down into the core of his soul. God, I love you both so much. I miss you, I miss

you, I miss you…

“Ed?”

He froze.

“How—how do you know my name?”

“Open the third envelope, the red one. Whenever you’re ready.”

Slowly, he picked himself off of his green carpet, expecting his bones to

creak and grind with the effort, but experiencing no discomfort.

“Whenever you’re ready,” she repeated.

The red envelope was hardly bigger than his palm. He tore it open. It

contained a tiny piece of paper with only two words on it:

It’s time.

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“Look up, handsome.”

As he tilted his head to the heavens, the world around him exploded

into a blinding swirl of bright light, and he felt nothing but lightness and

relief and all he could hear was this: “We’ve missed you, Dad.”

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Untitled Artwork

By: Corry Faulkner