Short Story by Steven Benjamin Short fiction Genre: Drama "The Route of '81" There and back and gone, to a forgotten place…
I had to be somewhere, but I forget where. What I remember is standing on a stone or marble walkway looking out at the mountain vista thinking to myself ‘I mustn’t forget the scarf’ – why that scarf… because I bought it for her. She only wore it once, but she liked it. She liked it so much, enough to leave it behind on her seat at the restaurant that same evening. She only remembered it when we got back to the room. I went back for it. That’s what I did. What bothered me as I stood there on the walkway thinking back, was why I hadn’t noticed it was missing earlier. If not for that damn scarf, things might’ve turned out very differently… loose ends I suppose. And then, as if on cue, a stiffly breeze wafted across me, even raising the lapel of my coat. As I was looking down at the offending lapel I felt a tap on my right shoulder but when I looked, no one was there, so I looked left, and there she was, smiling at me, shaking her head that I fell for that silly trick again. ‘You ready to go?’ I checked the view again and shook my head, but my feet started walking. Her smile widened. As we strolled down the path, glancing back a silent goodbye at the mountain retreat, I said ‘This is where I ask you where we’re going? But I know you won’t answer me, not properly anyway.’ ‘Then don’t ask.’ ‘Okay, I haven’t. So now that you know that I haven’t asked what I wanted to ask, what would your response to my non question be.’ “Didn’t I just give it?” ‘No. You gave the response you would’ve given if I had asked. Or you responded to what my question would’ve been, not to what it is.” She thought for a moment, narrowed eyes, then shook her head at me being silly. “That, I’m proud of you,” she said as I opened the car door for her. And as she tucked her dress in and reached for the door handle she continued, “and concerned. You’re gonna drive yourself crazy thinking so much about what we don’t say… or say about what we haven’t said.” I closed the door and walked round to the driver side, stealing a last deep look at where we were, and the winding road through the narrow valley into which we were about to descend. I got behind the wheel beside her. “Drive myself crazy? You’re the one driving me crazy.” She was smiling broadly at that, clenching her thumb nail between her teeth, though her gaze was taken by the view out of her window. I took a deep breath as I watched her a moment, before starting the car… We drove in silence for a few minutes, punctuated only by the sounds of the old car, a faint creek from the rear suspension, the tires struggling to hold the road on the twisty hairpin bends. ‘That place is nice,’ I said, ‘but it needs an update. Still feels like its stuck in the 50’s.’ ‘That’s why I like it’ she said. ‘I hope it stays that way. I know it won’t, but I hope they keep a fair bit of it. It’ll never be like it used to.’ I stole a glance at her for as long as I could manage before the road tore back my attention. ‘That’s why I rented this car. I just pray it makes it down the mountain. She’s a beauty, but she needs a little love and affection to restore some of her tired parts.’ Silence again, as we negotiated a few more grand bends in the road, the joy of the drive made rather perilous by the sheer drops down into the valley below. A chill crept up my arm from my hand which was clutching the gear lever as I felt her cold hand upon mine. I glanced at her briefly. She was staring at our hands and then her gaze lifted to the road ahead. ‘We’re going to a friend. That’s all I can say. You don’t know her. I haven’t seen her in years, and if I’m honest, I don’t even know if she’s even there. She’s from before I met you.’ Her voice had changed, and I could sense there was more to come. ‘I’ll ask some things of you that will be difficult to understand, as I have done till now. Hopefully in time I’ll be able to explain it all.’ We drove, chatting about life, like most couples. Stopping at the rest stops, taking pictures with the windup Kodak camera I bought before the trip. My favourite photo was almost a throwaway shot, one taken in between all the smiles and posing, among all the spanning shots of the way we’d come, and the shadows that the clouds made upon the mountain slopes. No, my favourite was one where I’d just pulled the camera out as I scanned the landscape before me at the last lookout spot, before we’d merge with the valley below… but I didn’t take the shot. I peeked through the viewfinder and felt nothing for it, so I lowered the camera to my chest and turned to look back. She was leaning against the front end of the silver Sebring, holding her elbows, looking down as she leaned back on her heels so her toes were off the ground. I couldn’t tell if she was looking at her toes in her sandals or at the ground between her feet, thinking of something else. That’s when I took the shot. She didn’t hear the click as a slight breeze blew by the lookout, ruffling her hair a little. Her expression in that photo would forever remain as she was, elusive.
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Short Story. "Land of False Memory" - Fantasy - by Steven Benjamin * -
We’d been traveling for days, I don’t remember how many, before we found the old man. I only call him old because he was the oldest of us there, but it was mostly in his ways, capped off with his dark brown handlebar moustache. He sometimes wore an old woolen cap to keep away the chill from his greying sparsely-haired head. But he was strong; perhaps the strongest of us, because he’d lived in these lands and climbed these crags and mountains many times. But he needed help, help from us, to get him to a place where he’d remember. A day or two of aimless wondering through the cold wilderness followed, before we finally found a clearing. The old man led us to the far end of the clearing and then squinted up at the steep slope. He rubbed his arms and then grunted. He left us all behind, striding swiftly, hugging himself against the cold, his legs pumping as he climbed. He must’ve given his coat to one of the women in the team… all he had on was a dark trousers and an old pullover, tattered at the edges. We were left looking at each other, and then watching the figure move, without rest, up the slope with his hulking shoulders leaning into the breeze. Eventually we followed up after him. A while later we came up behind him. He was almost lying down on the ground, poking his head up over the jagged rocky ridge every now and then before hunching down again. He was busy. He felt us coming, hearing our footfalls behind him. “I need to draw it,” he said, scanning the landscape peeking over the ridge again. He’d spread a large white paper on the ground, pinned in the corners with rocks, and was sketching a fairly decent image of what he saw, using a piece of charcoal and dirt. Some time later, with the group huddled together for warmth, he got to his knees and squinted up at me, then back over the ridge, nodding. The sun was setting in the far horizon, the rays reaching below the cloud cover, casting his face in a burnt orange glow. “I remember now,” came his raspy voice. “I have to draw it to remember it.” He blew his warm breath onto his dirty fingers, rubbing his hands together and them tucking them under his arms as he got to his feet. I don’t remember much more of that night or the next morning... what I do remember is like a puzzle, the blank parts filling in as I think about it more, winding the clock back, seeing things I didn’t consciously notice when in the moment. I remember we’d descended into the valley, coming down from the dragon’s back-like ridge into the rising mist. By afternoon the mist had cleared and there was only this odd hazy steam. We found ourselves at the river’s edge, though it was scarcely a river as the water wasn’t moving. Maybe it was a river once upon a time, but now it was more like a stagnant toxic culvert. The ground and rocks at the edges of the slope, where the earth fell away to the steamy liquid below, was a scorched pale tan colour. In the fresh sunlight at certain angles the surface of some of the rocks reflected a rainbow colouring. The chemical rich liquid was undoubtedly heated by natural underground geysers. It was a strange place that looked dead, but felt dangerous and alive. A place that sought to claim those who ventured in. It was only meant to be a fill-up stop, but something caught my eye. It wasn’t noticeable in the normal way, but just something I picked up on as we rolled into the small dusty town of Moorn. We crossed the single lane rusty iron bridge which passed over a humble river gorge, home only to a steady stream which no doubt became a flowing river in the winter months. After filling up at the only petrol station in sight, and asking the attendant in the small kiosk about any local restaurants, I noticed something else – without actually realizing it.
I speak of things caught in your periphery. In my case it happens often, even more so on long journey’s, maybe because we’re looking for them and our minds are more winsome to change, reaching out at the glimpses within our path. So these hints waft about in my subconscious all in their own time. But as I fetched these small oddities, not immediately understanding why they aroused suspicion or interest, they found their way together in a corner of my mind, garnering a more assured patina of intrigue. We arrived at a local house, courtesy of the slow talking kiosk attendant, just a little ways off the main road, noted as “main” because it was only one lavished with asphalt. It was an old place, like most in its company, built of large stone bricks. It was guarded by a chicken wire fence held up by thin ageing wooden poles, restraining a well maintained front garden with what seemed like the greenest patch of grass on the street. We later learned it was because of a borehole on the property. Purple and white flowers were in bloom in the midday sun, much to the pleasant distraction of my favourite lady, Ina. After passing by a sun-bleached signboard we strolled down the short pathway to the gaping front door which stood open beyond a generous stone paved veranda which accommodated two small tables for patrons. A middle-aged lady in an old house coat, fanning herself with a pamphlet, emerged from the house and ushered us to one of these tables saying it was way too hot to sit inside. So there we sat, beneath the corrugated iron overhang waiting for a humble meal. As colourful as the homely concierge-cum-waiter-cum-house owner appeared, offering us a selection of homemade jams and honey at country-town prices, it wasn’t hard to spot the odd something brewing beneath the surface of this rustically genteel woman who proclaimed herself as Merlene. It seemed like a routine she offered to all her guests as if she was building up to something, before she revealed the would-be gem in the concert of her hospitality. It came after our meal and amidst the serving of our tea. To our mild surprise she’d brought a silver tray with three cups, setting it down with practiced grace. She then pulled a chair from the adjacent table to join us. She spoke half in a hushed tone, or at least quieter than her usual vocal tenor, and inquired if we were here about “our river”. All three of us exchanged looks. I kindly mentioned that we had noticed that there was indeed a river, but that we’d never heard of it, although I added my vague observations that it was, in its own way, distinctive. Merlene’s eyes narrowed and for a moment I thought I’d said the wrong thing or that my vague detective work was lost to her. But then she nodded curiously, “Why, because there’s no plants?” Flash Fiction: This (short) story is an 'interview'. It came about through two completely unrelated character sketches I was playing with... also, I was toying with character cliches. Titles I considered were 'Oceans, sketches & Sway', 'The Immortal tides'... He had a weather beaten look, like life had flung him across icy oceans, then dragged him down to the depths in mere moments, before the waters finally raised him against some craggy beach where the sun and wind had dried his skin, but where the saltiness remained. His wispy hair and gaunt, lined face seemed like more of a sketch than a real man. His movements were deliberate too; his hands moving like those of time itself. Have you ever been married? I heard myself say, trying to restart the conversation, which felt like trying to get a steam engine back on the rails. His eyes moved across my general vicinity as though they were lazily and haphazardly rummaging around, and casually assigning relevance to whatever he saw. Eventually his chapped lips parted, and a whisper snuck out. It sounded something like “… always” There was something different about his eyes. It was not a sparkle that one would liken to excitement, no. This was dimmer, like a flame, or glowing ember. There was a hint of warmth to his shifting stare. Somewhere, somewhere deep, a few memories were dancing around each other, coming into focus as they neared on whatever distant dance floor they were held. This was enjoyment of a different kind, like he’d rediscovered an old bottle of whisky, and had proceeded to study the label, despite knowing it by heart. He was now taking a sip of the memory, gently, letting the aroma meet him before the taste. It was a lesson in savouring. Whatever sadness lurked there, on the edge of that distant dance floor, waiting to cut in, seemed diminished by time. This dream of a memory was a quiet, melancholic enjoyment, the kind that seemed to never fail to inspire rekindling in this man, adding shades of life affirming color to the sketch of his face. It seemed to have greatest effect when coaxed out from wherever he’d tucked it, those many years ago. I watched him now. " It always started with the glide. The sound. Hard rubber soles over dusty wooden floor boards. A rare and unforgettable richness in timbre. The heel would come down with a dull clap. And then the glide again. Her leg jutting out, followed or led by her hip… Her head arched back. Her eyes were closed. Her neckline flowed in the dim light, over her chest beneath the cotton dress, to her belly. Her arms unfurled, wafting slowly above her head, ending in a cock of the wrists, and stiff straight fingers. A moment of stillness. Her fingers moved. Then her wrists straightened, and slowly the movements began to pour over the rest of her body. Before it reached her feet, the sound of gliding was at my ears. And then the clap of the heel again. It was the only way she knew. This was her story, and how she told it. One of grace, of sound, of stillness, and of sway. The rhythmical claps of the heels were reminders of bygone hitches, stifling the flap of her wings. This was a song of defiance and graft, a dance that continued well after the possessive smiles and reverent cheers of old crowds had faded. But her message was written in movement. I remember her movements more than her face, which always came in glimpses. Time does this. Faces change and fade in the memory, but her melody can never fail me, her story remains. That wind may be stifled, but it’s enough to keep these sails true. Her hushed movements, in the back of memories, lingers immortal. " I watched him in his thoughts. Before he took another sip, of the drink on the table I thought he’d forgotten about. With wet lips he whispered her name. Or at least I think it was her name. As he said it, a bus rolled by bellow the café window, muffling whatever his raspy voice had offered. I thought of asking him to repeat it, but hesitated. Perhaps it was a sign that I was not meant to hear it after all. And with that, the sounds of the day filtered back to my ears, brought back to the present after being taken by the brief old wind which quietened my thoughts for a few minutes, whisking me off to another time. I don’t know what I expected from this old man. But what I got was a few notes, a broken melody perhaps, like hearing someone attempt a tune on an old piano a few rooms away. I would let it be. Perhaps one day, without prompting, the melody, hidden from me, owing to time, dust and fog, ebbing even in the best of times, would once flow to visit me, in a dream perhaps. Sometime later I walked away from that old sailor, hoping perchance to stumble my way to that shore. And that the elusive tide would flow to meet my toes and dance before for me, just once. A faint whispered hope. But perhaps my own depths await, to one day earn the wash of tide through a half remembered dream. - Flash Fiction by Steven Benjamin. "For all is like an ocean, all flows and connects; touch it in one place and it echoes at the other end of the world.' - Fyodor Dostoyevsky {Image credits: pinterest.com, paintinghere.com} What lies behind the unexpected? When a stranger talks, what will you believe? Short fiction by Steven Benjamin “Where are you?” I share almost everything with her. And she’s looking at me. And when she looks at me with vague concern mixed with curiosity, and her eyes change colour ever so slightly, with her question still hanging in the air; I’m then conscious of the burden weighing on my shoulders. That she sees this strain, means it’s affecting me in more ways than I know. It’s time to tell. I just need to soak it in and make sense of it on my own terms. My thoughts were with that of another man. A man I’d met earlier that day. One who would not change my life in any major distinguishable way, but definitely in the way I looked at things - the world around me. And so I told her of my day, watching her as she listened, to gauge how my words were being received. “He didn’t give me his name. He wore a shirt buttoned up to the neck but didn’t wear a tie. I don’t remember how we started chatting, but there we were; middle aged, I think we were both distracted by the same thing. I do remember asking him why he’d come to the country. He said that he was actually on a return visit. He’d come to see a man with whom he had a special relationship. He said that this man he was going to meet had become quite influential since they’d first met; he’d since gained many unwanted followers. That was months ago by the way. I asked him how they did meet – you know, just advancing the conversation. And then he said that this man he was going to meet was in prison, and that some months ago, he had tried to kill him. I thought I miss-heard him when he said that , but then he said it again “Yes. He tried to kill me.” He said it, almost like he couldn’t believe it himself, or couldn’t believe what he was saying. Anyway. He said this man had changed quite dramatically since they’d last seen each other in court. I asked what made him change, and this man said that he thought the man found God. I asked if he believed him, and he looked at me, straight in the eyes, and said yes. He was nodding when he said that, his voice a little cracked. I asked what made him believe him. And he said that he didn’t know, but that it felt… natural. He said that little would change if their roles were reversed. I don’t know why I asked this, but for some reason I did; I asked him how the man tried to kill him. He looked at me and shook his head; even half smiled. And then he said he was a tourist, actually no, he was working but had taken some time off to roam, and he was in the wrong part of town, trying to do something stupid and illegal. He said this man tried to chop his head off, with a long blade, like a machete.” “What?” “That’s what I said. He nodded to me. Said he almost succeeded. I didn’t understand, or maybe I didn’t completely believe it. We sat there, not talking for a while, just letting his words hang in the air. And then he looks at me again. It feels awkward, you know. His eyes a bit like glass. So he reaches up and undoes his shirt's top button and pulls his collar clear of his neck. I couldn’t believe what I was looking at. It was a half inch thick scar running across his neck. I couldn’t see where it started or where it stopped. But it cut across his windpipe, and several big veins. He touched it gently with his fingertips. It’s like he was making sure it was still there. And then he nodded and buttoned up again. I thought I was imagining it. I was blinking trying to freeze it in my memory. He said that he wasn’t the first person to be under that blade. But he was quite certain that he was the first, and so far the only person, to get up afterwards, after it had come down. It took some weeks mind you, to get enough strength back just to stand, he said, but still. I asked him how, how he was still alive. He said he didn’t know, but that what he believed, is not what everyone else would believe. He then asked me something. He asked: ‘Does death happen to us? Can death happen? I mean its only the absence of life. So by rights, life happens, death is just what we call it when life is no longer there... absent. When life stops.’ “’All I know is this’ he told me, ‘death was supposed to come. But here I am, sitting beside you.’ He says the man who tried to kill him looked like a ghost when he eventually saw him again, still alive. He said the man started screaming, acting all mad, before he collapsed in shock, and started weeping.” I was thinking about all this when my wife asked me another question. “Do you think he was telling the truth?” “I know it sounds naïve, but there was no reason for him to lie to me. At the very least it is true that it is a story. But whatever… I believed him when he told it to me” And then there’s that scar. So there I was thinking; sitting, and thinking. Mostly I was just thinking about what to think. Was this Pandora holding my hand and smacking me in the face? – sounds like something my Dad would say. Like I said; it didn’t shake up my life in any visible way, but it did something to my mind. Like you’ve spent a lifetime building something with small bricks, one at a time, and here someone comes and shifts something out of place. Now everything looks the same, but it isn’t, you know it isn’t, but you’re not sure where that missing piece is, or how it will affect everything else, or how it’s all still standing. All I know is; it’s very simple, you see, it’s the way he said it. Something was supposed to happen, something expected, something inevitable even… but it didn’t. So. Now... tell me, what happens? I’ll ask you what I asked my wife; what happens, when something that’s supposed to be inevitable, that’s supposed to occur… doesn’t *** I thought my days were ash, but what are days really? There was a time many moons and suns ago, when I was a different color. I was young once too you know. I’ve heard, or actually since I don’t hear, I’ve felt that I am descended from a long line, that my ancestors on these great dry plains are plentiful, some might even still be floating around. The old ones. One or two passed me by in my younger days. Those were but brief encounters. Time stands still in those times when the yearning thirst for rains and moisture are long, here within the shimmering furnace of nowhere. I am sure that had I eyes to see, I would not be fond of the view, because despite the changing seasons, there is not much change on these distant plains – I can feel it. I thought my day was up, or days. I thought my roots had reached for the last damp, or the last lick of dew to be had in this rocky outcrop, in the hard and the dry. I have let go pieces of myself – there will always be a branch to spare. I suppose I should’ve expected it, having experienced the faint wisp of a passing relative, that I one day too would be free. But now I am. I’ve caught a second wind, or second hundredth – I lost count when I was but a sapling that age ago. Now I feel many things, mostly hard. But, in lifetimes of mostly wind and dust and rain and the heavy undergrowth, a rock or several hundred are welcome acquaintances than simply floating against the bareness. I passed by some embers some time ago, can’t say how long. It could well have been some relatives of mine, giving way for another world, another time. The wind will claim them. The wind claims everything, just as it carries and rolls me along. It’s still dry here. It’s always dry here. Ancient murmurings make this to be that place called the cousin to a desert. Why, because what little growth there is – like myself – provides that glimmer of hope, where a desert has none. I have passed by some far off dwellings and some lonely living things. All are waiting, that is all anyone does here, to wait, for those clouds to bring a faint promise... We wait. I use to wait too, until I took this journey, this long journey. Who knows how long it will last or where I will go. I do know that there is no more waiting, not for me. But, I do feel like this journey, my only one of substantive distance, shall be my first, my last, and my only. For now, I tumble on… and in this vast land of nothingness but dust and thirst I am what I am. I am home, in this place without time, of dust and rock and me, where the sun is my shelter, referred to by many in a grating whisper, on an umpteenth wind as, ‘Thirstland’. --- Flash fiction by Steven Benjamin [flickr.com, mikerossi.co.za, jbaynews.files.wordpress.com, northerncape-info-directory.co.za, rainharvest.co.za, theday.co.uk, karoospace.co.za, lessonsleatlastnight.files.wordpress.com, portfoliocollection.com, themaxefiles.blogspot.com, safaribookings.com, thewildangle.com, savingwater.co.za, dressedbystyle.com] Fact: South Africa is 2nd only to Australia in the world, when it comes to the countries with the most Windmill's. {A story in development - for writers, every story is in development, until they decide to abandon it... I haven't quite abandoned this one just yet. At the moment, its just a vent for an idea that's still brewing.} “Do me a favour.” It read. She set the paper down. She wasn’t quite ready for it. She turned off the TV, she saw enough of herself in editing. She strode out the kitchen and up the steps, then down the short corridor to one of the two upstairs rooms… her room. Or at least it used to be. She sat down on the bare single mattress, and then started reading again. “Look out the window at the sky. Whether nightly stars, clear blue, or laden clouds… curl your knees to your chest, and keep looking. Now look at yourself. Look at your legs, your hands, your feet… what do you see?” She glanced out the window. Then around the room and at the closed door, as if expecting someone to walk in even though the house was empty. She looked at herself, just as she’d read, running her hands over her legs and feet, then staring at the palms of her hands. “What do you see?” she read it again. “It’s you. Little you in a big world. I did that too you know. I thought to myself: how small I am. How small I am that you’d think of me. We are not giants in this world… although our spirits may be.” “I saw you walking up the lane at the back, outside. I also liked to do that. It’s because of that lane and the field that I bought the house. Even when it’s dry and brown in summer, I still go. There was a fire once, burnt half the hillside. Can’t remember how we put it out… All I remember is that people came out of nowhere to help. When they left, and I was standing on the stoop, sweating, tired, I remember thinking: ‘that wasn’t boring’. “I danced upstairs, alone, with no music, maybe even in your room. I was drinking so I don’t remember what room… probably wasn’t such a good idea – could’ve fallen down the stairs. I remember that I danced because my feet made a loud noise on the wooden floor boards. I always wanted to do it, somehow that time it just felt right. And so I tap danced; I think I was laughing as well, but I don’t know why, it wasn’t a normal laugh. “I write this to explain myself. You were younger, and I could’ve told you then but these things need time to, unravel. We were broken, both of us. I could not allow your mother’s death to intercept or delay your future. This place has taught me, that everything passes. I told you, and I’m sure you noted how small we are. Remember our trips to the beach. Remember how we watched the waves, how we fell asleep. And when we left the tide had claimed our footprints. There we saw, we saw something that has been for many years, centuries, so our visit to that shore was like our visit to this life… In my years I have seen what time does to the human body. I’ve seen how nature will reclaim everything – but we are not our bodies – we are simply driving them – for a short while. So, do not despair, for they are not meant to last. I write this also, to apologise. There is something I need to apologise for, and although I cannot for the life of me put my finger on it, I can sense its presence – that vague guilt of something I did or didn’t do. I am aware of the vacancies within our little tapestry of family life, but as you know, I’ve never been a good seamstress.” She chuckled to herself, remembering a time he’d called the ladder in her stockings ‘steps’. “I love you. I agreed to you leaving so forcefully because I wanted you out of the shadow that this house was in back then. Those are probably the times when people should remain close, but sometimes proximity has little bearing on the emotions. Sometimes you can live with someone, but also just pass them by day by day. It made the time we did spend together that much more precious. Thank you for not questioning my odd ways. I did not plan it this way; I too was once again a student… “I leave this house to you, and everything I own. You are strong woman, and I am a proud father.” She paused before reading the last line. “Be without hindrance.” She looked at the paper in her hands. Then she thought of that time when she looked at the house as they drove away, watching it grow smaller through the car window. She thought of the sum of material things which constituted her ‘life’, piled into that car. She thought of the goodbye with her father. Holding him, pressing the side of her face against his chest, her eyes closed, his hand on her head. She could not remember breaking the hug… in her memory, it never ended, even though she remembered him driving away in the old car, waving, and then looking at her in the rear view mirror. That picture of him through the back windscreen sat in her memory, just the back of his head over the headrest, through the window. She hugged her legs to her chest, resting her head on her knees, she closed her eyes. It wasn’t long after when she lay down, pulling a blanket over her. The house had always felt big, too big for the just the three of them, or the two of them... It didn’t feel that way now. The single bed upon which she lay, felt small and cramped. It had been years since she’d heard the creak of these bed springs. Her father seemed to see this place as a kind of unwanted anchor for her, a place that would hold her back. But lying there, with her eyes closed, she felt tethered for the first time in years. And it was a good feeling. He would've wanted her to sell it, but for her, this was her one secret place, one she needed, considering all her days chasing the truth. She took comfort in knowing that she knew how to hide from time to time. They say the truth will set you free, but for her, all the truth the world offered - she needed this escape, this truth. This was real. it may be a largely empty house, but her memories were not. [picture credits: digitalcameraworld.com-Gianluca Bennati, aso-geopark.jp, prettylittlenest.com] |
[Banner illustration by Joel Kanar]
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