Shed

It used to be ten of us.

There was no need to ever feel lonely, because if you showed up in the shed then soon there'd be three others with you, maybe a fourth, and in that spare amount of time before they came you'd feel at home with the memories stacked up in papers and plans.

It was me and Dex and eight others. I had never spoken to them outside the shed, and they had never spoken to me, and I didn't even know their names. Dex and I had formed the group, and while he was friends with everyone else, I cared more about him than I did them, so I never bothered to ask who they were.

That was the first rule we made: it's all questions and answers. One conversation at the start of a shed meeting might go like this:

FRECKLES / "Why should I say hello to you?"

DEX / "Because we're both in the shed. Does anyone know of a newt that recently escaped Ms. Blumeberry's class?"

ME / "I saw Dex let it loose. How does one tie a slip knot in a permanent way?"

GLASSES / "That made no sense to me, but perhaps a better question is: Is there a variant form of a slip knot that can permanently be tied?"

And so forth.

So when Leaving Day came, the one time a year Captain L. will take you up to the Mainland on his ship (no return trips, no refunds, all actions are permanent), we all knew that the shed had kept us together, and that no one was leaving.

And, after all, in a quiet and peaceful town like Blutton, on an island so far away from the rest of the world, why would you leave?

I'm alone now, in this shed. All those plans, all those papers, how can they hold any worth when Dex is gone? He chose the Mainland over me and us and this shed and these plans and questions and answers and peace and he's in the Big Apple by now, holding hands with some other girl.

The others don't come. I don't think they ever will.

My life was just the same as everyone else's on this island. We all had such normal thoughts.

Dex is gone.

I'm alone.

I'm

I

Dex

Lost

Lost

Lost

ALONE.