Things Unseen

A Story by Diana

This is a short story.

Things Unseen

Spring

I showered in the morning. I wept quietly, my tears mingling with the shower water that trickles down the drain. I was young, smart, and alive with a painful poignancy.

I would rise from the reverie of a dreamy stupor, dreams in which you held me in your arms, only to find myself alone. Reaching in thin air for phantom arms to hold me... I tried to shake myself awake, repeating, “He’s gone. He’s gone. Gone, gone, gone...” Looking out the window, I saw nothing but a brick wall. I struggled to awaken.

Class to class, lunch with friends, library to class... I walked as one mute, in half-drunk somnambulance, for many moons.

Summer

I traveled the summer that school let out. I awoke in a pastel room, facing a foreign hillside. The slightest breeze ruffled my covers. It was the closest I had ever come to paradise, but I was very much alone. I watched the sunset rise, solitarily from the covers of my delicately-made bed.

I wandered hapless throughout my dream world. It was the only place we met, beyond will of choice. I awakened, gasping for air. The clock read 4 a.m. You were on one side of a towering cliff, I on the other. We could but see one another from across the void.

Fall

We met again, you and I. I sighed, a familiar thrill coursing through me.

You asked how it had been for me after “you...know? What grades did you get? Come on; you can tell me.” I quietly whispered, “3.9.” A beatific smile spread across his face. His voice boomed back, “Oh, seems like you were fine. I always knew you were smart,” in a tone just short of encouragement.

We crossed paths on the bridge one day. It was fall. You held her hand.