Flash Fictions by Benjamin D. Togate

Still with Me

She pulled the scarf closer to her face as she was leaving the restaurant. It was another cold day. Another shift had ended and another lonely night was about to begin.

She walked along the road, passed the bus stop and continued her way out of the town. As she always did. She had to take the bus, but not here. She first needed to clear her mind, needed to be alone, needed to feel the coldness, before really heading back home.

It was around a 30 minute walk along the shore of the lake with the high reed surrounding it. Today, the stars were shining bright and beautiful.

This was one reasons she walked to the next bus stop just outside of the little town of Egtved. She wanted to see the stars. In the town, with all those lights around, they wouldn't be visible. Not well anyways.

But as soon as she left the town behind and her surroundings got darker and darker, the sky would became brighter with glittering stars, lightyears away.

She liked the thought that looking at these stars was like looking back in time. She marvelled at those bright blobs of light, that were clearly visible from earth, yet had probably already died millions of years ago.

It is how she thought of him. He had been gone for... a while. Yet, he was still clearly visible. To her at least. Sometimes she spoke of him, as if he was still alive. Most of the time that made people uncomfortable. But to her it didn't feel like he was gone. I mean, she knew he was gone and he wouldn't come back, but that didn't mean he didn't still play a big part in her life.

In fact, everyday he still played a huge part in her life.

He guided her - with random memories that popped up and pointed her just in the right direction.

He encouraged her - with words he said to her in the past that suddenly made total sense in a given situation.

He still felt close - and that wouldn't ever change. Her love for him would never change. She loved others all the same. But that love for him, that didn't just fade if someone new came into her life.

On those walks after work, she needed to be alone. She needed quietness. She needed a clear mind...

So he had space to come. And walk with her. Smile with her. Cry with her. As she made her way to the busstop.

And once she saw it, the red light of the little covered stop, they would say their goodbyes. Sometimes tearful. Sometimes laughing.

"I'll see you tomorrow" she said to his imagined ghost.

And then she sat down, slowly returning to the present.