> I've tried to sleep twice already, and maybe a third time is just too much to ask. I tried to read again, but the words only became sound. How easy it is for a colorful world to become black and white, yet how hard it is for a black and white world to finally accept the colors of change. Silence is a sound, but it is only as loud as the words that are replaced. I can't hear her voice but I know it is still here. The way she used to say good morning in the middle of the afternoon. The way she never said good night. It is really the simple things I miss, but then again she was so simple. Lately, there are moments where the air is too thin, and in the next breath, the air feels more like a cage.
> The stars in the sky continue to sing as the purple dawn begins to shimmer. The week before we accidentally met, I took her picture from the corner of the lot where she would fly her red kite. It felt like I was stealing something, but I was only wanting to remember how genuine some smiles are. Everyday, she stared into the sky up at her red kite, and she was lost to that moment. It always looked like she was smiling, yet her lips never moved. She only kept a few secrets, and I, lacking the courage, never asked if she noticed the picture taken without her permission. The picture hides in the leather wallet that was given as a gift.
> On the wall next to her side of the bed she has a picture where she stood on a small boulder like she had climbed something worth climbing. Her smile was genuine. I look down at the picture of her flying that red kite. She once tried to explain why she would fly a kite on her lunch break, but that story wasn't part of our world. She didn't want any secrets, but her secrets all had happy endings. Before she started taking pictures of every moment we shared, I had only two pictures of who I once was. The boy in that first picture died, but the man in the second picture doesn't know how to die. Here I am at the end, and looking at pictures to remember what was once so important.
> Is a photograph nothing more than a moment of time that was frozen in place? When you look into a photo, can you go to the places that photo was taken? What if you lose a picture of a moment you wanted to save, it becomes as if that moment never happened? If I could erase the memories, would the moments still have to exist? She had more photos of her life than all the years that I had lived. Most of the pictures captured were the moments we shared, not necessarily the smiles in the moments. There is a picture of us, in the bathroom of all places. To be a reminder that love is meant to see what no one else is able to see.
> A few times we got lucky and caught some animal unsuspectingly behaving like a perfectly natural person. Our favorite was a squirrel smiling into a mirror. Out of all the faces he saw, the one he learned to imitate was the smile. Her smile looked so much like Lizzy's smile, innocent and fierce. The photo album is open on an empty kitchen table, water is on the stove trying to boil. If only I could hear her voice through these photographs. Would I finally tell her Goodbye, the saddest words anyone could ever say. I've only ever said hello once, but I didn't get the chance to say goodbye the one time I wanted to say it.
> The photo album tells the story of our life, the moments we captured were always meant to be remembered. If only a picture could capture sound the way it captured color. She was the best storyteller I ever knew; the characters she described; it seemed I always knew. She saw the world the way it was meant to be seen, as if the day was new and the sun would shine. I told her a few stories, but also said I had a hard time remembering most of what happened when I was younger. I need something to drink, something that can erase the emotions tied to these moments. There are some things that are always in the back of the cabinet, that are lost until found.
> Tonight the tea was lost and not to be found. I looked longer than I should've but I usually did in these kinds of moments. I still was able to have tea, but it didn't taste the way I wanted it to feel. The tea I need for nights like tonight came from the jungles of Vietnam. It was given as a gift in some village that tried to be American in the middle of the war. I wonder why memories aren't bound to time. I can remember something from a week ago or something from a decade ago and it hurts the same. Do we remember what we want to remember, or what we are forced to remember? The tea is in the water, and the timer has been set.
YOU ARE READING
Ghosts' of November
Historische Romane"Ghost's of November" is a haunting exploration of love, loss, and the relentless pursuit of redemption. The story delves into the life of a protagonist who is trapped by memories of a troubled past, seeking peace in a world that offers little solac...
