This is a piece I started during Creative Writing last semester. It isn’t finished and probably never will be. Apologies to those who’ve already read this.

John opened his eyes and shut them again quickly. The dark that permeated his tiny room had begun to seep into his consciousness. Slowly he pulled aside the ragged wool blanket and sat up in bed.

Thank you God, he thought. I am alive on the outside…help me to be alive on the inside.

He stretched out into the darkness. There was only cold, damp air. His heart skipped a beat. Then he felt her. Warm, soft, and alive. John breathed in. If she was still here then everything was okay. He could make it with her.

John relaxed in the stillness of the room. He guessed that it was about five in the morning. In a few hours the guard would bring a small candle and some food. It was time to prepare. In the corner, by the door, there was a small stack of notebooks. Some of them were in good condition; others were worn and tattered. He picked up the first book and sat back down on the bed. It was clearly the oldest. Its cover was scuffed and torn. The binding had broken years ago and most of the pages were falling out.

John turned the pages slowly. It was still too dark to read them but he could feel the pen marks pressed deep into their aging fibers. Memories flooded into his mind. Bright colors, yellow, red, a sunset, white linen and a flash of pink. So much came back to him in that moment. Everything that he had ever had or known or felt came back to him from the pages of his book.

He could feel the grass brushing against his ankle as he sat with his back to an oak tree larger than his house. He was sitting on the edge of a vast forest looking out over a crystalline pond. The water rippled slightly around the feet of a young girl, barely seventeen. She walked with a lilt. As it came up out of the water her foot curled tenderly, catching each drop that slid down from the bones of her ankle. She was floating, not above the water, but through it. It was a dance. She and the ripples, stepping in time to a song he couldn’t hear.

Occasionally she would stop and peer into the water below her, then like a hummingbird her hand would dart into the water and pull out whatever treasure the pond had kept for her. Usually it was a small stone that seemed just a bit rounder than most, or a piece of wood that looked like someone she knew. They were never the same. Most of the time, she put them right back where she had found them for someone else to discover, but once in a while she would look it over and then carefully place it in the small bag she wore over her shoulder. Then, at night, she would place it in a small wooden box by her bed. Every spring, on the day the first dandelion popped up under her window she would take her box of treasures and throw them one by one back into the pond.

The girl turned towards John and smiled. He smiled back and waved. He felt young and alive. Free. The sky turned from a sweet tangerine to blood red and the warm summer air of his memory gave way to coldness. John heaved a sigh and watched it condense and billow in the drafty room. His chest tightened and the feeling of utter hopelessness came upon him again. He clenched his eyes to stop the tears. A faint sob escaped his lips. Then more and more. His chest heaved with the weight of his heartache. Sitting there, in the dark of his tiny box, John wept.

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