.





"...In a box, back of the closet, there are letters and photos. If the photos were like youtube videos, I could touch them and the memory would come alive. There's one of you sleeping. Out of focus. You sent it to me when we first stared writing. If it came alive it would be years later. In Dublin, you asleep next to me. I can hear you breathing. Such a short time that we were allowed to see each other then back to distance and voices on the other side of the world. For so long, even after we went our separate ways, a part of me believed that someday we'd be in the same place. In the same galaxy. You'd be there and the world would be right again. Then one day I woke up and wondered wear I was. Got out of bed. Anywhere better than here..."


"...It happens every time I hear an Irish accent. Every time. I turn round to look. I saw my face in the window of a department store in New York. I'd heard it again and turned round to see myself in the reflection. I saw what the rest of the world saw. Clear. I reached out to touch the reflection. To console it. A ghost haunted. The face changed to compassion and then a smile flooded that face.

'What are you looking at?' said the voice. It was inside my head and it made me believe in the Jungian. I believed that somewhere you could hear me. I wasn't just talking to myself. I closed my eyes and felt the coin in my shoe. It was digging into the bottom of my foot. Like the memory of you it irritated. I didn't give up.

You did."

from Long Way Around by C Anne Ford 4/13/12 all rights reserved by the author.