Break From Reality. Daily.
Every morning, I fastened the cufflinks, aware of the initials S.A. engraved in the metal. My earliest memory began with the smell of vanilla perfume in Cragmont General, and my battered head throbbing beneath the bandages. I had no yesterday. My world was those four walls. Rosalind sat beside the bed in a cane chair,…
The silence was tense, a layer of thin ice stretched over a dark, restless feeling. A hawk’s screech pierced the air, its cacophonous sound cutting through the quiet like a knife. My muscles tensed before I even had a chance to process it, and a chill of memory rushed back.
I looked through a kitchen window at the frozen lake and the bare trees that reflected the hollow ache in my chest. The hawk’s cry hadn’t just broken the silence; it had torn open the past, merging a child’s scream with the hawk’s shriek into a single, unbearable sound.
“Make it stop!” I whispered, pressing my palms so hard against my ears that white static danced behind my eyes.
This story is by Bonnie Bowden and was part of our 10th Anniversary Writing Contest. You can find all the writing contest stories here. Today marks the anniversary of my death. Beneath a willow tree lies my granite tombstone. Ellen Carter-Phillips (June 30, 1993 – March 30, 2018). “Do not stand by my grave and…
