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Friday, April 18, 2014

Missing Person

The last time I saw her, I was seventeen.  It was the summer of 1976.  She had hitchhiked to East Hampton with a spiral notebook tucked under her arm.  Hitchhiking is a risky and dangerous business but she didn't understand that back then.  Everyone was doing it.

When she got to Main Street, she bought a book in a bookstore, walked to the pond in the middle of town, sat under a tree and began to read.  After a little while, she got bored, she pulled out the spiral notebook and began to write.  Her notebook was full.  She was going to be a writer and write for the rest of her life.  But seventeen-year-olds don't know anything.  They think life will stay the same forever. Time is a trusted friend.

I can't tell you what happened after that; I'm really not quite sure.  I heard that she took one ride too many and one of those friendly drivers murdered her, cut her up into small pieces and buried her around in different locations. It must have been true because she disappeared without a trace.

Until the mid 80s.

I saw her briefly, in the woods.  I was sitting on a bus driving from the University parking lot to the
main campus.  It was springtime and I was kind of daydreaming out the window as the bus passed a lovely patch of daffodils that surrounded a sculpture of a swing, the chains and the seat somehow suspended in air as if someone had just jumped off of it.  "How creative," I'd thought. And FLASH! There she was, in the woods behind the sculpture.

It was her.  I'm sure of it.  But how could it be?  She was supposed to be dead.  People don't rise from the dead like that.  It made no sense!

I thought I saw her a few more time, after that. I'd be walking along, engrossed in my own thoughts and then I'd see her, just the slightest glimpse of her, or so I thought.  I called out to her a few times but she never responded. It was kind of embarrassing.  Maybe it was someone who looked like her.  And then just like that, she was gone again and I didn't think of her for many years.

But then, without warning,  she visited me last summer.  There she was, alive and well!  It was right after my mother-in-law passed away.  I was sitting on the balcony, writing.  I glanced over at the balcony door and there she was--looking right at me!  We could see each other clearly.  I embraced her and told her how glad I was to see her back again.  It's a wonderful feeling to reunite with someone you love after having been separated for so long.  I'll never let her go.

3 comments:

  1. Who was it ?!?! Please I need to know! Are you writing a short story about the ghost of a murdered friend that visited you? I hope so because is sounds so interesting.

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    1. You're always so enthusiastic and supportive, Bob. Thanks.

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