Ficlets

All in Blue

I find it when I’m going through the attic, clearing away the boxes – each one, it seems, holds the contents of a phase, a lifetime. Each corrogated container overflows with things that no longer fit into my life.

It’s raining outside. It falls in wind-driven sheets against the angles of the roof, the sounds magnified in the small attic space. The thunder seems to reverberate through my head, jarring images not quite like memories into place before my eyes.

It’s not inside a box. It’s not shut away like everything else I never wanted to see again. This one last bit of her is laying on top of several boxes with her name on them.

The blue fabric of the dress seems to shimmer in and out of reality, illuminated by my flashlight beam and quick snaps of lightning.

I remember the last time she wore that dress. I remember the last time we danced.

I close my eyes, and I’m almost there again.

It still smells like her, that faint scent of clean clothes and summer.

But it feels like a ghost.

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