The number you are trying to reach, the square root of your desperation times love eternal, is not available. At the tone, please record your message. When you are finished, you may hang up, or press one for more automated bullshit.
Hello? You there? It's me.
Look, I don't know if you can hear me through this freezer burn static. I barely have any bars, not that I thought I would get any.
It's snowing in sunlight here, like a thousand dandelion wishes being blown into the atmosphere.
It should be spring there, too, right? I think this is spring.
If you haven't tilled the garden yet, ask our neighbor to help. He's a bit of a string cheese space cadet, but he’s always liked you. And he knows where everything is in the shed.
Anyway.
I dreamed of you last night. We were knee-deep in saffron stardust and you told me the crocuses would bloom soon. They would be as blue as my tattered handkerchiefs as they breached the snow in the first wave against winter.
I haven’t owned those handkerchiefs in years.
According to your therapist, your memories are landlocked and thirsty. And I know what led you to fray—the long, dark nights alone, the polar vortex swelling in your synapses. Your arms always made me feel like I wouldn’t fall apart, and now I’m riding an unraveling magic carpet, leaving me little room to talk of shoulds or woulds. But I want to.
Is this still recording?
Maybe someday you'll jump off the face of the earth, too. Loud and inaudible, the urge tears through like lightning in a herd of elephants, then rattles your vertebrae for days on end in an aftershock of wanderlust. You follow wherever it takes you. The final destination around every corner.
Once you fall it feels like you just keep going. Eventually, though, you float, before dissolving in the sunlight. At least, that's what I hope.
::
About the Author: Aubrie Cox went to university to write a novel and came out writing haiku. It's worked pretty well so far. Now, she teaches at Millikin University and is an editor for the online journal A Hundred Gourds. Her poetry and prose can be found in publications such as Modern Haiku, Frogpond, and NANO Fiction, as well as her blog Yay Words!. She sometimes tweets @aubriecox.
Story Song: "If I've Been Unkind (Man Without Country Remix)" by Lanterns On The Lake
Photo Credit: Elisabeth Clem/Poppy and Pinecone