A Story

And just like that, the wind opened the pages of his book. Not just to any page, the wind is strange. Her page. Silly wind playing with his head, playing the raven to his mock Edgar Poe life. And so he read, he had to. He tempted not the mistresses of wind, fate, or scorn. They are best let to run their path. And he read, he read the page he'd read a thousand times before, from the book he'd vowed to dispose of 20 score more. He read it because he had to. It was an addiction, a habit... something just short of a tradition.

That word makes it sound too glorified... "tradition." It was equal parts joy and pain. The joy was just fleeting, reminiscing, used-to-bes. And the pain was wrapped up in it. Or maybe those memories were wrapped in pain. Liar man, they weren't happy, they were just... they just were. They were all he had. Had he something else, someone else, she'd be a twinkle in the Arizona sky. But she had; rather, he had built her a nest in his mind. And so that is where she lay, without really knowing he hated her for moving on, or not thinking about him.

He hated this damn book he couldn't throw out, this un-novel novel. He hated this redundant expeditious track to mental anguish. His whole train of thought, derailed by a simple, deliciously evil breeze. He reared back and twitched slightly, made as if to throw the book into the lake, but paused. And instead just closed the cover, tucked it under his arm, and walked away. He wasn't ready for that yet.

But he was getting close.