DraftVer_Final
First published on Penmancy
23 / DEC / 2023
I looked at the figures sitting opposite me in the café and smiled sadly.
“I guess this is it?” I said, my voice rising at the end in a question. I didn’t want it to be the end. I didn’t want to say goodbye.
Sam Darwin cocked his head to the side and grinned. “Why? You gonna miss me?”
“Of course I’ll miss you!” I insisted hotly. “How can I not?”
Miss Mary tossed her short, fiery hair over her shoulders and looked at me with those striking golden eyes. “Hey. You know we’ll be alright, don’t you?”
I wanted to believe it. I wanted to believe that they would be fine. But there was a small part of me that was selfish. I didn’t want to let them go.
“You guys are the reason I’m still here,” I said, looking down at my laptop screen. The generic landscape screensaver stared back at me, impersonal and distant. “I don’t know what I’d have done if I hadn’t found you back then.”
“And now we’ll go on to help others like you, and be there for them,” Sam said, and I couldn’t help but smile at the cheer in his voice. “You’ve given us this life, so never regret it.”
“I hope people treat you well out there.” My voice cracked in the middle of the sentence, and I attempted to cover it up with a sip of my coffee. For a moment, the muted sounds of the café came into greater focus, the clinking of the mugs and the chatter filling my ears. “I hope they love you as much as I do.”
“We’ll always live on, in some form or the other,” Miss Mary grinned. “Whether you like it or not, actually.”
I laughed at that. I knew better than most how that could happen. How people would read and write and re-read and re-write, and still come up with so many new ways to look at the world around us. There is a vast ocean of meanings that will never run dry, and I needed to trust in that too. I needed to trust in the people who would look for the best in everything, for the meanings that are, and the meanings that can be.
“Hey,” Sam said, leaning forward in his seat. “Are you ready?”
“Can I ever be ready?” I asked, sucking in a shaky breath. “This is the biggest decision of my life.”
“And you’ll go on to make more,” Miss Mary said gently. “Go on now. It’s time.”
I shifted my mouse gently, and the screen saver vanished, revealing a blinking cursor on a page titled “DraftVer_Final”. I took one final look at Miss Mary and Sam Darwin, who gave me matching smiles of encouragement.
I’ll let these characters go out there and make a change for someone else, I thought, and I typed out the final words, sending them away.
“The End.”