BOTTLE CAPS

It all seemed oddly familiar. The bells chiming as she pushed open the door. The smell of bacon grease and brewing coffee. Even the static hum of Johnny Cash singing "Ring of Fire" wafting from the jukebox record player. "Booth 13, please" Hazel requested, as if she were a regular at the Sunrise Diner. She slid into her seat, and the 24/7 neon sign bathed her legs in a blinking rainbow glow.

"I made it" she sighed, to herself. Everyone thought she'd gone mad. Hazel had never ventured out of Asheville, North Carolina. Nevermind a solo trip to Kentucky. But she needed to go. If nothing else, to prove to herself that she wasn't going crazy.

Her dreams had become too vivid to ignore, and the pull become too strong. It were as if a distant voice were calling her. She imagined it might be her mothers voice. A sound she'd never come to know. The fire took her parents, before their faces or voices could be etched to memory. The feeling of searching, was the only thing they had left her with.

Hazel loved her adopted family. They were all she had ever known. Yet, every birthday felt hollow. Incomplete. On this birthday, her 19th, she decided to find the diner that had plagued her dreams for 15 years. Red vinyl booths, a buzzing neon sign, the number 13, and a black cherry soda bottle cap stuck to the underside of a table with gum-- all as familiar to her as her own hands. It was a scene on nightly repeat. A place she needed to finally see with her own eyes.

When Hazel was younger and still believed in magic, she would collect black cherry bottle caps, and wish on them --to bring her family back. Although that childlike belief settled with the years, she reached into her pocket. Her hand found the cool, round token from her childhood, and she made one last wish. "I'm not crazy. I'm not crazy."

Hazel closed her eyes, inhaled deeply, and reached under the tabletop of booth 13. Her hands blindly searching for what she'd found in so many dreams. Suddenly, she felt it. There it was! Something stuck like a barnacle to the table. Shaking with disbelief, she set the matching bottlecaps on the table -- and felt crazier than ever.

Lost in the chaos of her own thoughts, Hazel didn't hear the waitress approach to take her order. Still feeling shell-shocked, she looked up to respond. What she saw, no dream could have prepared her for. There before her-- were her own eyes. Her own face. And a name tag that read "Willow". It was her twin. And in that moment she realized... it had always been her mothers voice in her dreams. Asking her to believe in magic. And leaving bottle caps to guide her home.