The Missing Page

BEGIN WITH THE END IN MIND

The child had not gotten to finish the story before the page was ripped out of hand and gone from sight. The torn page had been an accident, but the rest of the book was purposefully pulled from his hands. The always towering cloud by his side was, at that moment, like a black hole, able to instantly consume anything at will. This cloud was now raining down on him, and dissolving the corners of his and every smile within reach, on the busy, early morning street corner.

Everything flattened under the burned-out streetlight.

The child looked down between his empty hands at a void: once a small red book, a happy solace, and most recently wet pages.

“The ink isn’t waterproof after all,” the child murmured, lagging behind.

“I told you to keep it closed,” the father said as he whirled around, teeth clenched behind his mask.

Then came the hard slap.

+

The teacher called again, this time with a sharp clap, the child completely out of it now in a snap.

As if breaching the surface of and shaking his head free from water, the child sharply inhaled. He began, with a slight accent and more maturely than expected, “Today I will be reading from my ‘I Have A Dream' speech.” The distant learning classroom of children were silent, patient. His act of composure showed that he had practiced this before.

The bell to end class chimed before he could continue, and the clamor from his rambunctious classmates collected like rain against the side of the child's reddened face. His courage, washed away with his chance to be heard, was drowned.

“Sorry,” floated flatly out of the corner of the teacher’s mouth, barely reaching the child's computer speakers. “Students be sure to finish your homework in the Portal For Online Education before virtual learning classes tomorrow.”

CUT SCENE

He doesn’t readily remember being a child anymore, though he recalls a distant childhood, as if appearing one day as an adult, like a whim. Though able to change any minute, he’s a refreshing bucket of water in the heat of Summer, as the weather melts into August, in typical Kentucky fashion.

He's sweating, sitting awkwardly in an antique wooden chair, across from a woman he knew when he was a child. Rather, his father knew her. She would greet him as a child though, with a quick smile, before turning seriously to his father with the business at hand. She was still just as serious and still turning printed words into published works.

"You have your father's smile, you know," she says, her eyes immediately shifting toward the notebook on the antique wooden desk. "That's yours."

The color of a memory flashes wet before his eyes, shiny and blinding, with a reflection he can’t quite make out. He honestly can't tell if he's dreaming or if he's awake, being jolted by that kind of blast from the past; this is not the Summer storm he was expecting. He's looking down now between his trembling hands at the notebook, which has returned after all these years.

The notebook is discolored from wear, weathered, worn, and once waterlogged. The seam of the book seems to convey a contrary color, the way he wishes there were something deep down inside any-and-all his years of ease-less efforts. All he knows is soup, looking for work, and working on longing less.

He clears his throat and composes himself, attempting to hold back the tears. The publisher is pulling something out of a drawer.

He thinks of his father’s other works, at home, on a dusty shelf. Those printed works of poetry are neutral ground, a way to distance himself from the welling up of forgotten feelings.

He never thought about the handwritten journals, where everything came to life. It was too closely associated with his father's death. Now she's handing that very one over and asking him permission to print it.

"How long has it been?" he murmurs with a sigh.

"It’s his usual gift of poetry, plus one, unfinished detective story. We'll print the poems." The publisher asks how $20,000 sounds, handing him a loose-lidded box.

Now the only other thing he remembers about the day of the accident is his father's old jacket.

Wow, he blinks, still holding back the tears.

Outside, a drought, and the dry sky of Summer threatens rain.

LOSS STRIPPED AWAY

Later that night he dreams of flying, feet loose of firmament, and feeling free. The weight of his wet clothes slipping away and sailing out of sight, falling fast and breaking ground below.

He wakes up early a chirp-chirp, chirping outside his window. Drawing the blinds and shielding his eyes from the glare, he finds three little birds on a branch. The rising sun calls him for a walk, while the grey clouds to the west recommend a jacket.

About to leave and whistling on his doorstep, he tucks the small black notebook under his arm, pulling on the old red raincoat. It fittingly feels different now, though familiar like a recurring dream.

On a quiet park bench, he closes his eyes and mourns the day of the accident in a different light. That morning his father had watched him as a child with not-so-nimble fingers feebly fumbling at a zipper. The coat had fit more like a blanket, swallowing him whole.

His father had been rushing around, trying not to be late, searching for both the curious child and the raincoat. Upon finding them, the father smilingly shook his head at the sight, attempting patience in this pure and true moment, but was already regretting the heavy rains awaiting them outside. In an effort to divert the child's attention, he offered the child his notebook in exchange for the raincoat.

"Just keep it closed, okay?"

The sound of a sharp thunderclap snaps him out of it, the sun still shining. Wiping the tears away, he opens his eyes and the book, past the last intact page. As it begins to rain, he imagines word after word there; written line after written line appearing instantly out of thin air. A once seemingly unfillable void between his hands, now holding a connection.

He remembers being a child.

On the inside of the back cover, he writes:

IT ONLY COMES ONCE

Can the moon replace the sun?

Never a page to turn.

Only a book to close.

A never-ending line.

I am my father’s son

He slowly nods his head with a soft puff of air escaping his nose, affirming both the humanness and the love of his father. The corners of his mouth turn up slightly, meeting a stream of tears mingling with the first drops of rain.

As he rises to leave, he puts the small black notebook into one pocket of the old red raincoat, and hesitantly withdraws his hand from the other, unfurling a flattened page. The notebook instantly follows, back out of his pocket.

He slowly sits back down, resting his elbows on his knees under the weight of it all. Once wet pages emerge again, and the slightly blurred ink begins to clarify longstanding questions. This time, everything faces the light of day.

Upon inspection, the edge of the torn page matches the mystery:

________________________________________________

had been hard on him.

Though he hadn’t yet found the time to articulate it, the detective was realizing it wasn't what was missing that he was looking for: the ceaseless cases of missing ‘this’ and missing ‘that.’ It was a never-ending search.

A door opens and a light turns on. Distant crying is now within reach.

He was missing the one thing he already had, right there before his eyes. Staring up from in between his hands like an open book, the child began to fill a void in the detective’s heart.

“No one can take you away from me” he whispers, holding the child close to his chest. “Case closed,” he says, chuckling under his breath. Both now smiling to meet a brightening day, stretching up from the horizon just outside the window.

All eyes wet and blinking.

________________________________________________

The shadow of an always-cloud lightly lifting to a brighter overhead. The popup pourdown makes everything a little more vibrant; renewal readies resolve. He notices the sun parting the clouds, his face aglow, as he slowly settles, leaning back, shoulders easing away from his ears. He is warm and cradled in an elegant embrace.



END WITH A BEGINNING IN MIND

on any given

and sunny day

you may well find

twenty thousand

reasons to line

the pockets of

a new stay at home

work the day away

pair of comfy pants:

happily



finishing books

and

closing chapters

of

the past



(he wrote)



the end is only

the beginning

. . .