The Poem She Started A short story by Juliana Amir
T
he beach sprawled for kilometers in both directions. A trail of ghostly footprints padded in the sand, coming closer, creating a path from the sea. The footprints stopped beside me. I trusted it was my imagination, though I couldn’t be sure, having seen what I had. Awake too many hours, sleep should have sung to me, but it didn’t. It couldn’t, not until I finally processed the events from months ago. I had always loved open waters, forest hikes, and making my living selling fish to the marketplaces, but something in me was slowing. My eagerness? My heart? For the first time, I thought of nothing. Only felt the sadness in the salty breeze and the collapsing waves, and felt the color of the deepest blue reflected in me. Still, I smiled when the first hint of sunlight split the sea from the sky. Instantly, her voice was in my ear, whispering: “contagious seems an awful word until you think of a smile. You smile, see it mirrored, and it fills you because you gave a moment to someone, however fleeting, just by
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moving your lips. Is that not magic?” And in that faint whisper, I knew she was with me. Her story swelled in my throat each time I gazed at the sea. I stopped feeling and started remembering her. She danced before my imagination. Perhaps the shyest girl on earth. Crowds crippled her with fear. She’d tuck herself behind me. I shielded her through each crowd, her hand in mine, as I carved us a path. She looked faint when people noticed her. She was to me the fairy that was never meant to be seen by human eyes, and yet, she let me see her and all of her vivid emotions. She definitely cried more than any person on earth. But it was as often a happy tear as it was sad. One Saturday, I brought her a blueberry muffin because, why not? Walking down the cobbled path to her tiny brick house, I thought nothing of it. I handed her the plain paper bag, and when she opened it, she smiled...like a fallen star hid within. She invited me in, put on the kettle, and brewed heather tea. When it was poured and
