EVANESCENCE

by Johanna Nauraine

Elise was hurrying through Castle Park when a man ran into her with his bicycle,

knocking her down. Morning commuters, cutting through the park, fluttered around her

like restless sparrows, asking if she was alright.

Lying there on the winter cold concrete, trying to catch her breath, she saw above

her, a sky streaked with red and black. There were no clouds, no sun, no clue that she was

lying on familiar earth.

The faces bending over her, trying to determine the extent of her injuries, looked

round as dinner plates. Words fell from their mouths like clumps of cotton. When she

touched the back of her head, her hand came away bloody.

Someone called the paramedics and she tried to sit up. That’s when she saw him,

standing at the edge of the little crowd, bicycle at his feet. His eyes were the color of mercu-

ry and his hair glowed red as desert stone. But it was his flat expression that gave him away.

He recognized her, just as she recognized him. The Evanescence had begun. She wasn’t

ready.

Published in The Stray Branch, Winter 2024