The Reappearance of Allison

Remaining on the gravel road, passing the first curb with a big old pine tree on the left. The sudden calmness takes over my body, as I approach her gravestone feeling her presence. The smell of fresh, crisp pine trees in your nasal cavities. The smell is much stronger this morning from the rain storm the night before and so relaxing like the smell of a little tree air freshener. I approach to her gravestone, as the summer morning warmth hugs me tightly and the morning breeze runs through my long black hair. The chorus of birds flocking in the blue sky. As I walk up the little hill to her gravestone, I pass the baby boy that lays beside her. His old, dirty gray gravestone in a heart shape with his name engraved in between a ribbon. His bright,

“The tragedy...is in enteral stasis,” Marina Keegan says in her short essay Cold Pastoral. Her words vaguely foreshadow the essay’s main character,, Claire’s, emotions throughout the events of the story. Claire deals with the loss of her lover Brian while preparing for his vigil at the University of Vermont. She experiences self-consciousness, jealousy, and anger as she tries to cope with grief. These coping mechanisms result in a mentally draining week and can be used as a warning against those experiencing grief themselves.

Ten years pass. He can still recall the crème blush coloring of his lover’s cheeks and the tapered point of her nose. He can recall the ringing vibrato of her laugh and the way a shrill, yet violent sneeze would wrack her body. Fifty years. He knows she had auburn hair and olive skin, but what color were her eyes? Gray like an oncoming tempest or a deep ochre married with lighter hues. One hundred years. His grandchildren stamp their fingerprints on the glass of the frame with her photo in it. Their mother wrenches the portrait out of their pudgy hands with a sigh, lost in the memories of twirling around on the kitchen tile to the soundtrack of the woman’s hums. Two hundred years. Her image is engulfed in the flames of a roaring blaze and lost

My slumber, for however long it was, was awoken with intense feelings of panic, which resulted in my body feeling fatigued. My tongue slivered along my parched lips and was met with the coppery taste of blood. As I gently crawled out of the tomb on to the concrete ground, I noticed three candles which dimly lit the medieval room. They were waving at me as they emitted a bitter lavender smell, an attempt to eliminate the

The stone remains cold from decades of freezing winter nights as it sat neglected andunwanted. The couches is decorated in a faded flaming pattern of roses. The musty smell continues into the library. Shelves of forgotten novels line the fourwalls, and a large window is strategically placed between two of the shelves. The lights hangingfrom the ceiling are dimmed, and the melodic ringing of wind could be heard. Bodies crowdtogether in the small room, and all heads gaze at one single item. The television growls awarning, but it is set up in the form of a welcome to the hotel. Above the shelves sit manyknickknacks: a beat up camera, adusty music box, a rickety old fortune telling machine, andeven a vintage girl’s doll sits on the wall with beady eyes staring down at me. I gaze at my oldfriends. Their presence adds a hype to the idea of what awaits. The television blanks out and thefamiliar spike in my heartbeat comes, and there goes the lightning right on queue. The creek ofthe door is heard over the rumbling of voices, when a bright light blinds my vision for a quicksecond. A heated breeze flocks into the room from the shadowy corridor. The empty smell of steam surrounds, and it caresses my arms the further into the room Igo. The cold brick walls brush against my arms as families rush past me. The concrete floorchanges into a steel bridge. Over the railing, the boilers cascade down to the floor standing talland rusted. The smell of oil and steel disgustingly mix. The sound of my feet clattering againstthe steel reverberates around the room. The bridge splits into two and leads the newcomers intoan aloof. I remember, in the end it doesn’t matter; however, I am pulled to the right. The redboilers line the path as it slowly descends. The clatter of footsteps follows, and the steam in theroom thickens, crushing me. I turn to the elephant in the room. A steely service elevator door threatens the room in amagnificent haze of power. Above the powerful door

However, tonight was slightly different there was a feeling of emptiness within me that only jasper could fill, but he was know where to be seen. As I walked towards the smooth grey eucalyptus that presided over the small dam on the far side, I peered into the broad hallow space at its base where I knew Jasper stayed. But there was no sign of jasper or even the slightest amount of evidence that he had been here. I felt my body shatter for what felt like the millionth time tonight as the tears started to fall down my cheeks, I didn’t know how much more I could take before I simply couldn’t handle this anymore. As I sat slumped along the water’s edge with my head on my knees, I felt betrayed and heartbroken. Jasper Jones was really gone, he had left me and gone to the city by himself, a plan that we were meant to do together. I was distressed, filled with anger and heartbreak. He had broken his promise. But the truth is what hurt me the most, I thought he loved me, I thought what we had was real, but I was wrong. Tonight was going to be the night I tell him everything, the night I was going to beg him to leave with me. Because I was in trouble. I couldn’t do this alone. I needed him more than ever but he wasn’t there. As these thoughts kept running through my head I begin to write it down. One way or another

The night was filled with heat and the sound of crackling flames and all he could do was feel everything he had worked hard for and loved crumble before him with three simple words: “I don’t know.” Memories flashed through his mind and pierced him like daggers, filling him with pain. He shook and was in total disbelief to the fact that he had just lost his world, his purpose in living. He felt like his whole future was gone like the people he had forgotten and ignored and pushed away in his overzealous and obsessive belief in what he thought was his life’s purpose or the years he had spent with her. The years he had spent for her. So overwhelmed with what had just happened, he fell to his knees and sorrow fell from his eyes.

I collapse into my sisters arms. The news of my husband's death is too much for me to handle and I weep with a sudden wild abandonment. I had always warned Brently to be careful when he was working and I suppose the railroad disaster was no one's fault at all. Still I feel empty inside, but not in the way in which I had been mourning. With grief still weighing heavily upon me, I wanted to be alone. The upstairs bedroom is where I open the window and begin to think deeply. The warm spring air that enters the room gives me a renewed sense of freedom. The exhaustion that had haunted my body seemed to dissipate with each breath of air. My heart was racing as I came to the realization that I was finally free! Free from the control of my husband

“Hi Richard,” her mother smiled at the man that was sitting in a chair by the window. Her father said nothing, just continued to stare out the window. There was nothing but silence, and in that silence Avalon swore her mother could’ve heard her heart breaking. Avalon hated visiting her father. It wasn’t because she hated him, but it was because she hated the memories and the fact that her time with him was very short. Too short. Avalon, who was standing a few steps behind her mother watched as her father stared at the town unfolding outside his, as if he were a statue.

In the dead of night, caked in icy mud and blood from the abrasions of the brambles in the mire passed the Fluted Vale; Aberdeen escaped in the cover of darkness in scantly a stitch of clothing stark against her rice flower white skin. She removed leeches from her body with numb fingers and slight pain and annoyance as the chill of the cold ground permeated her tired cold bones in a place just past pure exhaustion. Her heart raced with a sluggish gurgle in her heart and she could feel it in her ears as she saw her breath in plumes of steam in the waning moonlight.

When I saw through my chamber window the sun finally dipping below the horizon, I lifted myself from my chair and tucked the worn paper into my coat pocket, preparing to face the cold chill of the Autumn night and its icy frost. I hesitated at the door for a short moment before leaving, still filled with some slight trepidation at the thought of meeting this Pakenham character; it took a fair amount of self-reassurance before I finally opened the door, stepping out of my quaint estate. Wanting to remain faithful to my mysterious appointment, I took numerous shortcuts across gloomy alleyways, silently stepping along the slippery cobblestones. With every step I took, the landscape around me turned more desolate. Buildings, streets, trees...everything took on a dark character that threateningly stared at me as I travelled out of town.

The hotel door closed with a loud “click” as we walked to the elevator. “What bloody took you so long” Neil laughed. We all got in the elevator and took it to the lobby, it was extravagant for a old building. Marble covered the floor a meeting area on the right alongside a lounge with great aboriginal art and the check in on the left. My mom and I had the hotel hold our bag for the day because we were leaving that night. As we exited the double glass door out onto the street, I looked back at the hotel its five stories and dome on the roof paled in comparison to the size of the others along the roads, one surprised me with a post apocalyptic look while vines hanged off the roof of the building. We passed through a park on our way to the train station, the winding path we walked had small rails with orange trees. On the right I saw a odd looking bird with a flamingo like body but it’s beak looked to be as big as a shoe.

The day was murky, dark a bitter wind nibbling at my ankles, arms, and nose as I stood upon a hill observing the view before me. My great grandma had just been laid to rest at the end of her sunset to join my great grandpa, who I never met. Wearing my sensible black formal flats with my nice fitting black blouse and skirt below my knees, I ponder the life I could recall from my great grandmother’s life and can admit she changed with older age. To see her come from the nice lady I knew as a young child to the grumpy women I had last saw before her deathbed.

Miss Meela wailed underneath her broad brimmed hat as the pallbearers lowered the casket, carrying her young kin. Just twenty four months of life before death came upon the home, leaving nothing but remnants of sorrow and despair in the little village in Cascade. Her wide eyes a bloodshot red welled up with salty tears as blankets of raw dirt covered the cream mahogany casket. When the casket hit the soft soil at the bottom of the hole, her round face bore a sadness that no one at the procession, not even her closest of kin can take away. One woman placed her hands gently on Miss Meela’s broad shoulders handing her a fresh tissue to soak up the tears from her swollen eyes.

The darkness was closing in on us fast making the shadows dance as the cars drove by on the nearby city streets. I could only imagine what lingered in those shadows. Zombies, maybe? Will White Hair visit me again tonight. Why not? I disturbed his final place of rest. Old Washam Cemetary was no longer peaceful but dreary. All I see when I close my eyes was egg shells and strands of toliet paper hanging from the trees. Old broken tombsones putting of an erie glow. The statue of the soldier laying on the ground crumbled into tiny broken pieces. I can faintly vision the black roses Snake and I laid on Stormy's grave that fateful night. In the dark I had plenty of time to think about these dreary matters. I was being consumed by the negativity of my actions. Those actions had a direct impact on my current situation and I had