Something Different

And just like that, she was gone. With no notice or explanation, she just disappeared.

She emailed him the day before to tell him about her day, as she had often done since they started corresponding. She had been doing all of her favorite things; out riding with friends, enjoying good food and ending the day with her friends around a campfire, playing guitar, singing and sharing a couple bottles of wine. She was a free spirit and enjoyed life to the fullest. Too many bad experiences in her past led her to always look for the good in everything, and their conversations left him feeling better about things which he was going through, also.

So, today, when he went to reply to her email, it did not send, and he received a message from the email account, saying that the email could not be sent because the receiving address did not exist. He knew this had to be a mistake, because he had replied to all of her other emails. He tried replying again, but with the same results. He then tried to send a new email straight to her address, but, again, it was unsuccessful. He then tried looking for all of her social media accounts, where they had met and started talking almost a year earlier. He couldn’t find her anywhere. All of her accounts seemed to have been wiped clean. He couldn’t even find any of their conversations on the sites. Where had she gone?

After a while of thinking about this, he pulled up the first email she sent, and clicked the attachment that was with it. It was the only picture she had ever sent him. In it she was in a long white dress of a Victorian-esque style, leaning against the side of a long window, looking out. The setting sun shining on her profile and highlighting her fiery red hair, giving her an ethereal look, almost phantom-like. Maybe that’s all she was. A figment of his imagination. At least he still had the emails to read and remind him that she was real. As he was staring at the picture, it began to fade out. He couldn’t believe his eyes as it continued to fade out of existence, much the same as she had done. When it was completely gone, he closed the email to find that it, along with the other emails he had in the folder with her name on it, had also disappeared. The folder was empty.

Who was she? Where did she go? Did she even exist? In his heart she did. The picture would forever be imprinted in his mind.

As if I didn’t have any more to do: a debut novel, two short stories and a poem – all of which I need to be writing! – I just came up with this. I am thinking about the relationship between my main character and a supporting character in my WIP (Work In Progress for my non-writing followers), and in good ADD fashion, my mind just turned this out. This is off course from my WIP, but it was a fun exercise anyway. Let me know what you think.