Frank Sinatra’s voice coats the snowy night as I contemplate turning off the radio.
“Not going to dance?” you ask, not smiling, because I can’t remember anymore how your lips eased into your lopsided smile.
I’ll blink and you’ll disappear, I know.
But before that, you are here, aren’t you?
Chelsea Allen is in love with people and things past, mostly. Her work can be found at msha.ke/lakehouseporch/#links. Follow Chelsea on Twitter at @ChelseaAllen03
He held up the tree branches for her as she followed him along the creek.
As they reached the cave, and the sight of her startled everyone inside, she flinched at the whisper of a once-loved scent.
“The government doesn’t know it.” He smirked at her. “But we’ve got books!”
Chelsea Allen wrote this story.
The last hour of the musky Edinburgh afternoon, she stopped discussing Byron, treaded more slowly, inhaled more deeply.
“Goodbye, Todd.”
I stopped.
She smiled, misty-eyed, as I tucked the flowers behind her ear. “I’ll write to you,” I said.
She nodded, quipped about getting on a time machine, and left.
Chelsea Allen wrote this story as a sequel to her piece The Librarian and the Time Machine, previously published here on 50-Word Stories.
She dozes at her desk as they hustle about, with handfuls of calculations and headfuls of complications, in the secrecy of the after-hours.
Today is a big day for them. She, their first subject, smiles back, waving, as if it were the first time she is stepping into a time machine.
Chelsea Allen often finds herself wandering in the fields of writing and pâtisserie.
Tomorrow will be a good day. Brother’s coming home from the war in England. We are going to meet him at the harbour around eight in the morning. And then I’m having my hula dance recital! I hope I don’t embarrass myself again.
December 7, 1941
Yesterday was forever ago.
Chelsea Allen loves stargazing.