Trigger

I find his letters in a box, post-dated and stamped "confidential", "urgent", the American bald eagle peering at me from its small, square perch on the upper right corner of these envelopes. They are worn thin as moth's wings, from being read too much by the girl that I used to be. I remember her well, but I do not miss her: she was weepy and sad, and for the longest time, she mourned something that might have never existed in the first place. The box, I've sent out, to be buried together with all my other relics. Twenty years from now, it might be found by a curious child, digging nonchalantly in the dirt - perhaps my daughter, or someone else's? Only God knows.

My past, in a box, buried deep in the ground. It is as it should be.

Everything is carried on the wind - children smile at me when I walk past, because I smile at them first; a friend calls to say she misses me, then for two hours we trade secrets and little heartbreaks over lunch, in her apartment overlooking the road that I used to walk four years ago, as an ungainly, frizzled girl; coffee, black and strong, leaves a pleasantly bitter taste on my tongue.

Then there is the future, residing in the present. It shall all be. In time.