Nowhere

by Jaclyn Morken

Edith dreams of Nowhere whenever she can. Whenever Mrs. West’s cake knife eyebrows cut down in a frown at impropriety. Whenever Ms. Travers fastens Edith’s white collar too tightly, trying to button the path from Edith’s mind to her heart. Whenever Edith must flatten her thick, unruly hair with tiny metal clamps.

But when Edith’s feet find their grooves atop of her Collins World Atlas, and she can peer out her bedroom window at the forest below, she finds Nowhere. Edith pitches her thoughts across an infinite space, creating impossibles and unbelievables beckoning between the trees.

Edith slips out of her bedroom into the hall, only to see Mrs. West.

"Where are you going, Edith?" she asks. Her dress is always the colour of dust.

"Nowhere," Edith replies. Mrs. West scratches her head, salting her shoulders, but Edith skips away. The deception is thrilling, and but a nick in her conscience. Edith tiptoes around the rains of plodding feet and flashing eyes that are drenching the corridors with grey. She escapes the grand doors, and finds herself at the edge of her haven.

She brushes her fingers over pleats of tree bark, opening the way to Nowhere. Where golden flowers stand sentinel at the entrance, the Nuns of Nowhere devoted to guiding her passage. Where shadows frighten the branches, so light embraces the trees. Where shining silver leaves swirl about her as they dance on a toasted breeze. Where tiny winged creatures kiss her arms and lift her up into a sky so blue she forgets the colour of mystification.

As the others contemplate the weight beneath their shoelaces, Edith crests the slope of her imagination and borrows the soul of the forest.