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fiction
SCRAP PAPER HEARTS words Liesel Schmidt image Africa Studio/Shutterstock
This is the first installment of a two-part fictional story.
A voice behind her startled her out of her reverie; almost
Part two will be featured in our November issue.
a violent assault on her concentration, so unexpected was the question.
She’d been fine until she saw it.
She turned her head to discover the source and found She’d been strong, recovered, adjusted. And then it all
herself looking into the smiling eyes of a man who
came crashing down.
looked to have about ten years on her, his blue-grey eyes offset by tanned skin. A well-worn baseball cap
One simple little scrap, one unevenly torn sheet of yellow
hid his hair and cast a shadow across his face, strangely
legal paper with chicken scratch notations on it. Slightly
at odds with the Oxford cloth shirt he wore. There was
smudged letters in mechanical pencil, hastily written by a
a boyish sense of vibrancy in him that seemed almost
hand that would never write another word.
irrepressible, despite the fact that he’d barely spoken.
Sophie stared out at the water, unblinking and unseeing,
Milk.
as people walked past her in a blur of activity that seemed
Peanut butter.
a million miles away.
Coffee. Don’t forget I love you!
“Need a push?”
––Mom
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