Wishes, Dreams, and Gum Under Your Shoes
an excerpt

Her riotous, orange-red hair blazes in the sun as her infectious laughter is carried by the wind. She is the surrounding autumn itself. The crunching leaves on Kensington Street reflect the colour of her hair, and I regret not having a camera. She belongs on that spot, laughing. She belongs to this very moment just as she is. I wonder who she might be, but I don't want to break the spell and cross the street to ask. Instead, I become the watcher and the witness of this brief moment of beauty.

* * *

In a corner of the café sits a man, his charismatic hair long, black, and full of waves. A cup of simple coffee sits in front of him, no longer steaming. He does not seem to move. He does not know for what he is waiting, but he knows it will come. He only has to sit there and remain present.

* * *

Across town, in a jumbled apartment filled with frames of artwork and books, flits a woman in her late 50s. She is distracted, but determined to find what she has lost, yet knows is to be there… somewhere.