Aidan WhartonCreative WritingMs. Culff4/29/13

Goodbye

This has always been my favorite part of town. As a child, I would bolt up the cobbled

stairs and slide, headfirst down the center trough during the summer rains. Countless bruises and

scrapes appeared on my body like deformed flowers only to wither and disappear days later.

Among the ivy filling in the spaces in the cracked wall I shared my first kiss. She was the most

beautiful girl I had ever seen. Her name, Sofia, still makes my heart pound as rapidly as it did on

that clear spring day. The newly blooming bougainvillea framed her face in a portrait perma-

nently etched upon my heart. Her hair, an obsidian waterfall, caressed her cheeks which grew

rosy in embarrassed excitement. She leaned in, and before I knew what I was to do, her velvet

lips touched my own and the world melted away. That moment of innocence shines like a candle

on a dark windowsill, calling me home.

It’s been almost forty years since that day. Sofia has long since departed from my life,

and if whispers are to be believed, she has left the world of the living as well. In all my letters

home I asked of her. They say she met a new man, and I know they shared their own first kiss.

She had children and a house, which she always wanted. I can only hope that her man made her

as happy as she once made me.

And yet I can’t help but wonder if she, too, thought about me. On a dark, lonely night did

I flit across her mind, a sparrow alighting for a moment on a memory before once again taking

ing into the dark corners of forgetfulness. Upon the ship I’d think of her. The mighty waves that

knocked the men to the ground were simply her careful cradling of her newborn son. The heat

that blistered our skin and scorched our eyes was the radiance emanating from a mother’s bosom.

The ale that comforted our wounded hearts was the milk to set a babe sleeping. She was every-

where and nowhere. The whores at port were cheap and sorrowful, only reminding me of the

grace that existed elsewhere. The women who loved me and whom I loved were simply empty,

missing that spark of purity that only one woman ever had.

So here I stand, each foot on the steps of my youth. I’ve come home to pay my respects,

not at your grave Sofia, or in your favorite church on Calle Cristobal, but on this simple street

where children played and hearts were stolen.