It's been years since Summer, I started anew, moved to a new town. I'd had enough of living in the big city, and found myself yearning for a sort of simplicity that could not be so - no pun intended - simply achieved. I sold my place, the place where I lived in all my life, the place Summer detested. I don't think I really ever told her the story of that place, but it used to be my parent's house, and me and my brother grew up together there. We always lived there, though I was already preparing to leave the house and get a place for myself whenever I could. It would also give my kid brother much needed space for himself, he was now just entering his teenage years, an age a boy tends to need plenty of space. There was an almost ten year gap between us, he having been the unplanned sort of baby. But everyone here naturally loved welcomed him and loved him dearly. It was the worst day of my life when I got that call about the accident. Everything seemed to happen in slow motion, me picking up the phone, listening to the voice that said that my family had been killed in a car crash, me dropping the phone on the floor, then me dropping to the floor. I was in a dream - a nightmare - and it all got worse. I had to identify their mangled bodies. I had to organize their funerals. I had to lay them to rest. And the I had to return to an empty house. No more would I be woken up by my mom opening up the blinds in our room. No more would I watch a football game with my dad. No more would I hear David's laughter again. For months their ghosts hung around the place, I saw them everywhere. From the corner of my eye, I'd see David running down the hallway, and my mom worriedly hurrying after him. When I sat on the sofa, my dad would sit by my side. Sometimes in the morning when the cold of light of day started filtering through the blinds, I swear I could see mom ready to open them up. One day I started removing everything from the place that reminded me of them, hoping that the ghosts would somehow leave. Oh, I didn't throw anything away - it's all neatly stacked in boxes in my uncle's garage. But the house was emptied even more, and in the end all that remained was the memories. I told Summer some things about this story, but never the whole of it, and she never quite understood how I lived in an empty house and slept in an empty room. Well, my current house is very similar to that one, very bare, bordering on the spartan. It's not self-imposed asceticism, rather it's me living my life knowing I have all I need.
But life isn't easy, not by a longshot. Picking up the pieces of one's life is rarely ever easy or pleasant, and in the intervening years I had to learn a lot about living alone again, about living in isolation almost. I live far off the beaten path, the closest town to where I live is miles away, and I only ever go there whenever I need to get something from the general store. Sometimes, if I'm lucky, I manage to go there only maybe every other month or so. I have fresh running water I draw from a well, which helps a bit with the farming I've been trying to learn how to do - but so far it's been hopeless. Though I do have faith that in due time my farming skills will improve. One dreams of being self-sufficient, or at least moderately so, but these things do take their time. During my first few months here, I felt wracked with regret and guilt over having sold the place, I felt a bitter pang in my heart where once Summer lived, and I felt so god damn to call her, just to hear her voice one more time. But I resisted that temptation, even when one day, out of the blue, I get a text from her. 'Are you happy?', was all it said. I had a litany of words at the ready for the reply, but I never wrote them. Though to myself I confessed often that, no, I was not happy. What I am is content. With what I have. With what I don't have. With my life. It's peaceful, it's quiet, and though sometimes it hurts a lot, most times I do fine. Time passes, and I rarely ever think of Summer again. Summer is... No, Summer was. Just a memory, now. Just a memory.
It's the middle of the summer, and I'm not sleeping well. It's very hot out, and I usually find myself going to bed around six or seven, then I sleep for a few hours only. I'm up by nine or ten, and then I fix myself something to eat and grab a beer or two. I go outside, and sit on an old, busted up sofa I have out front. But tonight there's a cold wind blowing, and I go back inside to put on a jacket. Tonight it's just me and the stars, their flickering lights sending out interstellar morse code messages that will forever remain alien to us. It's impossible for me not to think about that day at the planetarium, but it doesn't hurt me anymore. I like to sit here alone, alone with my thoughts, and sometimes I turn on the radio and trawl the stations until I find something I like. I'm slowly twiddling the knob on the radio, searching for something, but nothing seems to catch my attention. Eventually, I just give up, and leave it playing something in the background. There's music on the station, but I'm just listening to cold wind whistling.
Where I live is so far removed from everything else, that I can literally spot a car coming this way from miles away. There's only the one road that leads here, and in the very few times I had a car drive past, it was just for it to make a u-turn and then drive down the other way down the road. Someone had taken a wrong turn, I thought. Especially at night, I can see as the lights weave in and around the winding road that leads there, and as the car approaches, the lights get bigger and nearer. A very short distance away from me, the car stops. I expect it to make that u-turn anytime soon, but no - the car remains there, the headlights still turned on. I hear the low purr of the motor, and then abruptly, the engine cuts off, and the lights go out. For long minutes there's only the darkness on the inside of the car, and me wondering if someone got really, really lost and now has no idea how to go back. I'm sitting ion the sofa, peeling an apple. It's a fairly sharp knife I'm holding, and I really do hope nothing weird is going to happen. I distinctly hear the sound of a door being opened, and then slammed shut. Then silence, broken by the steady crunch of someone walking on gravel. I start to see the shape of someone coming into my view. It's... will I be damned. It's Summer. She walks slowly towards me, coming clearer and clearer into view. Then here she is, standing before me in her full glory. 'Summer', I say. And she shakes her head, and says, 'No, Summer's gone. It's just... I'm just Geraldine.'
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