Thick fog, hanging in the air like a bleak curtain. Remembering, picturing blurry silhouettes standing three feet away. Days like this are easiest, the atmosphere so washed out even dull echoes feel real. Days like this are hardest. A self-indulgent lie. On the ground, lying on a bed of pine leaves and moss and torn bits of receipts and oak leaves from last September. Fists clenched, gripping phantoms that will never heal. Rain falls and the echoes grow louder. If only they were here, corporeal, with matching droplets running down their faces. Would you scream, demand explanations? Or stare, until someone looked away?
Rebecca Kempe is a writer and multidisciplinary artist from Ottawa, Ontario. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in flo., The Ampersand Review, and elsewhere. Her plays Each on Our Side and Signal Breakdown were performed in the 2019 and 2021 editions of the Youth Infringement Festival, respectively. She recently self-published There’s Nothing to See Here/Nothing Happens Here, a two-part zine which explores the stagnant (but at times welcome) stillness of the suburbs she grew up in through photography and prose. More of her work can be found at www.rkempe.ca and you can find her online as @arbeeko.
