Gray After Dark

by Noelle W. Ihli

Work with the pain, not against it,

The trail took a sharp left into a crowded copse of aspens. As I came onto the straightaway, I saw a flurry of movement out of the corner of my eye. An enormous great horned owl burst into flight right in front of me, shooting out of the brush to my left in a soundless flurry of wide gray wings.

Opening up your heart is messy—and risky. But keeping your heart locked is risky, too.

I learned that it didn’t actually matter whether you kept your heart open or locked. Twisted metal and broken glass sliced through it either way. So did loss.

I would have cried tears of joy to trade the past two days for a chance to face off with a bear instead of these two monsters.

‘All cats look gray after dark.’

She terrified me, that was true, but she also made my heart hurt. Because regardless of the fact that she was intent on holding me prisoner here, there was no doubt in my mind that she was a prisoner too.

It was less like trying to find a needle in a haystack than trying to find a lost set of keys in New York City. Endless places to look. Endless ground to cover. Endless obstacles. Zero leads.

Like a funeral slideshow, my brain whispered as the sun set, yet again, with zero sign of her.

I welcomed the darkness. Anymore, it was my only friend.

“Just Like Heaven” by The Cure,