Deep Cuts

by Holly Brickley

It comforted me, this mess. It made the house feel like a proper family lived here, one with better things to do than clean.

They didn’t know they were the best friends I’d ever had. How can you tell that to people you’ve known only a few months without sounding pathetic?

“This one is optimism,” I said. “Right,” Joe said. “The happiness of knowing that happiness is coming.”

That’s why the song was so short, I decided—because connection, like memories, came in the briefest of flashes.

When the whirling stopped it seemed strange that we were still in my hallway, that we hadn’t been transported to another, more colorful dimension.