The Last Flight

by Julie Clark

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on.

You might be shoulder to shoulder with someone living their last moments as themselves and never know it.

Do you think she really left him, or do you think something happened to her?

The empty house offers itself up to me, yet reveals nothing.

Everything you ever wanted is on the other side of fear.

You can never go back. Not once. Not in any way, ever.

That was the problem with wishes. They always led to others.

Identity is a strange thing. Are we who we say we are, or do we become the person others see?

“It takes a lot of courage to start over,” she says. I don’t respond. Nothing about what I’ve done feels brave or courageous.

Cold January wind and a resolution—one way or another, she was done.

“Do not ever forget who you are and what you mean to me. In a world crowded with noise and selfishness, you are a brilliant flash of kindness.”