By: Jane Yuss
Dr. G. W. Williams Secondary School

Dear Diary,

I’ve seen him only once. But he changed my life forever. I think I’m going crazy! Tomorrow I’m going to go back, and if he isn’t there I’ll do what I should have done back then. Before I go I want someone to hear my story, the story of a screwed up girl and a beautiful stranger.

I should start all the way from the beginning… that day was cold, but at the same time heavy, as if before a storm. There was a storm… my own, private storm! I do not want to think about what happen back then, all those weeks…months ago. I don’t think I can anyway! It’s all too far away, in the far past. So anyway, my storm blew me to one of many flat rooftops in our town. It had a great view of the river. I used to sit there for hours just staring into the country side, knowing that THIS was the end and the beginning. Knowing and yet not….

That day I got to my rooftop earlier then usual. I sat there and started into the distance. I don’t remember that much about it, like what I was thinking, or looking at. I just remember staring at the red-orange autumn-struck trees and thinking about all the birds that were frying south. South from this hell…this winter…this life! I remember wishing I could fly. Just like them!

And then, I started to believe that I indeed could fly. Just like the birds! I closed my eyes and thought about the up coming flight! All I had to do was take this one step off the rooftop…over the edge! And I’ll soar into the air and follow the birds…and fly away! I already had my foot over the edge, my heart full of hope! That’s when I heard his laugh.

Opening my eyes and turning around I saw HIM. Tall, skinny, unattractive, he looked so out of place. Here, in our town, everything was mighty! The sky was wider, the winds colder, the winters longer. All the people here are small, broad shouldered, with winded out, but beautiful faces. We are the traditional northern men. He however looked like southerner, tourist, outsider! How dare he interrupt me like that? How dare he be on this rooftop altogether?! All those thoughts raced through my head long before I actually saw him. There was an instant connection between us. It was there long before I laid my eyes on him, long before that day. We knew each other long before…we knew each other always!

Well anyway… he was standing there, smiling at me. HE wasn’t that young. I still have no idea how old he was, but he had graying hair and sad, watery eyes. Yet there was something about him…something young! When he spoke, his voice was clear, but a little rough.

“Pain doesn’t give you wings…it only brakes those that you already have!”

I stared at him. He was beautiful…in his own strange way. He just stood there, smiling at me. Oh god!! Over all the hours…days…months I still remember that smile, those eyes. I keep dreaming of his voice, of that day… I wish HE would be back!

It’s hard to explain what happen after words. In fact I barely remember myself! We walked off the roof together, not speaking…not looking at each other. Oh that silence…it was full of complete and total understanding! It was like we’ve known each other for days…months…years! All the time when I was lonely and hurt he was with me…there for me…protecting me from the worst of it all.

When we were off the roof we just kept on walking down the street…we walked down another and another street, walked across the towns’ main square. That’s where he stopped, turned to me and said the words that drove me all this time “I’ll be back, and I’ll take you away! Away from this pain…these lose! I’ll take you south! We’ll be happy together… but I can’t do it right now… I will return”. With those words we walked off. Never to return again!

Those 25 minutes of silent understating, of the peace, the LOVE… were the best in my whole life!

After HE walked away there were the long hours at night, the lasting minutes in days, the dragging seconds on the holidays. The time for sadness and waiting… sadness with a point, meaning! I knew what I wanted… who I was waiting for and why!

But dear diary… he will never come back, will he? Why would he go back to an abandoned town in the middle of vast northern tundra? Why would he waste his time on a little stupid girl who he accidentally saved from committing suicide… and even that by laughing! He probably doesn’t even remember me…does he?

But this sorrow… realization… are not part of my story! Those feelings are resent, shallow and unworthy! Hope should not die so fast! He is always with me… in my mind, but still there!!

*    *    *

It’s been a year! A year of pain, sorrow and waiting! And now I know for sure he’s not coming back… but I think I’ve known that all along! He did all he could… he had given me all this months of sweet sorrow, of point and of awaiting for something good! Now as I site here on the rooftop… taking in the autumn-struck trees and migrating birds I think about him. I wish I could fly like the birds… fly south and find him! I wish….

It’s so easy… just one step and you sour into the sky… the huge yet welcoming sky! And fly with the birds away from the pain, the sorrow, the loneliness!

I took just one step… just one step off the rooftop. The one I wanted to take last year but didn’t because of HIM! And now I took it for HIM… coincidence? Who knows….

I took the step and soured into the sky, my body light as a feather! Love for him rebuild my in pained, damaged wings! I flew over my town looking down at it. Thinking of all those I’m not leaving behind…of those who will not miss me! I flew south… to find the one I love, the one who taught me how to fly. And once I find him, I’ll stay with him forever since there is no way to separate us anymore. I flew away from this hell… the winter… this pain…

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