At Saint Ursa's, on the far-flung edge of the Westering Isles, memory was a fragile thing, always on the verge of silence, and joy a color that fought against the pervasive, patient grey.
I reach for my birthday now— a day when light and darkness met as equals, a sliver of impossible balance. The courtyard, sharp cobblestones beneath my feet, pale sun straining through overcast. Father Daniel's smile, fleeting as candlelight. Father Sam humming just beyond true pitch.
Other children... their laughter now distant tinkling, their faces blurring at the edges like watercolors in rain. The whisper of unwrapping paper, a ribbon—blue? Green? The shade eludes me like a word on the tip of my tongue.
And then this. From him.
A handmade card, his presence in the memory like a face through frosted glass—the shape there, the warmth, but the details wavering. His name, a sound that brushes past but won't settle.
I trace the faded ink on rough paper:
Dear James,
We have been through… so many whispered adventures… together. Through shadow… and light… we've found our way like… It has been… watching you become… who you are meant… Happy birthday… I'm glad… here for it…
I hope you remember… all our good times… even the stupid ones… when we got stuck in the… Promise me you won't forget… about us… okay? Even if… different places someday…
Your friend always…
The words drift and blur, dissolving like sugar in rain… Spaces breathe where solid thoughts once stood. What tapestry of shared days? The full, warm shape of his message flickers at the edge of my mind, like a half-remembered dream upon waking.
At the bottom, his name—a faint impression, a whisper on paper. The ghost of a letter where a signature once affirmed everything.
I trace the indentations where his hand once pressed, where meaning used to live so boldly. A phantom warmth, brief as caught breath, then nothing. Only the echo of a name I cannot speak, and a silence that settles too deeply—a silence that watches from the spaces where words have been erased.