There’s a strange weightlessness to me now, something hazy and distinctly indistinct. Especially as I only just manage to grasp at a pen and inkwell.

But, while I’m feeling blurry around the edges, this memory is bright, clearly in focus. Sharp and palpable. I can practically smell and taste it.

And, so, I write what I can: Life with you was full of many things, lovely things. It’s gentle laughter, bright, clear skies. Days where I would hardly dread research or teaching. Not when it came to you.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

A memory blinks into focus behind my eyes. It’s idyllic, picture perfect – more perfect than I’d ever remembered it. It’s a moment entrapped in amber, shielded in glass like a specimen in a snowglobe, beautiful and delicate – a snowglobe, or, perhaps, a bell jar. It’s home. – the light and life that I was deprived of.

I continue to write: Home. That’s what you were. The home to a lowly scholar, a student who blossomed.

The peals of laughter, the pattering of feet, fade away, leaving me feeling soft, warm. A small grin tugs on the corner of my mouth.

I remember how lively my life suddenly was, how energetic. Ink dots across the paper because of my unsteady hand.

I’m so caught up in the joy of it all, this recollection that melts like spun sugar on my tongue, fleeting and sickeningly sweet, that I don't notice the tear that falls down my cheek. The tear that lands on the paper, a perfect drop, a new stain.

I’ve left this behind.

A breath goes in and comes out and I sigh. I may eventually flicker away, but the memory holds. My writing holds.