Stories from an Empty Room

Goodnight, Sleep Well

A call to the castaways who never found their way back home from Neverland.

The day we first met, five years ago, she was covering Kodaline's All I Want at a school fair. Call it cliché but it was love at first sight. Gently, her hands pluck the strings, with every vibration resonating within us. Her airy voice as she sang along had a sting to it, the type of pain you keep looking for.

She often told me stories from when she was a kid. How they'd play around in the park, how they'd trip and fall and cry and always find a way to get ice cream.

Nostalgia gets her well, we'd watch her favorite teen flicks and she'd cry over them, despite watching it for the third time.

She's fond of the past, I guess.

"What do you want for Christmas?" I asked.
"What do you mean?" She asked back.
"It's the Christmas season, Addy. Do you want anything?"
She looked at me like I was lying, as if I just stole her cookies and hid them.
"It's already December?" She asked.
"Yes?"
"Shit..."

On the 31st of December, as we watch the clock tick, she fiddled a festive tune.
"Five! Four! Three! Two! One!" yelled the crowd "Happy New Year!"
But it didn't seem to phase her. She looked up to watch as colors burst through the sky, smoke filled the skies that were once filled with stars.
She continued to mess around with her guitar, softly plucking the strings as she softly sang along.

"Take me home to the streets we use to roam
Shallow rivers and falling feathers
Skipping rocks and early suppers

O, I wonder
Where did home go?"

The moon's dim glow penetrates the clouds as they float through the sky. Tapping on her guitar as she lay on the grass dreaming, she continued to hum her song.
The whistles of the tall grass played along, little fireflies flew above us.
"Why'd we have to grow up?" she asked.
"Adeline..." I called.
"I use to be happy. All the time, you know? I chased butterflies in our front yard, Pick flowers and make necklaces out of them. But what happened now?"
Her eyes start to water and her nose turned red. She covered her face up with her handkerchief but it didn't stop her from crying.

You're evergreen, but fragile.

Adeline, I can't yet give the ending you want, so I leave it here.
"Time will always be there, even when we disappear. To dream for it to stop would be innocuous but wishful. We cannot stop it, it's just how it is. Though as cliché as it sounds, the memories we make will forever shape us in a way we can't even imagine. So stay strong, we are who we are today because time pushed us to be here."

Adeline, I hope you made it home.