“For Sale: Baby Shoes, Never Worn” The sign read as he walked past the store window. Inside him, his stomach felt as if it were enduring a hurricane. This sign struck him…more than it should have struck an ordinary person. The store window selling those shoes made him feel weak, dizzy, and overwhelmed inside, so he decided to end his walk and sit down on the bench facing Central Park. The birds above him were spiraling around the city’s skies singing their usual lengthy melodies, in their own languages no one could quite comprehend.



He had wondered about her well-being from time to time, and whether or not she had successfully published the book she was working on in Paris. Despite, how everything turned out, he truly, from the bottom of his heart, wished the best for her. He began to reminisce their times together…



Her face was porcelain, with blue eyes that could make you feel weak inside. Her eyes were like the ocean before the harsh tides arrived, also filled with aqua hues and turquoise shadows. She had purity in her eyes, much like herself. He recalled the picnic by the Lock Bridge in Paris: the aroma of summer and joy of having no care in the world were the highlights of that afternoon. After they had spent their day at the Musee du Louvre, they overlooked the sunset over the Seine River. They came by the Seine for a Parisian dinner. Elizabeth was quite inquisitive that hour.



Her face was porcelain. Her cheeks, blushed rouge: a color so pure that they could’ve been easily mistaken for those of a juvenile’s. She reminded him of a white lamb. She was serene, almost too serene. She was like the early bud of a flower. It seemed too mysterious to him. He met Elizabeth a few weeks ago, but it felt as if they had known each other for ages. She was not like the others. She was like a mysterious tunnel that was never ending. And every vein of his beat her name over and over again. Till July 28, 1983.



She left with no word. She had disappeared. He reminisced those late evenings where he lay awake, struck by insomnia, pondering the possibilities of her whereabouts. Horrific possibilities haunted his conscious for months. How could a romance so small in length have such an impact on him?

There was a certain light that had radiated from her shined. She was the moon of his dark nights that had disappeared. She was like the sunset over the beach that had become cold in the winter. There was an ache in his heart that was indescribable.

She came and left like dream. A dream, that was too good to be true. She was one of those dreams that one never wishes to wake up from. A dream where there were infinite fields of budding tulips and roses facing a vast countryside, with mountains surrounding the fields. Where there were caterpillars, not quite butterflies and harmonious birds only singing the beginning verse. Harrison was a dreamer, and he had lost his first and last dream of innocence. He in fact had a reoccurring dream of a body of water. In some dreams, the water was a river, in some, an ocean. He did recall that in every dream, the water was deep blue, and the sand, white-the most white he had ever seen before.

Dizzy and weak, he arose from the bench. Feelings of wistfulness and nostalgia overcame him. He continued his promenade, and he made his way out of Central Park. The birds, flying above in the sky, were singing their full song, and followed him outside the park.