The Zine The Time Edition | Page 16

Don’t. I am gone, my case is hopeless. Let the combination lock wither away, let the files inside be left to the wrath of nature. Do not incur it upon yourself. Nature’s wrath is cold and unforgiving; it brought me here, and if you think for one second it will help you find me, you are wrong. It is spiteful and denying, and it will fling you to some far-off part of the universe where we will be farther apart than ever before.

Leave me this last image of you: that you will grow up and find your love and live your dream and be content. You must live twice the life you ever planned to, because now you are not just living for yourself- you are also living for me. Do everything you ever hoped to do and more; experience life’s thrills. Grow old. Become so rich you can afford to be lazy. Do something with your life that I can be proud of. And maybe, just maybe, you will be so remembered that I might find a glimpse of you in this cold, devastated world. Your name on a fallen billboard. Or your face playing over and over on a broken television. There is so much here of what could have been. I am one of them. I no longer exist where I came from. There is no reason for me to cross your mind.

You will cross mine, it is sure, but I am taking precautions. I will leave my bracelet, twin to yours (remember how the bullies teased you for it being too girlish?) on this rock, on which I am currently sitting. I will leave it there, for I can not afford for it to be a part of me any longer. There is one other thing that I must leave behind, no matter how much it splinters my entire being to do so: that picture of you that I took at the lake, the one where a bird landed on my head and wouldn’t leave and you were laughing, just laughing, that beautiful, wonderful smile, and I captured it for the world to have until the end of time.

Until the end of time.

It is fitting to leave it here after all. Perhaps this is where it was meant to end up, a spark of color among the monotonous grey.

I will leave it here, not only for myself, but to provide hope for anyone that follows.

In my heart I know there will be no others.

Only myself.

It is time for me to go.

Goodbye.

I love loved you