Vignette: Spectre

It’s easy to fall for a spectre, for the creature you have made in your mind’s eyes, that maps with utter convenience onto the person you have chosen. It is easy to love them, for you made them; you know them so well.

The disappointment is crushing as the illusion crashes down. Reality brings them up to the light, and finds them wanting. You may persevere, for a little while, hoping rather than imagining they are what they are not. One day, you learn. And another day, you learn not to do it again.

It was a shock to discover you. It took me down like a avalanche. When I picked myself up, still trembling, but trying to see through the clouds of dust, I thought, “maybe, it was not you I wanted, but another vision.”

But then I heard you, and saw you.

You were what I hoped and more.

And then you vanished, as a spectre does, and in the morning I was once more empty.

—

Found this among my WIP folder – and since it’s Halloween, the word ‘spectre’ seemed appropriate.

Mirrored from jacquelinebrocker.esquinx.net.