A minnow drifts onward in a dark pond. It's small and white, surrounded on all sides by a blanket black as pitch. It doesn't flick around erratically like other minnows. It stays its course, straight as an arrow, spearing on into the unknown ahead. It is alone. It's been on its journey across this bleak ocean of black for thirty years. In thirty years it's been alone. In thirty years its only company has been the ghostly blink of distant lights. It passed a shred of land once

She was a girl of eighteen with ash brown hair and flint eyes filled with the burgeoning hope of a young soul on the precipice of adulthood. Her life had been terribly average since her birth. She was raised an only child by loving parents, Henry and Gillian, who were both equally unremarkable. Henry met his wife at a state university, and after three years of dating he proposed. With a degree in hand he went on to be data analyst for a successful soda beverage company. Gilli

I've heard it been said, quite commonly, our sense of smell is the strongest at triggering old memories. I'm not too sure about this tossed around factoid. You see for me it is sound that excavates buried recollections like a child sifting through a box of toys. In my head sound echoes out from the past like a lighthouse cutting through the fog of the years. There is one sound I cannot escape. No stretch of time and no amount of new memory can exorcise it from my head. That s