#3: broken reprise

I would never see Katherine again.

In the autumn of that year, I returned to my school in Ithaca, and there I met Jen, the unexpected reprise in my song. Jen had the deep eyes of a dreamer, one trapped in the spin of faerie tales and legends.

She loved me, she said, and we would fly like Icarus to far places with sunrises like no other. What was a boy to do? We were just babes, but she already knew her wants in life. Katherine's lips still memorized, I did not answer Jen's eyes.

Jen. This time is not right.

Such is the way of fickle fortune, for nary since was a Jen, not one, not ever again.

—Eurymachus, February 15, 2003