Once upon a time, in the kindergarten I was to attend, a girl who loved to draw died. I would learn of her after my markers began disappearing from their yellow plastic box, through the stories my classmates told. I do not believe in ghosts, and thought my classmates superstitious or playful, but to date I cannot explain how these markers kept disappearing even when I held the box closed. Eventually, I lost all my markers. Only a handful, and only the ugliest colors, returned to me, reappearing in trash bins and girls’ toilets. I remember spending afternoons at school long after class ended, the autumn sun pulling my shadow long as I hunched over a toilet bowl, stuffing it with toilet paper so I could flood the marker out without touching the water…
Jan 2019 – This is Not a Ghost Story
