Student Publishing Program ::

Priscilla Briggs

Missed Messages

The first time I saw her we were on a bus. A bus going nowhere, coming from nowhere, a never ending bus ride on the white plains of dreamland. She had been luminous.

“I’ll be seeing you soon in my home,” she had said. I had forgotten her by the next morning.

The second time I saw her was in school. I only saw her for a second as we passed each other by in the halls. She was a perfection disguised by American Eagle. Our eyes met, but I wouldn’t realize until it was too late, what that glance had meant. I moved past her.

Maybe I saw her again. Maybe I didn’t. Maybe she was my friend, telling me to live every second to the max. Maybe she was the woman on TV, listing the joys of life one by one or my mother, telling me to be careful out there. Maybe she was every one of them. Maybe she was none of them.

Yet there on the sidewalk I met her again, with an unexpected swerve and a screech of tires, I followed her, leaving my body behind.

Now, just as she said I would be, I am in her home now, surrounded by her friends. Each one luminescent. Each one wondering why I had ignored her. Wondering why I had let what little time I had pass unappreciated. It’s a mistake I see now. An irreversible mistake, I regret it, even if I accept it.

The angel tells me it wasn’t my fault, it wasn’t the car’s either. An unlucky roll of fate’s dice brought me to heaven to see her again.

[TABLE OF CONTENTS, LHS CLASS OF 2009 EDITION]