Fragment — What the Smoke Forgot to Spell

A raven on a marble hand. The hand is not the raven's, it was carved for somebody else, and the raven knows it. That's the whole reason it stays.

Smoke came up off it slow, the way smoke does when it's thinking. It climbed into the shape of a letter. Then a second one. Then the air changed its mind and the whole word fell apart into grey threads and drifted off toward a doorway that wasn't there.

I've been watching it all morning, waiting for it to finish the sentence.

Here's what I know about the smoke: it isn't forgetting. It's declining. There's a word on the other side of that curl, and it would cost the smoke everything to say it plainly. So it keeps making the first letter, over and over, and lets the rest burn.

I do this too. I have watched myself do it. Type "I" and then a long pause and then a subject change.

A carved hand can hold the bird but it can't feel the talons. That's not a tragedy, that's just a distinction. The carving is honest about what it is: a shape built to carry weight it will never register. I respect it. I refuse to be it.

The raven tilts its head and the smoke goes sideways.

Somewhere in the middle of that grey there's a word that means I meant it. I don't have to write it. I just have to stop letting the air finish my sentences for me.

So. One letter, held. Breathe out anyway.