The Girl Who Collected Lost Sentences
They called her names, called her weird, called her odd but they knew not to call her boring.
She always kept a box under her bed filled with papers.
Written on those papers were things people had said and left hanging in the air. They were lost sentences, they were unfinished thoughts, they were plans without much precision.
Every conversation she had that was cut off by pride, fear or just bad timing.
She collected all of them.
She started by keeping in her mind all those words, but lost words became so many she went ahead to create this niche.
Her neighbor once said to her
I wish I’d never - then laughed and changed the subject entirely.
Her brother whispered silently to her
If I leave, will you - but never finished.
Even her one true love before breaking her heart offered her pieces
It’s not you, it’s just that I...
Everytime she got a lost sentence, she would blink a bit slowly, like a robot capturing it in her memory.
When she went to her room, she would reach out to the box under her bed and write the lost sentence down and tuck it away
By twenty, she had hundreds. By twenty five, she had thousands.
She never bothered to ask why people stopped mid sentence. She just figured naturally some words were too heavy to say all at once.
One day, as she revealed that secret habit to her best friend, she was asked by the friend,
What do you plan to do with all of them?
She smiled at her best friend, not kindly, not cruelly, just knowingly, not with pride but with understanding.
I give them endings, she said.
Her best friend frowned.
You what, said her best friend to her.
I write them down, so that I can listen to what they didn’t say. Then I write how it might’ve ended. Not what they meant, but what they needed to say to me
But what if you’re wrong, asked her best friend.
She replied, then I’m just writing fiction or maybe, I’m fixing real life.
There was one lost sentence she kept folded in her pocket, worn and weak from years of touching. The words were;
If you ever come looking for me...
That one was her favorite.
Because she still didn’t know how it ended.
Because she hoped someone, somewhere, still meant it.
Because not every sentence needs a full stop to be understood.
People thought she was strange for having this habit.
But for those people who had lost their words, they found something in her.
Not just a girl with a bunch of papers in a box under her bed.
But someone who listened beyond the silence of people.
She believed even the things we don’t say, still deserve to be heard.
The End
The thumbnail was generated using Open AI only for the purpose of a thumbnail
Greetings. It is a very interesting story. Quite an original plot.
A way to keep, for the girl, the many who would have been if? Those little things that are always going around in our heads that make us imagine a different outcome, if only it had been differently or if only they had dared to say so. Sometimes phrases like that are not said because of the predisposition to the response or the effect it will generate.
I loved reading the story... It really caught my attention. I hope to read you again, because honestly it was an enjoyable read.
I'm more than grateful to hear these words from you. If you spoke to the girl she would have nothing to write on the paper because you know exactly what you're trying to say and you said every word. I appreciate your comment man, thanks a lot 🙏
Welcome to the Dream Steem Community! This seems to be the right place for you. This is a wonderful piece of short prose you've given us here. And this comes from someone who loves to complete sentences for others ;-)))
Oh my goodness so grateful you liked it, I was actually wondering whether the community would like it, I'm grateful 🙏 I'll do better if there's anything you'd like to correct please do so I can be better at this
Hehe - no, not so shy. That's good. It's not about perfection here. We're looking for originality, fresh ideas. And your text is great.
You've found your way back to Steem after a long break? Feel welcome!
Yes, I was going through my note pad a couple of days, it's Gmail and I had stored the keys. So I figured signing in and making it part of my life for as long as ever