Written

by: Eric Franzo

The Wisp

It was a faint-looking wisp. To anyone looking in, it was clear this wisp did not belong. It carried with it an air of the unknown. But the dim glow wasnt out of place. Truth be told, it was exactly where it belongedprecisely in this room. Small paintings of boyhood fantasiesa dreadful dinosaur, a circuitous circushelped bring the tattered maroon walls to life. The room was nestled not just within any age worn house, but an exceptionally shabby one, with peeled siding and broken shutters sharing the unspoken story of abandonment. Unrestrained growth threatened to invade the shakily standing structure, but it mattered little to the wisp inside. While no physical body occupied the house, the wisp feebly held a tiny glimmer of a disembodied consciousness, with thoughts wavering like a dancer striking the balance between an artful pose and a woeful tumble. With what few it could manage, it observed, as if standing guard. It had been here a very long timelonger than the most recently departed occupants, and as old as the first. What it saw it saw without judgment, conviction, or possession. A lamp painted with an artists touch, a shirt poking its sleeve from a smudged and dented dresser, and a boy lying in bed, dreaming the fantastical dreams of boyhood. Every now and then a shriveled piece of memory would tug at the wisp. It would reach in vain, as if the threaded memory was too small to fit through the wisps tightly holed needle. It would be here until the house would no longer support itselfwhen the broken beams finally gave way and its contents were laid bare to all. When the room no longer remained, nor would the wisp, and like any distant dream, it would all come to and end. Find more at: www.boundlessriver.com