John Lennon once said “Reality leaves a lot to the imagination.”

Given a little reality, you can imagine so much more. I say there is too much reality, too much of the time. I don’t watch reality television shows, frankly because they just don’t seem real.

The fun of writing is that you can create your own characters and put them in situations of your choice. You can create sympathy for them, and then turn them loose in a world of possibilities.

 

The Falls

by Diane E. Dockum

 

The only way to get there was to

cross the dam and so she did,

barefoot, carrying lilacs

because they were in season.

For remembrance, she

held them to her breast

inhaling their dark purple

breath. Her goal, to place

them on their spot in a sunny field,

in the deep summer grass

where they had loved and lingered

on a better day than this.

A kiss, recalled, paused her

there atop the falls and

she looked down long enough

to remember not to.

It had been a year since –

a long and lonely year,

and lilacs were in bloom again.

They never found him.

So she looked, staring down

the falls, feeling the rumble;

the cement biting her feet,

freezing them into hard

tree trunks and after a while

she seemed to be moving backward.

Suspended over the ridge

she was the only one who saw

him lose his footing,

balanced for a moment

then the bouquet he’d

picked for her unleashed

into the air,

she reached out

to take his hand,

the lilacs hovered for an instant

then disappeared

down into the rushing water

swallowed by the mist.

When she looked again

he was gone – no sign

no sign he’d ever lived

except the warm place

in her belly, except the

kisses on her face.

Today she stopped

and leaned over, watching

for a sign, hoping. Hoping

she would fall too.