Clarity

By Alice Benson

Daphne’s hair was the iridescent amber of maple leaves in autumn and her giggles flowed freely at my every joke. After four months, I left a toothbrush in her bathroom. Still, we circled warily, neither of us able to commit. One Sunday, we stopped downtown at a slow red light. A man with a crusty beard and ragged clothes began a ponderous shuffle toward the car, his hand outstretched. “Lock the doors!” Daphne exclaimed, at the same moment I reached for my wallet. When I let her out at her apartment, we agreed she could just toss my toothbrush.

         
Alice Benson discovered writing as a passion in the third act of her life and spends much of her time in pursuit of metaphors. Alice’s novels, Her Life is Showing and A Year in Her Life were published by Black Rose Writing.