PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

He found the binder amongst her writing materials - journals, spiral notebooks, riffled papers of scribbling held loosely by staples and paperclips in some desperate attempt at order. On the vinyl cover in thick black Sharpie lettering was simply "Predictions Premonitions Prophecies". Compared to the rest of the mess, these pages were meticulously organized, grouped and arranged chronologically. Some of the smaller notes, written on napkins, envelopes, the back of an odd store receipt, were enclosed in clear plastic sheaths, the kind that have 3-holes punched in them. He opened the binder which started at March 7, 1973, printed, in the juvenile handwriting of what would have been her 10 year old self, on the back of a 4th graders Math homework. At the bottom of the page was a large checkmark and a date two years later, November 12, 1975. The next page was June 16, 1975, in practiced script on a piece of pink stationary with a flowery border across the bottom and also a checkmark with the date May 10, 1977. So on and so forth, an entire binder full of predictions of future events, some personal, some global, at first sporadic then increasing in frequency until the last entry dated a week before she died. That event had recently come to pass, making headlines everywhere and had plunged the world into a political crisis. 

He asked her daughter if he could keep the binder for awhile. She said yes of course and then asked him how he felt about staying there in her mother's house as it would be good to have someone on the property. He had known the girl since she was born, when his now ex had been midwife to her birth. She'd grown into a beautiful young woman and was still friends with his own daughter who was the same age. Indeed it was due to the girls' friendship that his involvement with her mother began. At drop-offs and pick-ups for playdates & sleepovers, kids birthday parties & field trips, they had fallen in love. Oh what a long slow fall it had been.