Evelyn remembered the scent of jasmine blooming under the pockmarked streetlights of a forgotten summer.
"It's the gas station after the storm", whispered the voice like dying embers in a fireplace.
Wasn't it the carnival, just beyond the dusty horizon?
Jack stared at the calendar's endless march through days, each blocked square more anemic than the last.
In dreams, he walked the railway tracks leading nowhere but circuses folding tents and golden tents across autumn's last blushing.
Do crows ever lose their secrets?
Layers peeled like melting mirages, charting unfamiliar paths into the childhood attic. Did they ever find that ticket under the attic floorboards?
"Remember the carnival's spark?" she challenged him, though the memories themselves flickered uncertainly, cast in hues that mirrored celestial nights.
The past hums, like cracks in varnished wood.