She saw magic everywhere, especially in slant cuts of light where dust particles drifted and glowed. Her delicate fingers, as small as bones, reached into that dusty Milky Way to touch a galaxy, a solar system, tiny friends.
A passerby saw only late sunlight.
For her, reality began to melt like butter left on a hot stove—not all at once, but gradually, one layer at a time. Beneath those layers of spun fantasy were vacant pockets: dark spaces, mysteries.
Perhaps her mind had fractured. The pain was too much for someone so little to process. So while her fantasies carried her away, another part of her mind cleaned house, tucking dark things into dark places.
Her memory became scattered, like farm life after a tornado—there, but not there; where it was supposed to be, but wasn’t. That happens after tragedies, after bruises and scars, after words flung like molten metal and catfights that thrashed through the house.
You do not really heal. You only learn to forget.
Her older siblings whispered around her: “Strange.” “Weirdo.” They made wide circles around where she sat, speaking with ghosts, talking to dust, basking in the late sun.
Once, a neighbor driving up the road had to stop. There she was, sleeping in the path of sunlight.
She was different.
She was the bent edge of a puzzle piece. She tried to fit herself in. They tried, too. No matter how hard they tried, she did not belong.
It wasn’t exactly her fault. She was simply in the wrong box, meant to complete another picture.
She belonged somewhere.
Just not here.
INTO THIS DEEP 