not quite impossible

There was a girl who mostly seemed impossible. Stories of friends on the lam, of jumping trains, of a life so full of adventure that it seemed unreal. And she was so nonchalant about it. These were merely things that happened to her. She wasn't fazed at all by it.

I can remember her inflection more than the stories themselves (though that's a lie): the way she sounded almost irritated. I remember it because of how beautiful that storyteller's trick is, adopting that tone that seems to say, "these are the things I put up with." "I found out today my best friend had jumped on a train and was now somewhere in Vermont. Such is life." And she had such perfect cadence, such beautiful words. I think I only believed her because someone with that flair for telling a story is wasted telling something exciting. She could make a trip to the grocery store compelling, and she's using material like this with a dismissive shrug and a coy, "But you're not interested in all that." She has the scars to prove it, but that hardly matters. Scars are just there. It's the stories you can believe in.

She's gone now. Vanished just like every one of those stories screamed she would. I never wonder about her stories, but I often wonder if she really happened at all. Life's like that, sometimes. These strange things happen and later on the only thing you can do with it is question it.