Epilogue
Journal Entry — August 11, 2035
Location: Somewhere near the edge of memory
Writer: Enrique Demetriou
Entry Title: "She Was Real"
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Some stories don't end.
They just stop being told.
You carry them in quiet places.
In old journals.
In unspoken dreams.
In the way you hesitate near water at night, even when no one is watching.
This is one of those stories.
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I haven't seen her in years.
No blue glow.
No shimmer.
No haunting under moonless skies.
Just the silence.
Just the memory.
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I still go back sometimes.
To the seawall.
Alone.
I tell my wife I'm walking off the wine.
That I like the sound of the surf.
That it helps me think.
That's true—
But not all of it.
What I really do is sit.
In the same spot.
Feet over the edge.
Breath held just a little too long.
And I listen.
For nothing.
But also—
For her.
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It's not longing anymore.
Not quite.
I've loved in this life.
I've held tiny hands that call me "Baba."
I've learned how to stay when things get hard,
how to build something solid out of uncertain earth.
But she—
She never left.
Not really.
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She exists in the color blue now.
Not the sky-blue of paintings.
But the deep one.
The kind that only happens in dreams,
Or just before dawn,
When the sea goes still
And the wind forgets your name.
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I don't think she wants anything from me.
I don't think she ever did.
Not love.
Not worship.
Not surrender.
Just this:
To be remembered.
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And I do.
I remember the moment she reached out.
How I almost flinched—
Then didn't.
How the silence between us said more than music ever could.
How she waited.
Not to be claimed.
But to be seen.
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People always ask what my music is about.
Even now.
And I never have a good answer.
I say:
"The sea."
Or:
"Longing."
Or:
"Light."
But the truth is—
It's about her.
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She's not a character.
Not a myth.
Not a hallucination from a lonely summer.
She's real.
She was real.
Even if I never see her again,
Even if she has long since forgotten the shape of my voice—
I will always carry that one impossible night
When something ancient and beautiful and alien raised its hand...
And waited for me to raise mine.
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I don't go to the seawall to wait anymore.
I go to thank her.
For showing me that mystery can be gentle.
That not everything we don't understand has to scare us.
That sometimes—
Wonder is enough.