Then I can die.

Nope. Actually, then you live forever.

Not even going to try to write anything on a public computer on a stool in a hotel lobby...

I wanted to avoid the obvious melancholy possibilities of One Year. So . . .

In the course of a year I've found out booze is not evil, though it can turn people into idiots. In the course of a year, I've found out what all the fuss was about guys.

People who haven't known me most of my life have said I was smart, so maybe it's time to believe them. People who weren't raised like me are not wicked, they're just people.

I'm smart, I can think, one or two people think I'm sexy. College is very educational.

I have a one year drabble brewing. In the meantime, this poem presented itself to me this morning:
. . .

A sudden sadness

like a bird startled
into the air

darts into my chest
bruises my heart with frantic wings
until it aches

with the possibility of flight.

Because it's been one year for me:

One year.

In one year I've gone from not knowing what I wanted to do to feeling like I never want to do anything else. How can one little person make one year seem so short? Short but deliriously happy. They say a lot can happen in a year but it doesn't take a lot to make a difference. Sometimes it only takes one small thing. One small person.

One 34th of my entire life. .0294 % of my life. That's it. That small sliver of life's pie chart represents total contentment.

Oh, all of those are so lovely. Cash, you're making me cry.

I'm afraid I went a little more abstract this time. Neither of the words "one" or "year" appear in this drabble. But it does spell out one year if you look close enough.

One Year

Ominous shadows made her look up and realize it was almost winter. Normally, she enjoyed the trasition of seasons; from verdant green to the blazing foliage of fall. Every October they had taken a trip along narrow back roads. Yet here it was, December, with snow laden skies bearing down on her from that neglected northern country. Each turn of the earth was a reminder that days were getting shorter; the way life got shorter. Alone now, no fire left to warm her, she had only the ashes of their love--of him. Rushing away in the river of time.

Sail, even without spelling out one year, the content is both gorgeously written and appropos for the topic. (And you make me giggle.)

Thank you, Steph!

Question is, did you find the "one year" I inserted in the drabble (and I don't mean the title?) I'm afraid I got too cute and think I'm smarter than I really am.

Question is, did you find the "one year" I inserted in the drabble (and I don't mean the title?) I'm afraid I got too cute and think I'm smarter than I really am.

I didn't notice it the first time I read it, but once you said this, I looked back and saw it.

Cool! I wanted it hidden, but not so hard to find that people would get pissed that they couldn't find it.

Question is, did you find the "one year" I inserted in the drabble (and I don't mean the title?)

Heh. Yes, I did. I was trying to allude to that without giving it away to other readers. In fact, as soon as I read the way you phrased your note at the beginning -- about spelling it out -- I figured it was a clue, so I looked for "one year" first and *then* read the drabble.

Which is still a good drabble, clever cryptogram or no.