When The Budding Storyteller Lost His Muse

Noah stared at the photo. He knew there was a story there, but without Betty, it appeared as just a random collection of rocks, trees, water and sky, pleasant to look at but devoid of narrative.

She had evoked something in him. When they were together, his imagination had wings. He could hover in space and see a story far below and stoop and seize it in a blinding rush before it could run or swim away.

He wondered how he would do it without her. Her encouragement In phone calls or texts was not the same as her presence. The former was pleasant enough. The latter was magic. Her words that were a summoning so magnetic that sometimes he had no idea what they meant. Her smell no feast or perfume could match. Her touch that entirely erased any time-line he might have been living by.

He picked up a stick that was wonderfully worn by the water and waved it in the air like a wand.

Nothing happened, of course, except that instead of flying, the sensation was that of falling, from a great height and so suddenly that it took his breath away.

So this, he thought, is what it's like to be in love.

Clearly it wasn't a matter of liking or disliking it.

The question was could he live with it.

He didn’t want to say.

17 April 2026
Texas Jim
Shannon Island, Nova Scotia