Tiffany Kee

The first entry.

Mei's small but slender fingers traced delicately over the notebook bound by an old shoestring atop a stack of other similar ones. Dad's choice was always black, now a deep dusty grey. She had her own. It was an expense they couldn't afford; the damp smell in her dad's arms-width office was evidence of that. The scent made her insides twist with pain. It had been two months since his funeral and she still spent almost every day curled up under his desk, scared to open his drawers unless his perfume escaped to mix with the air becoming eternally lost. She often thought about opening and reading his notebooks, like they once did and yet a deep fear of something terrible happening held her back. Curious, she placed her index finger under the tattered shoestring and pulled gently; it held taut despite its years. If she unravelled them, would the words he had scribed lift off the page and float away? She lay on the floor, knees tight to her chest picturing that. Words floated, shimmering through the air around her, letters forming from specs of gold as the sunlight trickled through a small window. It made her smile watching her little world fizz and crackle with life.