The Mysterious Disappearance of Sonya Clarke
What I remember was that she was with us at 8pm. I wouldn’t say there was anything out of the ordinary in fact, she seemed more then usually happy. I’m told that people can fake their emotions. They can put on a basic stage performance to please the masses, hide their hidden sins or intentions from the naked eye. That wasn’t Sonya at all. I had known her since first grade, she suited the old saying, ‘you wear your emotions on your sleeve.’ She couldn’t pretend to save her life. Honestly, it was a joke between us.
So, how did it happen? How did she just disappear without a trace? It was like a joke without a punchline, or at least one I couldn’t understand. When I bring her up in conversation everyone gets weird, diverting, changing the subject. Yeah, that was like diverting a river, I could tell it was happening, but they all appeared to think they had gotten away with it without my noticing. Maybe they were all just worried I was too focused on it, that it was time to let it go and move on. But how could I? Sonya was my best friend.
It didn’t help that neither of us lived anywhere beside our childhood hometown. We didn’t even get away in college, both of us settling for an AA degree from our local community college, so many familiar places. Memories everywhere. I couldn’t get away from them. It makes it harder for me to accept what everyone says.
I just can’t get my mind around it. I can’t forget. It just doesn’t make sense. It’s not like she was dating, she hadn’t been in a relationship for three years. Her job was going great, her family was amazing, and unlike what most people think I was close enough to have seen their seedy underbelly. So, what happened? What did I miss?
How and why would someone just disappear like that? I don’t understand. Sonya wasn’t that type. Nothing could change my mind on that. No one could get me to believe otherwise.
-
Alexie Navara stood at the spot where Sonya Clarke’s car was found three months earlier. Nothing was missing from the vehicle. For all intent and purpose it was simply an abandon car parked like any other that had run out of gas or broke down on the small highway. It hadn’t been locked, all Sonya’s personal items had been left to include purse, identification, small cooler, and suitcase.
She had been going to visit a relative. She was on her way to the airport at the time of her disappearance. She had just talked to Alexie no more than an hour before. They had promised to meet up as soon as she got back. With definitive intentions to see a movie that was premiering that same week.
The spot where the car had stood was now vacant, no different from any other part of the road’s shoulder. It was late just a little past twilight. Alexie had come after her shift. The headlights of her car shown on the spot where the unbelievable had happened. For the last half hour, she had looked around finding nothing.
Sonya was gone, with nothing to show what had happened. The growing apathy toward her disappearance its own painful reward for years of friendship. Alexie squatted in the loose dirt running her fingers over the granules, their rough texture catching against her smooth fingertips.
A prick. Alexie pulled her hand up. A small piece of glass embedded in her finger. Taking out her phone she turned on the flashlight. In the beam on the road are the shattered pieces of an hourglass, the neck and external gilded frame still solid.
Tears fell from her wide eyes staining the exposed dirt, the hourglasses sand blended and blown to an unrecognizable substance disappearing into rest of the earth. Alexie didn’t know why she cried only that she couldn’t stop. Gathering the glass and the sparse debris left by the smashed object she left, weeping uncontrollably, the shattered hourglass on the seat beside her. Knowing somehow that she would never see Sonya again.
End
Thank you so much for reading everyone!!
Prompt Sentence: What I remember was that she was with us at 8pm
Word Count: 696
©DecemberKnight 2022
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