Lost. Perhaps, this is the word that most vividly captured Colla’s physical and psychiatric existence since that unfortunate day she gazed into a silent mirror and struggled to recognize herself.

Everyday Hope walked to the lake that took residence just a few minutes behind her home. She waddled along a dirt carved path, picking up rocks and other things as she went.

Maria slowly pushed open the door to the thrift shop, her favourite one in Madrid. The shop is on one of the streets coming off of Gran Vía, or maybe one coming off of them. She’s never entirely sure of how to find it, it just always seems to appear in front of her when she least expects it.

If anyone ever bothered enough to ask me when my first recollection of love was, I’d instantly be brought back to the summer of 1987.

It was hot - terribly so - and I was working in one of those humiliatingly shabby record shops downtown. I didn’t even have a wildly extensive knowledge of music; I liked Madonna, as I assume every twenty-year-old girl must have at the time, and anything else with a bit of noise.

I got tired of watching people sit on their rooftops in movies. So I climbed to the top of mine. I am wondering now, as my feet are trying to find a secure hold on the sill of my window if it was worth it. I mean, how do people always end up on rooftops? The movies never show it. It is always just BAM! Rooftop. Sweet nothings. Youth discovery.

We didn't need to sneak out. We were allowed to see one another as often as we liked. There was no necessity to it, just our longing to feel we were doing something rebellious and exciting. That kind of feeling gave us the impression that what we had held so much more depth and closeness-- that this experience together of risking getting caught and punished pulled us nearer.

To be truthful, Mariposa began isolating herself long before it was mandated to do so. It was about the same time she stopped trusting herself. She began trusting things instead. Like plants. She always trusted those. They were simple to her and she enjoyed that.

I relive the magic your presence gives way to every time you walk through those double doors. And then I shame myself for it. For having the resistance of a magnet - nonexistent. Or for crushing like a teenage girl.

If anyone asked Perry when she started to gain her patience, she would probably tell them that it was the month she met Douglas. She learned quickly that to be friends with little boys in the summertime, one must abandon their modern sense of schedule.