Anne Gresham
Nocturne in the Key of 1997
When you first heard the music, the world was reduced to the glowing end of the cigarette you and your friends passed around in a hushed communion in the abandoned lot across the street. It was the music of starlight, of secrets, of air conditioners humming and hushing throughout your neighborhood, of transgression. Much later, years after your last smoke, when you’re too old to stay up so late and your friends are married to strangers, you’ll think you hear a melody in a cool evening breeze and wonder if that music had ever been real.
About the writer:
Anne Gresham is a writer and librarian living in Northwest Arkansas. Gresham’s previous work has appeared in MoonPark Review, Jersey Devil Press, X-R-A-Y, and elsewhere.
Image: Woman with a Cigarette by Elizabeth Nourse (1859-1938). No medium specified. No size specified. Circa 1895. Public domain.
