By Tim Love
When his teenage daughter disappears, he can’t cope. He tells his wife that he’s going to the city to find her, that he has some ideas. He goes to Judo and photography clubs because she used to do them at school. He visits modelling agencies and squats. A woman thinks she’s seen her. As they search together he falls in love with her, and comes to terms with the loss of his beautiful daughter.
Yes, it’s a quest, and as usual, characters fuse and split. He has no daughter. He regrets the loss of his wife’s youthful beauty. There’s no other woman. He sees his wife with fresh eyes when they try new things together. There’s no wife. It’s his own youth he misses. He recalls as a teenager seeing the great unknown spread out ahead of him, booby-trapped with decisions. The pressure’s off now. There’s no quest. He never met the right girl, but he’s liked at work. He’s not looking forward to his retirement do. He might just slip away before the speeches.
Tim Love’s publications are a poetry pamphlet Moving Parts (HappenStance) and a story collection By All Means (Nine Arches Press). He lives in Cambridge, UK. His poetry and prose have appeared in Stand, Rialto, Magma, Unthology, etc. He blogs at http://litrefs.blogspot.com/
MoonPark Review 