[Fiction] You Are a Planet Haunting My Town

Read the winning entry for our week of January 12, 2025 prompt, The Untold Story, chosen by guest judge Eleanor Anstruther

You Are a Planet Haunting My Town
by Lauren Lofthus

We are under a stoplight in the fog when you almost fall in love with me. The mist pulls all the color away from the light, diffusing it through the intersection and resulting in a color I should probably call “pink” but want to call “white-red.”

We approach each other on opposite sides of the street. I’m in my typical nightly orbit, and I assume you’re walking to work. You’re a bartender and I have never been to your bar because I’m irrationally afraid that I will get drunk and say something uncomfortable, like “I like the way your eyes light up when you make fun of people you hate” or “I’ve loved you since that time I caught you drawing in library books.”

I see you across the street when I’m at the zenith of my orbit; when I’m furthest away from my suffocating apartment. You’re standing there with your hair all damp and curly, and for a moment, the pull of my well-worn path feels weak. I raise my hand to wave, imagining that a wave could start a conversation, and a conversation could start a life.

For a second, it seems to work. You turn toward my side of the street.

Your sneaker hits the pavement and echoes like a gunshot in the night. You cross at the crosswalk, and as you reach my side, you hesitate for the briefest moment. Your eyes meet mine, almost guilty, and I can tell you don’t yet know how this is going to end. You aren’t sure what you’re going to do.

Finally you nod. It’s a casual nod to disguise the fact that you were considering stopping. You were thinking about what you would say, just like I was. You recover your stride and you keep walking, and eventually you vanish. Your body dissolves into the fog. You dissipate like white-red light in the mist, and I wonder if you were ever here, or if I imagined you entirely.

Wherever you’re going, you aren’t destined for a night at work, and you clearly aren’t destined for me. Your path is something else, and the grooves are too deep to escape.

You and I are the same in that. I could say hello just as easily as you, but I don’t. We’ve walked these courses for lifetimes, safe in our own orbits. We will imagine a thousand futures, and we will lose every one of them.

I look up at the stoplight, strobing white-red, and I linger for a moment. Then the pull toward the familiar becomes too strong, and I start home.

A Note From Our Guest Judge,

Eleanor Anstruther

This writer has a very good command of lyricism, the breath and movement of this piece demonstrates a command of that faith needed to get on board an idea and ride it until its end, to stay gently with it even as it goes deeper, to listen even as it becomes more painful. In content it shows a a strong narrative drive, and in engagement is a beautiful telling of the worlds we live in, how they collide or not, how two realities can slip past each other. It's relatable, touching and beautifully told. Sentences like this, "I raise my hand to wave, imagining that a wave could start a conversation, and a conversation could start a life." stand out as great examples of the effectiveness of simple construction, in that one line an entire universe is conjured. A clear and confident voice, a gifted writer. Well done.

About Lauren Lofthus

Lauren Lofthus is a writer and podcaster living in Washington State. She and her husband live above a tattoo parlor, and she likes to imagine that their apartment is haunted. Lauren has been published in 1889: Washington’s Magazine. You can find her fictional podcast at www.burningrockradio.com.

This piece was written in response to the prompt The Untold Story.