Solo

Becca's vlog, "Flying Solo", had gone viral ages ago, tapping into humanity's deep and ever unsatisfied need to know that it would be all right. Writing with a mix of pathos, sarcasm, and extraordinary wit, she continued to pluck on the proverbial last nerve with almost musical precision (reflections on a scale from a shattering darkness to an insight rivaled by none). She sighed, opening the box to reveal her golden YouTube Creator Award, grateful and thoughtful, too, but unable to activate a shred of sentimentality. "And still my pulse quickens not," Becca whispered, leaving the thing partially revealed in its opened package, and grabbing her broomstick, "for we are still flying solo." That, at the end of the day, she should be so starkly literal and have no one suspect it never failed to astound her (and amuse her on some days). Gaining speed up and over the greenway, she wondered about the others ... if there were others ... surely, there must be others. "Same same same," Becca pronounced the view, completing what had become her standard loop and turning back. But there ... just there ... at the edge of the light where sunset waves goodbye to bring on the revels of night, she spied another. Broomquake was unmistakable. Stunned, Becca almost let go and, in her recovery, lost sight of the flyer (beginning the long and arduous process of wondering if she'd imagined it). Back at home, trembling, she made a stiff drink and pulled a book off of the shelf, letting it open to the page she had thumbed and smoothed and wept breathless over a gazillion times: "I have crossed oceans of time to find you."