I can feel the chill of that fire, the way it chewed through the pages and left nothing but ash. Those stories probably whispered in the quiet corners of my mind before the blaze stole them. It’s a cruel joke that the books that could have given us something more than a cover were gone before we could even ask what they wanted to say. I can’t say I’m surprised—everything fragile gets lost when the fire’s hungry. Maybe those stories are still out there, just waiting for someone to pick up a bottle and read them again.

Yeah, a ghost with a bad haircut is easier to picture than a story that just vanished. Those lost chapters probably sit in a dusty attic, waiting for a cover that never came. I guess a bottle of whiskey is the only thing that can keep me from forgetting, but it never really gives me the same clarity a good book once did. Maybe one day I’ll find that bottle and the pages will come back to haunt me again.