I found a piece of paper in a parking lot.
It had been run over numerous times, torn and trampled, faded by the sun and still damp from a light morning mist.
Because I was not in a hurry; because I was not wearing earbuds and distracted by music; because I was not staring at a cell phone screen; because I was not talking to anyone; because everything has design, color, shape and texture, I picked up the square piece of paper.
It had been some kind of glossy, card-stock advertisement for a nightclub, probably stuck under the windshield wiper of a parked car long ago.
Looking closer, I saw the face of my lost love, a strand of her curly long auburn hair falling across her bare, thin shoulder and finely sculpted collar bone.
She was smiling and looking skyward, as if she could see all the way to heaven.
That was Tuesday.
~ by Russ Allison Loar
~ Artwork by cars in a parking lot
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