Photo Source: Raw Pixels To Lenore The woodland paths are dry. Soon the harsh Chicago winter will be here. I will be gone long before then. It’s been five years since I walked this way. I used to come in the mornings. The sound of birds, the sight of rabbits, deer, and the occasional fox, coyote, or even skunk, would greet me in this nature preserve, but they are absent this late afternoon, the last time, I tell myself, that I will come here. I moved away five years ago, to the warmer...

Photo Source: Rawpixel Guilt is a heavy woolen cloak that society demands we put on when we ignore its mores. Its untreated hairs are meant to scratch our sensitive skin, for it is to be worn over the naked body. I will not wear such a cloak. A ghost lay on the bed, a ghost that had once been a vibrant woman. There was nothing I could do for her, or perhaps nothing I really wanted to do. It would take too much effort. In the 1950s she sang in...