She lay asleep inside her Guardian’s twisted fairytale cabin, seemingly peaceful yet unwakeable.

She’d been cautioned by childhood stories of forbidden fruit but Antanasia couldn’t resist the crimson apple the craggled old woman carried within the weathered basket on her arm.

With one bite she fell under the witch’s spell, imprisoned in her own nightmare, longing for her fair love to release her from this curse.

Innocent, naive, quietly reciting the audition lines in her head.

No matter how eloquently she pours her heart and soul into the performance,

Her dreams of silver screen immortality will be decided on the neon bathed couch where she waits.

Memories of summers past have faded but the image of our cabin through the rear window remains; the last summer we’d spend there together.

Shortly after returning home Dad was diagnosed with the cancer that would take his life five months later; leaving an empty chair at our family table.

We tried for a short time the following summer but the sadness that consumed us proved to much for Mom; we’d never return to the cabin in the woods again.

Wrapped in last night’s hazy memories, the dirt of the hard road pressing between her toes.

The past echoing like a thousand screaming voices trapped inside her head.

“Don’t look back…” she whispers to herself as she travels the path from which she can never break free.

Day by day, she numbs her loneliness in the reflections of a lifeless computer screen.

In a far corner I sit silent, alone and forgotten.

Oh how I long to feel her soft hands pulling at my (heart) strings, filling the room around us with her beautiful song.