I am a liar. I am a singer, a photographer, a poet, and an actress. I am practically everything, but I am not good at all of these things. In fact, there are very few things that I am good at. I never memorized the periodic table or read The Scarlet Letter. I often feel the need to run away from everyone, to give up. I’ve wanted to run away from the very skirts of civilization itself. I’ve wanted to run away to a place where there is no need to memorize the periodic table or read The Scarlet Letter. It would be a place where there was no need to rush or hurry, to simply live in permanent bliss, but there was always something holding me back, a test or some other special occasion. That was until one day I decided to look for the land of complete bliss.

I woke up wanting to leave my bed. I wanted to leave my house and everything that surrounded it. So I slipped on some clothes and put my mother’s pressed flower in my pocket. It was the flower she gave to me before she died. She said that, no matter were I went home would always be with me.


Quickly I grabbed my coat and ran out the door before the troubles of my surroundings caved in on me. I got into my car and drove away from my house. I didn’t know where exactly I wanted to go, but I knew it was somewhere. It felt as if I was driving for hours before I came across an old, broken down nursing home that looked very familiar to me. I remembered that when I was six, my mother and I used to go there and we would bring flowers to the people in it. We had moved away a year later and I hadn’t seen the place until that day. The building was nothing but a broken shell of my memory, as if the ghosts of the home had taken complete control of it. I parked my car in front and walked to its ripped off front door, hoping to find comfort in what I had once taken comfort in.

Graffiti littered its lobby along with cigarette butts and blank papers. There was a desk and two chairs in front of it. Shockingly, the chairs were not broken or ripped. They were in beautiful condition. I could still see the nurse at the desk, answering phone calls. I could see the people in the perfect seats, waiting to see the ones they loved. As I walked on I came across a long hallway with about a million doors. I looked in one and I saw a broken wheelchair, the skeleton of a hospital bed, and ripped curtains in front of a smashed window. I remembered the woman who lived in that room. Her name was Nancy and her favorite color was yellow. My mother and her got along well. Usually they would talk for about ten minutes before we went on to the next room. She would always give me a butterscotch candy before we left. She was a sweet lady and her smile would always brighten the room. Unfortunately her smile wasn’t there, so her room felt exceptionally dark, sad, and empty. I wondered what caused the nursing home to fall into such disarray. Most likely it fell into some financial trouble and never got back on its feet, but there was no way to tell by looking at it.

I decided that this floor was too eerie, so I walked to the second floor. There, I found an old painting of the Virgin Mary. There was a mustache drawn on her face and the words, “I knew her” were drawn on in permanent marker. As I walked through the home I found more and more memories that were abandoned in it. There were notebooks with love letters in them, cups that had once held coffee in it, and beds that people had died in before. As I continued on, I heard noises coming from the floor above me. I started to run. I ran as fast as I could. I ran past the bed’s that people had died in, past the notebooks with love letters, past the Virgin Mary with a mustache, past the long hallways, past Nancy’s empty room, past the lobbies desk with the two perfect chairs, until I got to the front door. I started to wonder who it was who had been up there. It was most likely a squatter, or a meth-head, or both.

I walked back to my car and sped away. I had tears in my eyes remembering my mother and the people in the home. I wondered if the person on the third floor even cared about the memories and people in that home. I got onto the freeway and didn’t get off for another hour and a half. When I did, I saw the most beautiful sunset casting over a shore with white sand. The sky was painted with orange, pink, and blue. I left my car and walked to the edge of the shore. I sat myself down, clenching my knees, staring into the majestic sunset. I shed a single tear that inched down my face and landed on my knee. This was the place. The place untouched and untainted by human civilization. I reached into my pocket and felt for my mother’s pressed flower. I was home.