The winner of my November Flash Fiction contest is the one and only @KristineInchausti with her story ALL YOU SEE.

If you like Kris' story, please show your support by reading/voting/commenting on this page, as well as on her profile. And while you're there, Kris has several short stories for you to sink your teeth into. Kris is a phenomenal writer. Her work is darkly humorous, evocative, witty, engaging, and smart. She is a relative newcomer to Wattpad and I would LOVE to see her build the fan-base she so deserves.

If you enjoy this winning entry, please do consider supporting her with a follow or read!

And now...here it is:

ALL YOU SEE

He will never see her again.

His father will never come looking for him.

He knows this second fact because of an old schoolmate. Three years after leaving, he heard the news that his old man had died of a heart attack the year prior. There was no other news, no word if he had died with regret, with sorrow, if he was alone.

Nolan was left to fill in those blanks by himself, which he tried to do, but it was an empty exercise. He would have rather known, solidly, his father's state of mind, or one last swing of the fist. Nolan would be able to block it now. Instead, he still swims in uncertainty, pushing aside waves of "maybe."

He doesn't know the first fact. But the unease from his feelings of his father seeps into his thoughts of her. The vision of her dress, once so clear and so strong, was fading into something more like a dream. The more people he meets, the more he sees the reality of other people's lives, the more he doubts what he thought he knew.

This place is still strange, even after a couple of years. He walks the streets, and sees, in his periphery, white filmy wisps. On the edges of his conscientiousness, he feels something he is supposed to know, but it slips away before he can grasp it. He relaxes his vision, hoping whatever is hiding will make itself known.

He stands on the doorstep now, his hand resting on the knob. He takes in one more deep draw of the night air, catching the smell of his mother's cooking from the open window. One last breath, one last scan of the darkness, before he steps inside. Spots from the streetlights dance around his retinas. He will try again tomorrow to decipher these shrouded thoughts, because, like color trails, that once seen cannot be unseen.