My name is Nicolas. The month is October, 201-

The piece of paper floated out from the encyclopedia. She bent gracefully down to pick it up, its jagged edges making her feel like she had torn it from a point in the past. The words were written neatly on the paper, as if with painful care and hesitance. But the numbers were a scrawl, with the ink forming smudges on the paper, blotting the truth out. She studied it, intrigued.

Nicolas… It had a nice ring to it. Was this the beginning of a story, or an end?

Curiosity brimmed in her mind like an overwhelming wave of questions. She conjured images of a boy… a man, with big dreams and hopes, a beautiful smile. A man with woes hidden deep in his kind heart, a man who loved life, who had a sea of tears in his heart. She felt a sudden affection for this stranger she hardly knew

A sigh of wind tugged the paper from her fingers, out of the window into the rain. She clung onto the fleeting moment now past, onto the Nicolas she never got to know.