the shape of something unfinished: a novella

The Shape of Something Unfinished is a lyrical meditation on memory, silence, and the lasting impact of an unfinished love. Told through nonlinear fragments of remembrance, the novella follows a narrator who, now older and living in Denmark, looks back on a bond formed in his youth with a girl who remains unnamed throughout the story-a choice that preserves the sacred, private nature of their connection.

They met as teenagers in the winter of 1980, by a frozen mountain lake where a simple exchange-a cup of hot chocolate-sparked a quiet but profound attachment. Over the next two years, their friendship deepened into something unspoken yet undeniable, carried not by grand declarations but by afternoons spent wandering cliffs, exchanging letters, sharing music, and lingering in silences that said more than words ever could. Though they never crossed the invisible line into romance, their bond shaped the way he would experience love for the rest of his life.

Their differences-she, a sun-drenched, barefoot surfer girl, and he, a brooding, music-obsessed dreamer-never divided them. Instead, they created a space where each could exist without needing to explain. She taught him to inhabit quiet, to listen deeply, and to carry love with reverence. He, in turn, chronicled his feelings through songs and letters he never sent, preserving the essence of what they shared without ever risking it by naming it aloud.

But life moved forward. A family relocation pulled him away, and despite promises, they drifted apart. The silence between them became a living thing, carrying not absence but memory. Decades later, in 1996, a layover in San Diego gave them one last chance to see each other. Their reunion on the cliffs-wordless, aching, yet tender-confirmed that what they shared had never been lost. It had only moved inward, becoming a part of who they had each become.

As the narrator reflects from the distance of years, he pieces together the scattered memories: the letters tucked away in a shoebox, the unsent confessions, the songs carrying fragments of her spirit. His present life, rich with family and quieter joys, cannot fully erase the space she occupies within him. She lives in his silences, in the way he loves more gently now, in the lingering ache of things left unfinished.

Ultimately, The Shape of Something Unfinished is not a story of regret, but of reverence. It explores how some loves are not meant to be claimed or concluded, but carried-in the way memory folds time, in the way silence can hold more than speech, and in the way certain people leave a permanent shape on the soul even as life pulls them apart.