Will McIntosh's "One Paper Airplane Graffito Love Note": Love story that was doomed from the beginning

If you like poetry, you might like it more than me - that is how its prose sounded like. It's generally an ok read, but I don't like sad endings.

Full story text is available for download.

Story summary.

There are three parallel intertwined threads:

1. A woman's thoughts keep appearing in other people's work - aka Morley Roberts' "The Anticipator".
2. A town falls in love with confessions from its citizens in the form of graffiti.
3. A married woman falls in love with a man, but cannot leave her husband - so the love story is doomed.

Anna has had a fantastic experience since he mother died in bizarre circumstances. Her experiences keep getting replayed at her, e.g. via plots of the movies she sees! She finally decides to make them public herself - by writing very personal experiences as graffiti. Soon, the whole town of Chester falls in love with this mode of confessing.

When Samuel, the lover, discovers Anna's marital status, he walks out. She tries approaching, but Samual is adamant. She finally begins using graffiti as love letters.

End is where Anna figures it's time to let go of Samual - via the last graffiti letter. There is a vague hint near end that they might yet still meet!

Fact sheet.

"One Paper Airplane Graffito Love Note", short story, review
First published: Strange Horizons, 22 Oct 2007.
Rating: B