A Catalogue of Faded Cures

From her perspective, Leaf sees stories, not just decaying signs. As she and Leo wander through Osborne Village, a ghost sign for a long-dead pharmacy sparks a conversation about their own remedies for life's uncertainties.

Leo sees letters; I see ghosts. That's the main difference between us. He'll stand there, neck craned, analysing the font on some faded ad for cough syrup, and I'll be picturing the person who bought it. The mother with a sick kid, the guy with a winter cold in the dead of July, all walking under this same unrelenting sun, on this same stretch of Osborne Street, just a hundred years removed. The past feels thin here, like old paper you could poke a finger through.

"'Balsam of Life,'" Leo reads from the brick wall above a trendy vape shop. "'Cures All Nervous Afflictions.' Sounds like something you'd sell."

"Hey, my advice is free," I say, swatting his arm. "And probably more effective than whatever snake oil they were pouring into that bottle. Probably just sugar and trace amounts of poison."

"The best cures always are," he deadpans. "So what's your Balsam of Life? What's the prescription for the modern nervous affliction of being twenty-one and completely adrift?"

I lean against the hot glass of the vape shop, pretending to consider it. "Okay, prescription for Leo: one dose of spontaneity, to be taken immediately. A six-month course of not making a five-year plan. And a lifetime supply of admitting that sometimes a cool old sign is just a cool old sign."

"Doctor Leaf's Miracle Elixir," he scoffs, but he's smiling. "And for you?"

"Oh, that's easy. A mild sedative to deal with people who ask me what my five-year plan is." The truth is, I don't feel adrift. I feel... untethered. Like a balloon. Leo thinks I'll just float away, but I like the view from up here.

---

We duck into a coffee shop to escape the oppressive humidity. The blast of air conditioning is a physical shock. We order iced coffees that are mostly ice and sugar and find a small table by the window. Outside, the traffic on the Osborne bridge shimmers in the heat.

"Seriously, though," Leo says, swirling the plastic cup so the ice cubes rattle. "Doesn't it bother you? Not knowing?"

"Doesn't it bother you that you're trying to map out a country you've never been to?" I counter. "You have this whole itinerary for your life, but you haven't even packed your bags. What if you get there and you hate it? What if the place you're 'supposed' to go isn't nearly as interesting as the weird detour you find along the way?"

"Because the detour might be a dead end," he says quietly, staring into his cup. "The detour could be a disaster. The map is safe. The map has been tested."

"The map was drawn by someone else!" I lean forward, my voice a little too loud. A guy at the next table looks over. "Your parents, your profs... they all handed you their old, folded-up maps with their routes highlighted. Don't you want to draw your own? Even if you get lost? Especially if you get lost?"

He shakes his head, a small, frustrated motion. "You think getting lost is romantic. Getting lost is just... being lost. It's not fun, Leaf."

Maybe he's right. Maybe I've just been lucky so far. My detours have always led to murals in alleys or weird little shops. They haven't led to eviction notices or empty bank accounts. But the fear of those things can't be the only thing that guides you. It can't be your compass.

### The Unread Message

We leave the coffee shop and the heat clamps down again. We walk towards the river, the buzz of cicadas growing louder than the traffic. We’re not really talking now, just letting the silence and the heat settle between us. I can feel him thinking, turning my words over in his head, looking for the flaws in my logic.

I want to tell him that logic isn't the point. That some things aren't problems to be solved. But I don't. He has to get there on his own. Or not. All I can do is point out the ghost signs and hope he sees the stories, not just the words.

His phone buzzes in his pocket. He pulls it out, his whole posture changing as he reads the screen. The easy-going slouch he'd had since the coffee shop vanishes, replaced by something rigid and tense.

"Everything okay?" I ask.

He doesn't look at me. His thumb hovers over the screen. He takes a breath, like he's about to dive into cold water.