That night after the party, as Gatsby tried to convince Nick you can repeat the past, he held back his secret. In the multiverse, Gatsby had already repeated the past. Fought for a future with Daisy 1,049 times. Already lost Daisy 1,049 times. Regrets over a war he could never win stretched on interminably in a torturous loop. Haunted by ghosts of yet another future sans Daisy, he reached his hand toward the sky. A shooting star passed over. Gatsby wished for an alternate timeline, a current pressing him and Daisy together toward a green horizon. He retreated into his lonely mansion where, over highballs, Gatsby and Captain America lamented over parallel scenarios and lost loves.
Elizabeth Bates is a Best of the Net and Pushcart-nominated writer living in Washington state with her family. She is the author of poetry chapbooks, Mosaics & Mirages and Rose Gold: Betty White Poems. Twitter: @ElizabethKBates