[Image Description: the following images are from a (badly cut out) hand-drawn and -written mini comic, purple ink on white printer paper, folded over and stapled into sixteen pages, one panel per page. A gloved hand can be seen holding the pages open.]
[The cover. In cursive it says "Akin To A Feeling Of Loss". It shows a family tree, starting with the printed box for "Papaw", who is partnered to boxes labeled "Step Mamaw", "Nana", and far to the right is a box labeled in cursive "For Judith". From the lines leading down from Papaw and Step Mamaw are two boxes, one labeled "half uncle" and the other "half aunt". The sibling line also stretches out past the page margin. Both half aunt and half uncle each have a line going down to boxes labeled "Cousin", one Cousin has another box descending from it unlabeled. From the Papaw and Nana line is a box labeled "Mom", and descending from Mom is the A.P.T. Comix logo (described in user's icon description). From the Papaw and Judith line is a box labeled "Half Uncle", who leads to three Cousin boxes, each of which have unlabeled descending boxes. At the bottom of the page, a chain linked line goes across.]
[The first page says "She wasn't my ancestor ['my' is underlined]. In proof my life is a cosmic sitcom..." The page image shows a crudely doodled stage in front of a silhouette crowd, showing a balding old man holding a paper that says "DNA", an aging woman with beehive hair looking on angrily, and a man in a black jacket in front of an open door, a sweat drop on the side of his face as he holds his hand out in a shake. There is a suitcase by his feet. Above the stage is a light-up sign that says "Laugh". The narration continues "...I had a long-lost uncle." The second page shows a dainty hand with a simple chain bracelet lightly touching fingers with a bigger, chunkier hand wearing a large watch. The text says "Don't know what went down between her and my grandfather. She was only eighteen when she had my uncle."
[Third page: the same dainty, braceleted hand, held up weakly with a pool of purple scribbled blood beneath it. "She died only a year later. Gruesomely and tragically. Car, meet train." Fourth page: "The asshole who drove her under the descending barrier lived until the age of eighty-one. His obit was...something" The image is of an obituary page with a silhouette portrait. The birth year is nineteen thirty-four and the death date is twenty twenty-one. The obituary is mostly made up of scribble lines, except for the middle sentence "To his credit, he was sober when he died." At the bottom of the page the narration continues "He was never found liable in Judith's death, not that I could find. Drunk driving wasn't illegal yet."]
[Fifth page. Drawings of lipstick, the chain bracelet, cat eye sunglasses, a fabric scarf with flowers on it, and a lit cigarette. "Maybe she was in love with the guy. Maybe she just wanted a normal night of teenagerhood age a year of motherhood. I'll never know." Sixth page: "My uncle died early on in the pandemic. I think I met him maybe 5 times." The picture is of a poorly-drawn Pokémon card game and a Pokéball off to the side. "Mostly I just remember playing Pokémon with his son."]
[Seventh page: "I don't know is my cousins even know who she was. No bad blood, but I haven't spoken to them in years." The image is a laptop with a background window that says "NEWS: World is in bad shape. See how our–", and an email window that says "hey cuz, no n.E thing bout your dead–". The narration continues "Not sure how to broach this subject out of nowhere." Eighth page: "The records show that the only grandmother they ever knew was Judith's own mother." The picture shows another family tree, all unlabeled. At the bottom of the tree are the three Cousin boxes, leading up to the Half Uncle box, which first leads to box that has been scribbled out, then another line goes up to a different, higher box. "Her mother's obit lists Judith's son as her son. Even differentiating my uncle from her actually adopted children. (Did they keep her a secret?)"]
[Ninth page: blank but for the words "But that's not your story. Judith. That's theirs. I want to know you." Tenth page: "The newspaper articles on the crash don't say anything besides your name." The picture is of a pile of pages with scribbled line words. The top page shows silhouette portraits beside their respective paragraphs. "From then on, you only exist as a name in the obits of your parents, and siblings' obituaries, having pre-deceased them. That's all I can find."]
[Eleventh page: "I can't even find your own obituary." There is an uneven, blank box. "You only exist in a train crash and as a footnote in the Ancestry trees of people I don't know." There's a smaller box, with an arrow cursor in it. "And now, mine." Twelfth page: "It's not fair. You existed ['you existed' in allcaps and underlined]." The picture is of the braceleted hand, done in incomplete lines. "But I can't even find a photo of you. I made up your simple bracelet."]
[Thirteenth page: "I hope you had a good enough life. I'd understand if you felt ground down by life though." There is a table with a sheet of ruled paper, a pencil next to it, and surrounded by teddy bear, pacifier, and rattle. The page has a list of three items: the first being a scribbled line, the second being the words "Nolite te Bastardes carborundum", and the third is blank. The narration continues "I hope my grandfather was kind to you. You were both so young." Fourteenth page: "I'll never know what you were like. Everyone who ever knew you is gone." There's a thought cloud with a question mark, an A.P Bio textbook, a ballerina, and a painting of a mountain with a paintbrush. "Surely, you had dreams? Goals? Even if you kept them to yourself. You had them. I know it.]
[The end page. "We're from the same city, 3 decades apart. Your grave is right by the lake I nearly drowned in as a child." There is a simple headstone that says "Judith, I can't get your short story out of my head." Beneath it says "Next time I'm in town, I'll put flowers on your lonely grave." End I.D]
Formatted and I with Electric Zine Maker
