Words, Feelings, Stories

He opened his eyes and they looked out at the nighttime darkness of a cozy room, but he didn’t even see that. The image before him was that of a bridge. The most beautiful, unrealistic bridge he’d ever seen. A fairy bridge. Made of lights, colors, and threads. And he had seen it before. He had run from it before. That night… He steadied himself in his mind. No more running. Besides, what was frightening about a bridge? Even an unworldly one? Even one created by fairies and woven by spiders with spider-thread? Ones that caught the silver-and-gold light and turned it to dancing rainbows of dancing color? He looked the bridge over carefully, in his mind. He had seen pictures of bridges built that way, he knew with certainty. Huge steel behemoths, towering over waters, the bridging held up by what looked to be fine dainty fibers but were actually metallic cables somehow spun together to bear great weight, but with flexibility. He thought maybe he had actually seen one, without the colors a...

Let me tell you about my carventure today. It was great fun, as it always is, when I set out on my own, in my trusty rusty automobile. First, I had to remove the blankets draped over the window that won't close. We had hella storms over the weekend and winds and tornado warnings and all the good stuff as kitten-cub March roared it's way out as a full grown bull-mad lion. So I had protected the car and contents as best I could. All that had to be undone before I could go anywhere. Blankets on the windows tend to limit the driver's ability to see out, and that's not really good in gray-day situations. (Although it wasn't actually raining by then.) Next I needed gas. Well, my knees have been bad all week, and, it was, in fact, for my knees that I was going out, so I went to the gas station here in town -- hometown tradition; Wichard's -- where they will pump the gas without having to be informed of a disabled person's presence. We're just like normal people...

Sitting on my porch listening to the rain. Watching the water dance in the streetlights. İ hear the birds stirring and waking on this damp and probably dreary morning. They seem to be complaining as vigorously as the "good morning sunshine" people do. İ smell coffee brewing. Been smelling it for about a half hour now. Lovely strong and warm. İ smell it most mornings when I'm out (or have my window open) at this time. İ like to think it is from the coffee shop up on the corner. They open at 6 weekdays, i think, so maybe they start brewing early for themselves. İt could be a going to work neighbor, of course, although i don't know of any who are up and about quite so early. İt is good to sit here in the Outdoor. Too bad it's not quite warm enough to sit with bare feet on the wet wood. That connection would feel so completing. Completion is what I need to earn my rest, i believe, and it has eluded me for all this night and the day before. İ am weary of the incompleti...

He was still in the bed, but sitting up more and better. In other words, he was getting bored. Tonight, for several rare minutes, he had been alone, while voices and doors and all the sounds of a full busy household sounded around him. He watched out his extravagant window as the darkness fell, long and slow, and the mists gathered off the lake and wandered down from the treetops. Winding, whirling, dancing. He thought of the clean living smell, and wished he was out there once more. “No, you don’t,” a voice said next to his ear and he looked around but no one was there. “You aren’t here, go away,” he said crossly. “Now how can I go away if I’m not here?” “I don’t know how you’re here when you aren’t here.” “Temper, temper.” “Oh shut up!” His wife looked into the room. “Do you need something? Are you talking to me?” “No. Just – just talking, I guess.” “My silly man,” she said, came in and kissed him on the forehead and adjusted the covers around him, like he was one of ...

He was back in the bed, back in the bedroom. It wasn’t hot and steamy and there wasn’t so much noise or people coming and going. It was a pleasant place to be. And he didn’t feel bad. He was propped up on pillows, his hands folded across his chest (that was a tiny bit unnerving) He was breathing easily and nothing hurt especially. He opened his eyes. The room was filled with muted sunshine pouring through the large window facing east. Muted because the sun was overhead. He’d built in that window to watch the sunrises over the mountains and across the lake. The time and trouble he’d had installing all those panes of glass! It had been such detailed work, but he had never been sorry about the time and money spent. It was a perfect way to start the day, especially in the Dark Time that was winter. There were a couple of children playing some game on the floor. Marbles maybe. Young, still wearing baby gowns. Couldn’t tell if they were boy or girl or both. Right now he couldn’t recognize ...

“I am always with you. Why don’t you understand that?” The man answered slowly, thinking out loud as he had so often done with his friend. “The memory of you is always with me. But a memory isn’t you.” “Who is it then?” “It’s an it, not a who.” “Whos aren’t its? What are they then?” "Whos are whos. Persons. Its are things.” “Well I like to think I’m some thing. Some kind of a thing.” “I like to think you’re a person. Even when you aren’t anymore.” “Yet here I am.” “Here you are.” They fell silent. They waited, together, in a place that didn’t (shouldn’t) exist, where their presence together was as tangible as the strong friendship (love) between them. Both bodies and spirits seemed made whole out of the fog, by the fog, and they rested as part of the fog. The fog itself swirled and rippled around them, lightening and darkening, and in general deepening and entwining until there was nothing to be seen but the glimmering light and the embracing cloud.

He was back in the fog, back at the rock, back with his friend Mark, who was chipping at the rock with his knife. Who was being a bit unfriendly. “You know you should go back, they still need you.” “I don’t have to hurry, I can be with you a while.” “You are, always.” “You don’t need to sound so happy about it.” “I don’t want you here. I want you there. With them. Alive. Having tomorrows.” He gestured at the fog. “Not this.” “Yeah, I prefer sunshine, myself. But you aren’t there. “ “I am. Always.” “I never see you there.” “Liar. You see me every time you look into my sons’ faces, or watch them walk into or out of a room.” He thought that over for a long moment. “No.” “No?” “I see parts of you in parts of them. But they aren’t you and you aren’t them. I want you.” “I’m telling you, I’m there. As there as I can be.” “Then how come I never see you?” “Because you look with your eyes closed.” “That’s us’ly the best way to see things that don’t exist.” “I exist. I’m here, am I not?” “I don’...

  For a moment, or so it seemed, he was back in the fog, in the thick almost substantial parts of it, but sounds drew him back to the bed. Sounds of footsteps.  Sounds of voices.  Three people, out in the hall. Tall, male. Working men, wearing boots, that they were taking off, from the sounds. Weren't they supposed to do that out on the porch?  A slammed door on a rush of wind and rain hitting the inside floor answered that. Rain coming from that direction, the porch was probably inundated.  Only one of the men came to the door(?) of the room. "Any change?" he asked, but not like he expected an answer.  The hand woman said yes and the doctor woman said no.  The doctor elaborated that there had been no physical change worth mentioning. Irregular breathing irregularities, but that was to be expected. No signs of returning consciousness.  The other woman said, in a warm positive tone, that she felt a difference.  That he WAS coming back from whe...

 He was sweating again, and gasping, and he was in a hot place. He hoped he hadn’t died yet, as that was a bad sign if he was, when suddenly sound was all around him, as overwhelming as the heat.        Maybe not though, as the heat felt and smelled steamy rather than ashy. They probably didn’t have water to make steam in the bad place. Unless somebody was melting a snowball? (What did that mean?)     Voices, and people were moving around. A mix of male and female voices, as well as children’s voices more distant. He knew the voices, and was satisfied they were NOT dead people, so he must not be either. That was a good thing.  Maybe?     He tried to take in a deep breath, but somehow choked on it, and, good lord did it hurt! Breathing wasn’t supposed to hurt living people, although sometimes it did. If they were sick or something. He stopped choking and managed a swallow of air that (still) left him panting.  At th...

   I'm really missing your kids right now, kiddo. Haven't seen or talked to them since Thanksgiving. They didn't even call me or text me to say Happy Birthday. (Christmas was sad, and they hadn't called me then, either, but there's no grudge there. I'm the one who had to cancel at the last minute.)Between the weather, my health, and my car's condition, I just haven't been able to get there. Seems like I'm farther away now than when you were in Georgetown and we were in Winchester.     There's no "we" anywhere now for me, not in Winchester, not in Bethel, not in our 'hub' of Mt. Orab. Tracy's miles away (good for her; I'm proud), and you and your daddy are gone.      I miss you, but this last few months I've finally begun adjusting to that. It's been a long hard pull, almost three years, but maybe I'm finally getting on. I guess I hope so, anyway.      It's those strange weeks between my birthday and yours...