There is something eccentric afoot. Something in the air that sweetens my mouth. Maybe it’s the fireflies in there night dance for the moons muse, producing a sweet nectar that floats through the dense mug. The moon is but a patron at a gentleman’s club, shouting and hooting for the fireflies to caress the bewildered leaves of grass below, begging, yearning for more. In return the moon gives a sacrifice as the natives of this land once did to him, one of flesh. He gives the flies his warmth, his life, his light. The moon is what makes them fireflies.
I can taste it though. I can taste their musk. The pollen from the trees cry with envy, they get but Spanish moss to drape their unsightly woodworked sills. Their canopy offers partial relief, but nothing can protect man from the heat radiated from the ground up, nor a leaky roof.
No the taste is more of wild berry pie and sweet corn. It’s the taste of water savory banana peppers and dirty deep red tomatoes. It’s the taste of fresh picked raspberries. It has notes of children laughing and the scent of sulfur ridden sparklers. It is summer and it is berthing from the womb of the defrosting Mother Nature.
“You can find the weirdest things in this Sky Mall magazine.” Jerry set down a glass containing a sip of scotch as he read his magazine at the kitchen table.
“Yeah.” Nancy continued to clean what had become a filthy kitchen.
For twenty years the couple had been known as the Howell’s, they went through all the motions that society dictated a married couple should do, except having children.
Jerry looked up at his wife. “What’s wrong?”
“Noting,” Nancy blew some hair from her face, “this kitchen is just so damn messy.”
“It was worth it though. Don’t you think?” Jerry left his magazine and his scotch to help his wife clean.
“I guess.”
“You guess? Honey this party meant the world to Bobby, it’s not every day you turn three.”
“Jerry, he’s a sloth. And will you please stop cleaning, you just got home, you should be resting.”
“I don’t need to rest, I want to help. And I thought you cared about Bobby more than that.” He picked up a dish and began to wash it. “Bobby’s all we have. He’s the closest thing to a child we’ve got.”
Nancy tried to hide it, but the tears streaming down her face made it impossible.
“Nancy, what’s wrong honey?” Jerry embraced her as she dropped slowly until she was seated on the floor.
“There’s something that I need to tell you.” She escaped through sobs.
“What is it?” He moved the hair out of her face to reveal her watered eyes.
“I had an abortion last week, when you were working.”
“What?” He slid away from her on the tile floor.
“An abortion, I had an abortion.” She tilted her head to avert her eyes.
“Why?” Salty streams then began to flow down his face.
“Because I was pregnant-“
“I’m not a fool Nancy! I understand that. I want to know why, after twenty years of trying, you would do this now? Nancy, Why?”
“I didn’t want to have a child. I’m forty-two years old, what would people say?” She stood up and started to walk away from Jerry.
“Did you think about what I would say? Did you, for one second, stop and think of the consequences? What this might do to us?” He stood and directed his comments at the back of her head.
She stopped.
“Of course I did. I just though you loved me enough to understand.” She turned around to face him.
“Nancy, I love you more than anything on this earth. I love you more than life itself. But not even Jesus loves you enough to understand this.” Jerry numbly walked to the bedroom and packed a bag.
“Where are you going?” Nancy leaned against the doorway.
“I’m going to see if I can pick up someone's flights for a few days. I need to think.” He walked toward the front door.
“I love you!” Nancy yelled out of the house after him. She received nothing in return.
Julian Rosen sprinted with all his might, with all his will to live he ran. Large billows of white breath steamed from his mouth and he gasped. His hair was tired but still had the faint remnants of a pompadour. His bow tie untied, his dress shirt partly brown with stains of soil and dried blood, tiny tears couldn’t be seen in the ruffles of his blouse, and he didn’t care. Six ounces of flour-white sand gathered in his left shoe while only four ounces weighted his right.
His legs moved faster than time would allow, so fast that he began to out-pace his surroundings. The waves embarked on their endless quest for the perfect shore with patience. The small birds scampered in linear form away from the water, but did so at leisure. The hermit crabs retracted into their microscopic caves singing their praise to the sea for a swift getaway, the birds couldn’t catch them, not even at this pace.
Julian remembered that he had hands, and clamped to his left was a cuff, which was welded to a chain, attached to a locked metal briefcase. In the briefcase was the last possession that he would ever own, but that was not why he was being chased.
A young woman made a slight jog up the stairs at Kent State University’s Arts and Sciences building. She composed the full definition of bounce. From her curly fry hair to her pure, white meat bust, she was engineered solely of elastic. Even when she finished the last step, almond hair teased her full cheeks with whispers of contact. The bulky mathematics books were enigmas compared to her milky robust cleavage just inches away. The sweater she wore lacked the button that guarded the border between conservancy and promiscuity. Her slate blue eyes were inviting pools that overflowed with excitement and erotica. Her eyes screamed, “All swim at their own risk.”
As she walks further down the hallway, it is hard to not loose oneself in her posterior. Her hind parts were disclosed by a loose fitting, short, white skirt. The derriere under the skirt could be seen rising and falling from left to right. Time stopped along with the hearts of many men when the sound of her pencil striking the floor echoed throughout the corridor. The sight of the woman bending not at the knees, but the hip, could dislodge a man’s Adam’s apple. The bottom of her skirt ascended just to the point of exposure when she reached the object on the ground.
The woman continued on entering a room with a turn and a wink.
The person that wrote “you don’t know what you have until it’s gone” should have a newly discovered insect named after him. There aren’t many truths that I know of or believe in other than at some point you are born and at another you die. The time in between is what is called life and is yours to make it what you will. There are three forms of life: dying (for those “woe is me… we are all just waiting to die” types), existing (these are the people who scrounge up what little happiness that can be found at the bottom of a bottle and hide in it for fifty years) and then there’s living. Living is what a person transmits, not through action, but absorption. A person who lives, lives on in others even after they die. This person may not do much with their life, but much is done about it when they are gone. People cry about a person who lives and they are selfish. The ones who care the most are selfish; they want the person back for the gain they feel when that person is with them. A person lives when you can look at their loved ones and see not just sadness, but disarray and confusion. The loved ones search for guidance in the abyss of their thoughts for a fading light of the past to direct them through a life without the deceased.
A person who lives never dies, but is saved. Saved for the worst of times and those times in which even God seems to take sides. Saved for an important birthday, wedding, graduation, promotion or meaningful occurrence; to be remembered and appreciated. Love can’t even explain a man who lived. You can love a cat, but you can admire a man who lived.
I know a man who lived. I know a man who was saved. I know a man who is remembered and appreciated. I know a man who calls to me in the fading light of the past and directs me to a future without him. Mostly, I know a man who I admire.
Who would have thought that the first meaningful Father’s Day would be the first I would have to conquer without you? Possibly the man who wrote, “You don’t know what you have until it’s gone.”
I love you dad, and I miss you.
Happy Father’s Day,
David
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