Author: johnfornelli

Yes, she said, yes I will. And she did, ever si slightly, ever so thoughtfully, and now here she was. She still didn’t totally understand it. None of us did, really, I mean we had known her for years, decades even, for some of truly almost all of our lives. And even those of us that stayed in touch. That had beers with her on rainy Saturday afternoons, and attended her Christmas parties with the amazing candy cane cookies she would bake and always be eaten from the oven trays and trays of them, and cocktails at Le Courvisiuor before dancing downtown. That was what it was like. All the time.

Coast of Japan.

He thought about her laugh. How it flew out if her. All color and joy, sudden and always unexpected, without pretense, without a care Lighting the world just a little brighter each time it shared it with the universe. He thought about the trip they took to the west coast of the island. When they were first dating. Still two bodies, somehow more separate then. How they bought rain gear and the supply store. Canary yellow rubber, pants with built in suspenders, hoods that hide their entire heads. How they walked the beach in January, the gulls, soaring on the currents, in the grey sky above the wavesfinding shore, crashing white against the sand after traveling 10,000 miles of open ocean, having been born off the

Coast of Japan.

Say it! She said, in the dark. He still couldn’t see her face. Why? Why won’t you say it? The hum of the ceiling fan the only sound. He may have been holding his breath. “Because I din’t@ he said. “I just don’t”. “But how do you know? She said. “Like know for sure for sure”. “I don’t know” he said. “I just do. It’s not here. As much as I wish it was, it’s not”. He could her the air leak out of her. His words the sharp rock, het words the thin rubber of tire. “So that’s all” she said. “Yes” he said so quietly he wasn’t sure he had even uttered a response.

They marched on. Not a word shared. Not a glance exchanged. Only the sound of their soles sucking into and out of the mud, the only sound in the silence. She several paces ahead, fast shirt strides, he walking slow large steps, closing ground. The fog had begun to lift. The could see once again down the trail. Nobody coming up and nobody coming down. Like some weird purgatory she tell people, like you know the earth is here and your your here and all that us real or at least you think it is, I mean why not, it was before you started walking and now after 6 hours if nit seeing a soul you begin to question.

They wandered to the edge of the forest. The clearing where the trees stomped growing. Where only the tall grasses grew. And the mud dlurshed over the tops of their boots. And the bull frogs would rob it so loudly one almost had to plug their ears. It was here, in the knee high grass and the bright sun beating on the brown skin of their arms that he knew. He knew, not how, nit any idea of the thought had existed beforehand. For they never talked about it. Not really. I mean sure, they were both on generally the same chapter and generally the sane page about it when it came right down to it. But tge y errn’t even tempting. Actually perhaps a better description he thought would be that they wernt not trying. No medical interventions not that they had been tested or anything. Again, he thought it wasn’t that they were but most certainly not like they weren’t. The sweat stung his eyes,

Please, he said, just one more. She closed her eyes. As if the sight of him she could take. Not for one minute, not for one second longer. Please, he said again. She turned. Her long black hair, covering her naked back. Gently swaying, teasing over the dimple just above her buttocks. Her bare feet soundless on the bedroom carpet and the tiles of the bathroom. She didn’t turn on the light. She couldn’t. She stood looking into the dark void. Two feet in front of her the mirror. She put found the edge of the vanity. Felt the cold of the stone against her palms. Breathe. She told herself just breathe. “Misty”? He said into the darkness. Not entirely sure where she had gone. A question more than a statement.

Nights when I would pour drinks for the triple scotch man, who, before he paid the bill would count the buts in his adjtray, one smoke per drink, to double check that he wasn’t’t being ripped off, the linemen with giant necks and fingers all kinds of crooked, mmotercyckr gang members with leather vests and exquisite ink all up and down their arms. She would appear at the bar. Smile laugh. Her eyes dancing, bright like lightening, she take would take her drinks on her tray and disappear into the dining room, into the kitchen,always just long enough to miss her. And from the moment I saw her I wondered. Wondered what it would be like. And I called, found her number on this form or that one. And she never asked where I got it and I never vilunto tell her.

He swam like a shark they said. Fast smooth and precise. Like a bullet through the water they said. Though I never saw him. Not in real life anyway. Just on film. The grainy black and white. His pale torso , like an unrobed specter on the starting block. His skinny legs somehow supporting all his wide shoulders. His freakishly long toes curling over the end of the block, as easily and as effortless as fingers grasping a stick. And for that split second, down, ready, barely breathing he almost didn’t look real at all. He looked like an exquisite stone stAtue, the definition odf muscle, the slightest hints of vdin, the smooth porcelain skin, as if he were carved by one of the master carvers whose stAtues inhabit museums around the world. Statues with one arm or half a torso or no nose. An antiquity, not yet claimed. The siynd of the pistol, and he’s off. Straightens his body before he slices through the surface.

He didn’t feel like going to bed. Not just yet. Not that he felt like doing anything particular just that sleep he didn’t feel was upon him. He uncorked the scotch, poured himself two fingers, neat, and made his way back to the couch.

What was wrong with having two bowls. I mean, how many bowls does one guy need he thought. One for me , one for company l, and if there isn’t enough, someone has to use a plate. What did his grandmother say about this? Right, first world problems. And though he had never been to second or third world, yet, this sentiment, at its core just felt right to him. It was the way she said it really, “Two bowls then. “ felt like the way she would proclaim her other discoveries “totally unemployable, then” “chronic masterbator then”. Have four plates he said and smiled.