fiction note 1

In the broader scheme of things everything is tinged in suspicion, shades of distrust turning what looks black and white into hints of gray. When that great river belched out of the earth and shot into the sky, its course traced silhouettes on that great black inky parchment. Cursive amongst the stars, looping its signature around the moon. I should have went back inside the house. Took some tea off the counter, made a cup or two and pondered at what I had just seen. That would have been the logical thing to do. The words you spoke to me yesterday began to echo like church bells inside of my head: "what are you most afraid of, Joseph?" I closed my eyes and was entwined in a cathedral of sadness.

I rushed back into the house without thinking, grabbing all of my tools: the welding kit, the hammers, the nails and boards and giant canvases. I told you that I was going to build you something amazing for our anniversary, and I finally found the time to fulfill that promise in the longest night of my life. I worked frenetically, the moon shining down on our lawn, making everything blue. The touch of dew in the air tickled my nostrils, and soothed my blistering hands. I was building a sailboat the fastest I could. I blinked and I saw it done, a patchwork of mindless work standing before me.

Running water angled at ninety degrees into the sky, like a paused wave, urging me forward. It was there in the night, my sweat-soaked shirt and its cold soaking into my skin, that I decided upon the very first adventure of my life. For your sake, I thought. I went back into the house, threw everything that I would need for a very long trip into a leather suitcase my father had given me when I told him I'd become a lawyer. I threw it onto the boat, sending sawdust to drift in the sky, the smell of new wood suffusing the air. Virgins, the both of us, to this feeling of departure.

I took one big breath, and pushed my humble boat into the river before me, and jumped in. The boat shot into the sky. I was sailing amongst stars, along the river Styx, ready to get you back, ready to render those last words absolutely useless.