Today's writing

The dream stays the same.

I have never met his father, never seen a picture. In the dream, though, I see a picture of what looks to be his father, but is really him. It’s him twenty years down the road, through fire and brimstone and whatever else the nightly news chooses to throw our way, and I know we have been together this entire time, have sat together at dinner tables and in waiting rooms, hands linked, eyes locked, fighting and laughing, not speaking to one another and breaking the ice, the stuff of relationships, the solid base of life.

I wake and Oliver has his nose to mine, rubbing. He purrs and rubs harder. Then he pulls away and shakes his head. Drool everywhere. I groan.

I have not spoken to Adam in three weeks.

*

There is in life a parachute moment, that fraction of time before someone drops into your world and changes it forever.

I knew it when I met Adam. I knew it all my reflexes, in every dimension of sense. I knew it because as I saw him walking in my direction, I wanted to pull up stakes and run as fast and far as possible.

What, you expected stars and bars, fireworks?