Where Emily walked fire walked with her or what she pretended was fire.  Idle Hour wood was alit in an autumnal blaze.   The trees quietly burned and bushes and creeping vines glowed like embers, leaf on leaf, this day in October, the sun low.  The trunks of trees had that smoky grayness seen only in fall and winter.  This was Emily’s favorite time of year and though it made her sad that the summer was gone she loved the colors of the season, the crisp kiss of spice milled air on her cheeks.  As she walked, leaves of red, yellow and orange floated down, drifting beside her like love notes, their written secrets consumed in flame.  Orange pine needles like slivers of magma littered the forest floor, the wind stirring each to vibrate, each vibration unique and with its own consequence, one conjuring water, one a bird, another a star.  The woodland path was a mosaic of fiery leaves of all sizes laid out before her.  There were leaves bigger than her hand and others small as an eye lash.  She took off her shoes and socks and made believe she was walking on a hot bed of coals like those strange, stick thin men with beards down to their belly buttons that she had watched on a PBS show with her mother.   Her mother had said it was all a matter of concentration with no small help from calluses.  Emily closed her eyes and thought of burning coals.  Of course the leaves beneath her bare feet were not in the least bit hot but the damp, chilling cold burned her toes and she could almost imagine what it was like to be a mystical fire walker.  The smell of distant smoke tickled her nose, making her imaginary realm of fire seem all the more real.  She wished she had mystical powers allowing her to charm snakes and levitate.

Idle Hour wood had once been part of a magnificent estate a century ago but now belonged to the state.  On one of her walks Emily had come upon a small house which she later learned was where the estate’s former game keeper had lived.  The house was now locked and empty, its two small windows clouded in dust, staring out with darkly sad and vacant eyes.  On one occasion Emily thought she had seen smoke rising from the house’s crumbling chimney but later thought she might have been mistaken as the day had been misty and she never saw the smoke again.  Now with the smell of fire in the air she wondered if she had not been wrong after all, that after a hundred years the ancient gamekeeper still protected the wood, vigilant in the small, decrepit house.  A shiver of imagination ran through her.

She wished her little sister Edie was with her but she was at home with her mother and only allowed to play in the back yard.  If truth be told Emily was not supposed to be in the wood either.  Though unlike her sister she was allowed to venture outside the yard her mother had made it clear she should never walk in Idle Hour wood alone.  But Emily loved the wood and though she felt terribly guilty afterward she couldn’t help but steal away to be among the trees and animals whenever possible.  It was the only time she ever disobeyed her mother and in every other way was the perfect daughter.  Maybe next year when Edie was older the two of them could visit the wood.  She was certain Edie would love it as much as she did perhaps even more.  There were lots and lots of trees and Edie loved climbing trees.  With a smile her mother had said Edie was precocious for her age and a tomboy.   Her mother had named her after Edie Sedgwick, a beautiful socialite actress now dead.  Emily knew nothing else about her except that she had worked in a factory.   Emily was named after Emily Dickinson her mother’s favorite author and like her namesake enjoyed writing stories as well as consuming scads of books from the library.  But most of all she loved animals.  They had a dog named Dodgson and two cats named Punch and Judy who were constantly wrestling and batting each other in the puss.  There was also a turtle named Cortez, Blink the goldfish and on weekends Emily would groom and walk an elderly horse named Bucephalus who lived down the road.  Emily’s father had left a few years ago and no one knew where he was.   Every day Emily found herself wishing he would come back home to them.

Both of the Skillet sisters (that was their last name) were beautiful – petite and brown haired with wide, gorgeous eyes that took in the world and disarming smiles that lay it at their feet.   It was in part perhaps their beauty that out of jealousy caused a few of the neighborhood children to fashion taunts as children are often wont to do.  There were chants of Emily Frying Pan and Edie Pots and Pans but being well grounded the teasing bounced off them like drops of water off their red-hot surname.

Yes, one day Emily would have to take Edie with her to the wood but they would have to do so in secret, keeping it from their mother.  Emily’s mother had told her that the wood was a dangerous place for a little girl to be alone in with strangers possibly about.  But Emily rarely saw anyone else in the woods.  It was usually just her and her animal friends.  Every so often she would come upon a man running in the woods with hair the color of red maple syrup and pale white skin.  He would run by Emily, his dark blue eyes widening in what seemed like sad wonder to her.  Emily noticed that the man had a tiny scar in the shape of a crescent moon just at the corner of one eye and he always ran barefoot, his small, white feet crunching sticks and leaves.  She thought it odd and that it must hurt but it did not seem to bother the man and he would always smile at her and softly say hello.  It was the slightest of smiles but warm and genuine and through the faint smile she could see his teeth to be pearly white with a small gap in front.   Emily being shy would look down, flapping her small arms lightly against her side and let out a hello that was more like a sigh.  Then the man would disappear on his run behind her and she would be left once more to herself.  She never saw the man when her animal friends were around and when she asked about him they had no idea who she was talking about though she wondered if they were telling the truth as each acted peculiarly when answering; looking up at the sky where the moon might be though it was the middle of day.

Emily’s feet were now thoroughly chilled and achy; the cold matted leaves making them feel like they truly were burning.   Satisfied in her mind that she had walked the hot coals like a yogi she put her socks and shoes back on.   As she continued walking she noticed movement up ahead on the trail just where it curved and came upon a clearing.  She squinted for a better look and stopped in her tracks, her heart skipping a beat.  She could make out what seemed to be a white snake balancing on its tail.  Now Emily was an animal lover but it has to be said that she had no fondness for snakes, a feeling shared by most, much to the chagrin of snakes.  Unlike others however whose first impulse might be to take a stick to the snake Emily would never harm an animal no matter how it might frighten her.  She was about to go off in another direction but there was something about the snake that held her attention.  She watched as it veered back and forth, swaying on its tail.  This was quite a remarkable snake.  She knew snakes could curl and raise themselves upright but never on any nature show had she seen a snake that could hop on its tail!  Then she noticed that this snake seemed unusually thick though that was not so strange in and of itself but more the fact that it appeared to be furry!  Emily slowly inched forward for a better look and as she did a smile came to her face.   It was not a snake after all but Mr. Talbot.

Emily had met Mr. Talbot a year earlier and given her the same impression at the time.  She was in an overgrown field gathering wild flowers and bent down to pick some Bachelor Buttons when reaching down in to the high grass she grabbed something long and thick.  A squeak rose up from the grass and Emily jumped back startled, thinking she had disturbed a sunning snake.  The grass shivered and a long figure slowly rose up, jerking its head about as it nervously surveyed the scene.  Emily now saw it was not a snake at all but some sort of animal she couldn’t quite place at the moment.

“Hello.” Emily said tentatively, nervously pulling on a rivulet of brown hair cascading over her shoulder.

The animal looked at Emily for a good while ascertaining whether it should flee for its life.  Then sensing Emily was not a threat it blinked a few times and said,

“Well then, you gave me quite a start.”

“I’m very sorry.  I was picking flowers and never even noticed you there.”

“No harm done” the animal replied, yawning and rubbing his beady eyes “I was just taking a restorative nap.”

When he yawned Emily could see his white teeth, tiny and sharp.   His eyes were like tiny seashells polished to a shiny black.  Actually they looked more navy blue to Emily though she wasn’t sure if that was possible.   His body was long for his size and completely white except for a honey brown dab atop his head and he had a long, bushy tail.  Staring with great interest, Emily knew she had never seen an animal like him in the wood before.    She was sure she had seen a picture of his species in a book or perhaps on television but the name escaped her which bothered her to no end as she took immense pride in her knowledge of the animal kingdom.

“My name is Emily.”  She said, getting on her knees to take the opportunity to introduce herself.

“Very nice to meet you.” said the lithe creature, holding out a small, stubby paw.  “My name is Mr. Talbot.”

Shaking hands, it suddenly came to Emily what this creature was.

“You’re an Ermine!” Emily exclaimed, lunging forward in excitement which caused Mr. Talbot to flop on his back in surprise.

“Oh I’m so sorry.” Emily said helping Mr. Talbot up, embarrassed by what she had done.  “It’s just that I was so excited when it came to me what you were.  I’ve never seen an Ermine up close before”

Brushing himself off, Mr. Talbot seemed to straighten an invisible tie, smiled and replied,

“A memorable first meeting indeed; yes, I am an Ermine and the only one hereabouts I dare say.”

“Otherwise known as a Stoat” offered Emily.

“Yes, I could be considered that as well but please, never refer to me as a weasel.   I know they are in the family but they are a nasty bunch, black sheep the lot.”

“How come I have never seen you before and how did you come to be here?  I don’t believe this is the natural habitat of ermines.”

“I tend to keep a low profile, low to the ground as it were.  My ancestor came over on a ship many years past.  Long ago Ermines were held in high esteem and my Great, great, great, great, great grandfather was part of a royal court.  He was the beloved consort of a grand lady and always at her side.  But it happened that a sorcerer was jealous of his relationship with the lady and cast a spell on her so that she no longer recognized my grandfather and put a curse on him so that he suffered spells and was lost to himself.   At these times when not himself his blood buzzed and he acted strange and savagely so that the whole of the royal court believed him to be a familiar of the devil.  With his beloved lady no longer remembering him and afraid of harming her during one of his spells my ancestor took passage to the new world under the threat of being burned at the stake or worn as an enchanted pelt around some nobleman’s neck , settling in this wood.”

Emily shuddered at the thought of Mr. Talbot’s relative being skinned and worn, never understanding how people could be so cruel.  On the other hand, to have Mr. Talbot willingly drape himself around her neck that would be wonderful.  She could imagine how soft and warm he would feel in the winter time as he nuzzled against her and what a sight they would make, the two of them walking down the street as people marveled.  Oh, that would be so nice.

“Your grandfather never saw the lady again? She never remembered him?” asked Emily.

“No.” replied Mr. Talbot, looking down at the ground in what seemed to be great sadness and then quickly looking up.  “So that is how I came to be the in the wood and the only ermine in it I might add!”   Though Mr. Talbot made it a point on how proud he was to be the only ermine around Emily secretly thought that idea made him feel very lonely.

“That’s a very sad story” said Emily, “but I’m happy that it brought you here and allowed us to meet.”

“I am as well Emily.  If only you knew how much.” said Mr. Talbot, gently smiling at Emily like one might at a dear, old friend.  “Well I must be off.  I only took a nap so that I would be well rested for some errands I need to do.”

“Will I see you again?” asked Emily, disappointed their meeting was ending so quickly.

“I would very much like that. Meet me here tomorrow at the same time, can you Emily?  I promise that I will not be so logy from a nap.”

“Yes, yes!” said Emily and with Mr. Talbot setting off in one direction Emily went in the other.  She turned her head to look back at Mr. Talbot one more time but the swift white stoat… ermine was nowhere to be seen.

Emily hurried home excitedly.  There was much research she wanted to do on ermines before she met Mr. Talbot again.  Early that evening she went to the library, poring through books of every sort that contained information about ermines.  There were small, old books with tiny print and black and white engravings of ermines, stoats and others related to the weasel family.  Emily reminded herself never to mention weasel in Mr. Talbot’s presence.  There were big books with large color plates depicting ermines and the like in their native habitats.  One book was half the size of Emily and as she tottered back to her seat with it she nearly fell over from its sheer size and weight and saw Miss Friedland the librarian who was not much taller than Emily, perched at her desk, smiling at the sight of the tiny girl embracing such a massive book.  This particular book had many grand pictures, each taking up the entire page.  Emily studied each one and thought them to be very beautiful.  There were stoats, weasels and ermines of every size and color, even white ones that resembled Mr. Talbot except their tails were black and his white and where he had a tawny daub on his head theirs were white.  Emily learned that stoats were normally brown in the summer turning white with the onset of winter.  This was odd because Mr. Talbot was snowy white and it was the middle of July.  She also learned that in earlier times ermines were indeed held highly just as Mr. Talbot had said, often depicted in paintings and on heraldry, symbolizing purity.  It was said that when pursued a stoat would surrender to a hunter rather than soil its white coat.  Irish legend had it that encountering a stoat on a journey meant bad luck, the only means of avoiding such being to greet the stoat as a neighbor.  Emily thought this was just that, a legend and though she was not at all superstitious she was glad all the same that she and Mr. Talbot were newly introduced neighbors.

That night Emily sat at her laptop searching for still more ermine related information on the internet.  She preferred books and had taken four out from the library where they now lay on the bed but wanted to make sure her research was as thorough as possible.  Her mother came in for a moment and seeing her search results on the web and the books laid open on her bed with pictures of Mr. Talbot’s relatives asked her why the sudden interest in weasels.  Knowing her mother would never believe in the existence of Mr. Talbot and would be cross if she knew she had been to Idle Hour wood Emily fibbed and told her mother she was thinking about writing a book report on ermines.

“Book report?” her mother asked curiously.  “It’s summer time honey, what would you need with a book report?”

Thinking quickly Emily said, “I want to get a head start on the school year.”

Chuckling, knowing just how studious Emily was being an honor student, her mother satisfied with this answer said,

“Just remember, all work and no play…”

“Make Jack a zombie.” Emily said, finishing the phrase and laughing as her mother zombie walked out of the room.

Emily suddenly stopped laughing, a pang of guilt causing her tummy to ache.  She felt terrible about lying to her mother and for a moment thought about telling her all about her encounter with Mr. Talbot but she knew her mother would never let her go back to the wood if she told the truth and she just had to see Mr. Talbot again, she just had to.  The pain in her tummy grew sharper at the thought of never seeing Mr. Talbot again, knowing it would be terrible thing yet not knowing why.

The following day Emily packed a knapsack with the books she had taken from the library as well as some pictures she had printed from the web and set off for the wood.  It was a beautiful summer day and she felt streamers of sun dance across her as they filtered down through the tree tops.  She reached the field where she had first met Mr. Talbot.  The sun now poured freely on the open space and the heat rose from the tall grass and wild flowers where cicadas made a ssssshhhhh sound that started as a whisper and then rose, growing louder until the whole field seemed to vibrate only to suddenly drop off in silence then commence as a whisper again.  Emily looked around but there was no sign of Mr. Talbot.  It was a hot July afternoon and as time passed Emily’s throat became dry and tight from thirst and she felt a terrible anxiousness, afraid Mr. Talbot would not come.  She began to flap her arms lightly against her side, a habit born out of nervousness, her arms flapping higher with each passing moment until it seemed she might take flight when she saw a small cloud of dust making its way up the path from the far end of the wood.  The whirlwind moved quickly towards her gradually taking form and color until the long, white figure of Mr. Talbot could be made out, scampering low against the ground.  Reaching Emily, Mr. Talbot skittered to a stop, stood upright and brushed his coat off, breathlessly saying,

“My profuse apologies Emily for making you wait.”

“That’s alright I was just worried you might not make it.” Emily said softly, taking in Mr. Talbot with wonder.  She was still captivated by the sight of him, his long body and fur, pure white except for a patch of henna on top and his shiny button eyes, the color of a tropical sea at night.  How lucky am I to have such a wonderful friend she thought to herself, strange yet so familiar was he to her.

“I overslept I am ashamed to say.  I had too much to dream last night.  I tend to sleep and dream deeply, too much so, sometimes finding it difficult to find my way back.  Please, follow me.”

Following along Emily walked in to the meadow until they reached a spot that seemed to Mr. Talbot’s liking.  He proceeded to flatten out the long grass and wild flowers by using his body like a rolling pin, rolling around in a circle.  Emily giggled as she watched him roll over and over until he had made a perfectly flat circle in the middle of field.    In the circle, Mr. Talbot laid down a cloth bundle that until now had gone unnoticed.  It was knotted at the top and bulged.  Untying the knot, Mr. Talbot spread open the cloth revealing a number of limes and lemons.  The fruit was cut in quarters and made a beautiful presentation atop the cloth which was royal blue and bordered in gold with a magnificent crimson lion in the center.

“Please Emily, sit down.” Mr. Talbot said, sitting himself and offering her a slice of lemon.  “It’s very hot out today which is why I thought you might like these.  They also ward off the scurvy.”

Emily took the lemon and Mr. Talbot a lime and both proceeded to suck on the fruit.  The lemon was very sour as you might expect and Emily wished that Mr. Talbot had brought some sugar to sprinkle on top, wincing and scrunching up her face while eating the lemon.  But the juice felt wonderful trickling down her throat on this hot day and she helped herself to a slice of lime.  Emily giggled as she looked over at Mr. Talbot.  His small face was puckered up and his eyes bulged as he slurped down the sour juice.  Such a sight to behold, the little girl and white ermine sitting in the middle of the great field, feasting at a table fashioned amongst the grass and wildflowers, the two of them making all sorts of weird, twisty faces sucking on the sour fruit while time and place seemed frozen by the shushing of cicadas.

After they had eaten Emily took the pictures and books from her knapsack and laid them out on the fine cloth.  Mr. Talbot lay back in the grass and listened intently as Emily told him what she had learned about ermines and stoats the night before.  She made sure not to mention the word weasel as she related the information she had gleaned from books and the internet while Mr. Talbot from time to time picked up a picture or pointed something out on a page.  But after a while Mr. Talbot grew less interested in what Emily had learned and more in Emily herself.  He found himself studying her, taking delight in her expressive face and mannerisms.  Emily was so intent in her discourse that she never even noticed and looked up to find Mr. Talbot’s gaze intense as an artist upon his muse, totally immersed in her being.   Mr. Talbot was embarrassed at having been caught staring and the pink inside of his small ears turned bright red.  He smiled sheepishly at her, a gap toothed smile shiny, sharp and white.  Gathering his composure, Mr. Talbot stood up and asked Emily if she would follow him.

“I have something to show you as well.” He said as they made their way deeper in to the meadow, the tall grass coming up to Emily’s shoulder almost completely obscured the small creature as he led the way.  Mr. Talbot stopped and looked up expectantly at Emily who was amazed to find a huge oil painting lying hidden in the tall grass.  It was a portrait of a beautiful woman and nestling against her was a white ermine.  The picture seemed very old to Emily and she was certain she had seen it before but where?  She knelt down for a closer look.  The portrait was mounted in an ornate frame, scrolled and gilded.

“It’s beautiful.” she said, “She’s beautiful.  Is this the lady friend of your grandfather?”

Staring at the portrait Mr. Talbot only nodded solemnly.  Emily started to touch the painting then stopped, looking up at Mr. Talbot.

“Go ahead.  It’s alright.” he said softly.

Emily gently touched the frame.  She put her tiny finger to the painted surface and could feel where the brush transformed the canvas.  She had never seen a more beautiful thing in her life and its presence in the meadow, framed among the goldenrod, daisies and grass only made it that much more wonderful and strange.  The painting was huge, as tall as Emily and three times the size of Mr. Talbot.

“It’s so big!  How did you ever get it here?” she asked, looking up at the diminutive creature.

Hesitating, Mr. Talbot looked around, seemingly searching for an answer and then said,

“Some friends were kind enough to lend a hand.” then changing the subject, “She is very beautiful.  Do you…”   He left the question unasked and stared at the painting lovingly and intently, as though trying to wish himself inside it.  Emily noticed Mr. Talbot’s night blue eyes glisten and become starry, growing bigger and then realized they were magnified by welling tears until one tiny tear curled down in a crescent from the corner of his eye.

That was over a year ago and in that time Emily and Mr. Talbot had become the best of friends, sharing long talks, playing games (they would play cat’s cradle under an old willow tree, Mr. Talbot having to use both his hands and feet to maneuver the string) and taking walks in the wood.  Emily would sometimes see Mr. Talbot every day but then a fortnight might pass before she saw him again.  She found herself unable to concentrate during the time he was away and she ached inside from missing him.  Once, Emily had asked where he had been for so long.  Mr. Talbot only said that he had an affair to attend to and quickly changed the subject.  Emily could tell he did not want to talk about those days he was gone and never brought up the subject again.  There was a part of Mr. Talbot she thought was secret, even dark and though she would have liked to know what that secret was she never pried.

Now she approached Mr. Talbot who was so busy in his endeavor, standing on his short hind legs and gesturing with his stubby arms towards the sky filled with falling autumn leaves, that he never even noticed Emily until she was right upon him.

“Oh, hello Emily.” He said, glancing quickly at her,  giving her a huge smile and then setting his attention back on what he was doing.    What was he doing?

“Hi.  What are you up to?” Emily asked, quite amused at the sight of Mr. Talbot swaying side to side, struggling to keep balance on his hind legs while seeming to grasp at thin air.  She was polite enough however not to laugh.

“I’m trying to catch a heart but woefully unsuccessful so far.”

“A heart?”  Emily looked up, squinting but could see nothing but blue sky punctuated by autumn leaves that floated down.  “Where? What are you talking about?”  She thought that Mr. Talbot might be lightheaded from all his dancing about.

“Right there.” said Mr. Talbot, just then leaping at a bright orange leaf which curled away from him at the last second, snatched by a breeze.

“Drat!”  Mr. Talbot dropped back down on all fours, breathing heavily, obviously winded from all his exertions.   “The heart of a tree,” He said after catching his breath. “A leaf as they are more commonly known.”

Emily was puzzled.  “You mean a tree has a heart and that heart is a leaf?  How do you know which one is the heart?”

“Yes and they all are.” replied Mr. Talbot, now stretching his limbs, “A tree can have thousands of hearts depending on its size.  Trees are fortunate in that way.”

“I never would have thought trees have a heart but it does make sense, they are living things.  But why are you trying to catch one, just for fun?”

“Well it is a lot of fun but the main reason is because I am hoping to get a wish.  You see every autumn when the leaves turn color and fall to the ground that is a tree’s way of giving you their heart.  If you manage to catch a leaf before it lands on the ground you can have a wish granted.  The time for collecting hearts can be very short though, sometimes only a week if the days are stormy or windy.  Once the last heart falls you have to wait another year.”

Mr. Talbot looked deep in to Emily’s eyes and said, “I desperately want a wish.”  For a moment Emily thought she knew what that wish was, thought she could make out what it was there in the azure darkness of his eyes but then it disappeared like smoke.

“Everyone in the wood is hoping to catch one.” Mr. Talbot went on, quickly averting his gaze.

Emily looked around and saw this was true.  Gone unnoticed as she was not looking for it, she now saw various animals trying in their own way to catch a tree’s heart.  She saw a squirrel running about in a tight circle, his short, hooked paws outstretched as he tried to gauge where a floating leaf might come down, running round and round very fast but the leaves, unpredictable, swirled out of reach.  Far across the field a deer tossed and turned his head trying to impale a leaf on his antlers.  Crows dove and rose in the air hunting leaves of all sizes and colors that carried by gusts of wind seemed to tease and dance with the birds who cawed out black exclamation points.  On the river Emily could see swans, their long, slender necks stretched forward in the hope of snatching a heart with their beak before it touched the water or racing forward on the chance one might alight on their back.  It seemed to Emily that catching a heart was a very difficult feat for anyone and the swans at still a greater disadvantage with few leaves managing to find their way over the face of the water.  Still everyone seemed to be having lots of fun in the chase.

Rested, Mr. Talbot stood back up on his hind legs and threw himself back in to the hunt.

“Come on Emily, catch a wish! Please!” he cried out, his tiny white legs scampering about in a blur, his short arms spread out and reaching towards the sky.   At the urging of the wind the trees offered up their hearts to whoever might catch them.  Hearts of all colors and shapes rained down upon them seemingly theirs for the taking.  But just as Emily would reach out for one it would twist away from her.  The hearts soared up and then down, floated and did curlicues, circling above her in a maddening tarantella.  Under the bright autumn sun the little girl and her small companion danced and whirled, their arms stretched achingly towards the sky, their hopes reaching still higher.  The trees nodded, bestowing their blessings, leaves raining down upon them.   But try as they might neither was able to catch a precious heart which seemed just always out of reach.  Emily stopped, staring up in to the vast kaleidoscope of sky, sun and swirling leaves.  She flapped her small arms in frustration.  She wanted so much to catch a heart, to be able to make a wish.  What would she wish for – to become a magical yogi, to know Mr. Talbot’s secret, where he disappeared for days, to have Idle Hour woods as her own forever, her father to return home so they could be a family again?  Emily’s arms flapped at her sides in desperation as she thought about all the wasted wishes that lay scattered on the ground.  Suddenly she felt something smooth between her palm and the side of her leg.  In amazement she looked down to find a leaf there, the heart having floated down and somehow caught in the act of her flapping.  She held the heart up to look at.  It was huge, three times the size of her hand and a bright red with burgundy veins.  It was still warm from its time atop the highest tree in the wood where it had blazed under the sun until just now pirouetting down to her.  It pulsated in Emily’s hand from the beat of Emily’s own excited heart or perhaps of its own accord.  Emily could hear the heart’s steady beat, whispering to her.

What? What? What?

What was her wish it asked.  A myriad of wishes flooded her mind.

What? What? What?

Emily looked over at Mr. Talbot and saw that he was standing there, small mouth agape, raptly watching her and then she noticed he had a leaf the color of sunshine in his hand.  He had a heart too!

“Make a wish Emily! Make a wish!” Mr. Talbot called out, trembling, unable to contain his excitement.

“You too!” she cried out.

“I already did – I wished you would remember!”

‘But…”  Emily was confused.  She looked down at the red, beating leaf in her hand.   It was bigger now and seemed to grow bigger each passing second in her hand.  The heart shimmering and reflective drew her in, spreading out before her, crimson and aqueous, a looking glass as big as the world.  Visions and images swam before her eyes.  Just when she thought she recognized someone or something the image would dart away.  Emily felt strange and light headed, hot like the time she had the measles.  Then she saw her father, smiling in the heart from somewhere far away.  He suddenly melted away and she saw the beautiful lady in the portrait.  No – she saw herself sitting there in the painting; the white ermine nestled lovingly against her.  Emily felt confused.  There was something she thought she should remember. The image of her in the portrait gently exploded  like a far reaching anemone and took another form, that of the barefooted man who ran in the wood, his pale face smiled sadly at her, his dark blue eyes shining, heavy lidded and dilated with longing.  Emily felt warmth envelop her and her throat grow tight.  Her breath now shallow, came in short, tiny gasps  as the man’s face shifted in its whiteness and then curdled until it was Mr. Talbot she looked upon, the beloved white furry face, pink ears, night eyes with crescent scar and gap toothed smile.   A cloud formed at the corner of the heart and grew, spreading until it obliterated Mr. Talbot, taking on the visage of an old man, pinched and blotched.  Emily wondered who this horrible old man was, an ancient shiver ran through her as she fathomed a consuming bitterness and recognized the cruelty in his eyes which faintly recalled a cold blue, now however devoid almost completely of color.

Recall. Recall. Recall.

The fluttering, red heart beating, the face of the evil man now sucked in to a vortex of colors and phantoms.  Recall what?  Emily’s heart pounded wildly in her chest until it beat in perfect time with the heart in her hand. She felt dizzy.  The meadow around her undulated and the air was thick.  The watery aspect of the leaf hardened to a sheen and Emily saw it now take the form of a lady bug, glossy red with speckles of black, opening and closing its wings in rhythm to her heart beat, a luminescence radiating from within.  A pale light spread from the folds of the wings and the beetle transformed in to the moon, the lady bug’s spots now lunar craters.  Emily looked down at the moon in her hand, full and shining.  From what seemed a great, far off distance she heard Mr. Talbot,

“Only you can wish it Emily, only you my dearest.”

Recall. Recall. Recall.

Moonlight seeped in to Emily’s eyes, dark brown and wide, filling and illuminating her being and she did recall.  Moon entranced in broad daylight, she now knew who she was or had been those many years ago – the lady in the portrait.  Yes and she remembered Mr. Talbot too, that his first name was Lawrence!  But she remembered him differently, not like he was now.  She also remembered something dark that grew out of the full moon, a man made eclipse of malice.  That horrible old man and the heart breaking loss he caused them both to suffer.

It had blighted the moonlight which on countless nights before imbued her flower garden in the court below with a heavenly beguilement as they looked down from her balcony in sweet embrace.

What? What? What?

The moon went blood red and receded until it was once again an autumn leaf in her small hand.  The meadow and wood swam before her eyes and she felt very sleepy.  She felt like she could sleep forever; losing herself in the deepest slumber just like Mr. Talbot, pulled far out in to a sea of dreams by a rip tide of life times.

A leaf rustled and tolled, the tall grass sang and quivered and Emily wished.  She wished for Mr. Talbot, for her Lawrence again, and then felt herself falling, falling in to eyes of a deep violet winter night, cradled by arms, strong, pale and familiar.

“I wish.” she said, yes he said.

He stole a kiss from her.  It was never his intent.  She brushed against him in a narrow corridor and triggered something.  Against the order and better judgment of the director a rogue agent in his brain carried out the desperate assassination.  Grazing her temple with the radioactive kiss he was swept away in a nostalgic sweetness, the agent at the same moment biting down on a poison capsule, a stream of panic and guilt flushing through his veins, then dropped stiff and lifeless, a foolish afterthought to a lost cause.

A Radio Head song bobbed to the surface in his head.

‘But I’m a creep

I’m a weirdo.

What the hell am I doing here?

I don’t belong here.’

Her name was Edie and she was home from college for the holidays and back working at the store.  Her return woke a hibernating pang in him, her face conjuring both promise and abject loss.  He had fallen for her the moment he saw her three years ago while she was still in high school.  He honestly never thought she was that young, thought she might be in her mid twenties, an assessment admittedly made with a mental filter of certain color and gauziness.  If she had been in her twenties he was still old enough to be her father and the chasm between them greater than years.  They were totally mismatched.  He took a perverse solace in knowing that even if they were the same age they could never be together, different animals as they were.  It was that polarity that drew him to her, that and delusion born of a runaway romanticism and not feeling his true age. The chronology of his years seemed all wrong.  His whole life he had felt out of step with his peers, lagging behind not mentally or physically yet in some essential way.  As a child he had always felt more at ease with others younger than himself, his playmates all being years his junior.  He remembered his father’s alliterative disgust at the juvenile company he kept,

“Goddamn big goof gallivanting around with those little kids!”

This pattern continued through high school, in college where he lived in a house with younger roommates and now at work where most of his associates were half his age.  He imagined even death would not break this pattern, finding him resting eternally between those born decades after him.  Throughout his life he never felt his age or really grown up.  It was a common enough flaw in men – arrested development, the Peter Pan syndrome.  But he was not like most men and that was indeed a good part of his problem. While from the start he clung stubbornly to his youth there was also borne in him a preternatural solemness discerned by both child and adult alike who encountered him.  There was about him an aura of sadness and resignation beyond his years, even at the age of seven, a cowled fatalism over the russet crew cut.

He had aged well, the fortuitous genes of his mother keeping at least a decade at bay, belying his age.  Carded well in to his thirties, that youthfulness had now receded.  There were some lines in his face; a question of elasticity of flesh or lack thereof.  His hair was thinning and slightly graying.  He remembered going to barbers as a child, each invariably stopping to flex their aching fingers.

“Young man, you’ll never go bald.” they had all said, reaching in the drawer for a fresh pair of scissors and going back to work, the sharp beaked, silver heron fluttering and diving in and out of his auburn hair, fashioning a nest of perfect symmetry.

Now he wanted to find those same barbers.  He would do an internet search:

‘Lying bastard barbers’

He would find out where they lived.  They would be old men now, their hands arthritic and palsied.  They would shuffle to the door, gingerly opening it, all those years of shearing leaving the instruments of their past livelihood no longer able to grasp.  He would be waiting to confront them on their guile and deceit, lies casually tossed off their barber sheets with a snap of the wrist, strands of fabrication floating down to gather at their feet.  True, he was not bald but where there once was a dense raspberry thicket there was now only autumn wheat.  He would make them weep for their lies, daubing away tears with their crooked claws.

Then he would find those that were dead.  Death would not shield them.  He would find their grave and take a lawn mower out from the trunk of his car.  It would be one of those antique jobs, the ones you had to push yourself, sunflower yellow with maw intent and deadly as a stalking cat.  He would adjust the curled blade so that it lay low and heavy, almost resting on the sward beneath.  Then he would begin his toil of revenge.  Mowing each grave, straining against the mower as it cut the grass to the quick.  It would be the closest shave the bastards had ever seen.  The cemetery workers would halt their labor to watch, one make at stopping the desecration but seeing the furious abstract of his face think better of it, walking off with foreign appall. When finished he would stand back admiring his work, the grave now a dirty brown scab on the cemetery’s marble stubbed face.  The little grass remaining would yellow and wither, never to grow again, even the worms fleeing the cursed patch, their meal gone bitter.

On keening for a girl half his age he knew the crowd’s money would be on a mid life crisis.  But this was faulty logic; his life having never taken any true form therefore had no discernible midway point.  In his mind the seed of romance had simply split open and now unfurling, inched its way up to the warmth of possibilities.  When she smiled at him he was corporeal again, his senses giddy in their resurrection.  It was only later that he realized she smiled at everyone.  She was one of those impossibly open and friendly people.  At least it seemed impossible to him.  He was stiff and uncomfortable around people, furtive as a coyote in Harlem.  One of the few personal relationships he had at work was with a young guy from Grocery.  He was at a loss as to how their unlikely camaraderie even came about but somehow it worked, the young black man’s natural strut and brashness playing against his own quiet reserve, the stuff of great comedy teams or scientific collaboration.  His co-workers would describe him as closed off and unfriendly, one dimensional and without qualities and in all honesty he could find no quarrel with the verdict.

He was a cipher, remote as a nebula.  His interaction with them was uncolored by personality, his few social pleasantries rote.  It was not a matter of conceit or that he felt superior though many thought as much.  The cruel irony of the shy or socially inept is that they are often seen as considering themselves above everything while in truth they are within everything.

There were people he worked with for years whose names were unknown to him, never said hi to.  Sometimes it was an animal thing where he took a visceral disliking to the person or vice versa, a chemical interaction producing a mutual repellent.  In most cases it was his stubborn refusal to say hello first.  Over the years he had come to see a definite pattern.  It was always left to him to be the first one to say hi.  It did not matter if he was the new arrival or they were, it was expected he make the first overture.  This would be a non issue for most people but he viewed it as an inequity and finally made up his mind to never again initiate a greeting.  This left him with only a small pool of acquaintances and still fewer friends.  The resulting isolation would have been justification enough to end the social experiment for most but the truth was he was content in his solitude.  Unlike many he felt no loneliness though perhaps he was in denial, a denial deep as the grave, as a ghost unable to accept death walks the same old places in confusion.  He did however miss having that one special person in his life.  Christ!  He sounded like that now dead movie announcer known as ‘The voice of god.’ who had seemingly introduced every film trailer over the last few decades.  The preview in this instance was an epic of bathos.  He vowed to immediately to search out a third rail to piss on should he ever catch himself uttering the phrase ‘Soul Mate’.

He briefly entertained the idea Edie might have felt a charge of excitement from his kiss, aroused by his reckless vault over propriety or from her indulgence in a daddy complex, piquant and redolent of guilt.  Then in his mind a Prussian officer abruptly interrupted this thought, removed a glove embroidered with the letter R and slapped his face with it, a stinging reproach to such nonsense:  R is for reality…revile.

Edie thought he was a creep or at least he believed she did.  How could she not with what had happened?  He had made the first transgression in her eyes a few years earlier.  One day he had found himself in an office with Edie and the store manager.  While the manager muttered aloud about upcoming sales and busied herself with signage he caught Edie’s gaze, locking it within his deep set eyes.  It was a look completely inappropriate and utterly at odds with the stark, anchored mundaneness of the fluorescent lit room.  In that moment the light seemingly telescoped inward to a humming pinpoint, rushing to usher them both through a padlocked door he had no key to.  He felt his face burn red, his head filled with a white heat buzz of cicadas.  Did she hear them too?  He wanted desperately to hold her tightly and feel her face seep in to his chest, mingling with the white noise that dissolved the entire office.  It was a fleeting moment of permanence.  From that day on things were different between them.

In that foolish moment he had wanted to convey the feelings of his heart and failed miserably.  Instead she only perceived lust and the lecherous encroachment of middle age.  There was lust to be sure but something even far more powerful was at work – romance.  That enthralling and doomed battle field called to him time and again only to cut him down and resurrect him, a starry eyed zombie.  Romance had been a lifelong well spring of errant hope and despondency.  It was what had made him write poetry years ago.  He had a small collection and thought of writing a poem for Edie.  But he learned long ago poetry could not transform him in her eyes and had the queasy feeling she would only read it as a stalker’s letter of intent.  There was so much wrong with his thought process when it came to relationships. Without one meaningful conversation between them he had attempted a feat of high magic, the convergence of their souls.  He had thought to erect a cathedral, instead managing only a stone grotesque of his ardor – squat and mute, without even a ledge to perch it on.  This was his pathology.  How could he possibly believe there could be anything between them when he was a stranger to her?  In his twisted logic he sought to first pierce her with a golden arrow, a look from which he assumed conversation and oneness would be a given offshoot.  The natural evolution in any relationship is establishing communication, building a solid foundation of mutual interests and values.  This paradigm was lost to him, the act of small talk a swamp that mired his words and thoughts.  It was oddly easier for him to make a grand, utterly inappropriate gesture.

Thinking about Edie, about being with her, he found himself often muttering to himself, “You’re insane”.   They say you cannot be truly insane if you think you are.  But one could be aware of clinging to a shade of sanity, embracing the maiden figure head of a ghost ship, dangling above the churning, black maelstrom, an embrace insubstantial and dissolving as sea mist.  When he forced himself to consciously step back from it he could see the utter madness of it all.  True, there were couples with twenty years or more age difference between them.  He remembered reading that Charlie Chaplin had married an eighteen year old Oona O’Neil at the age of fifty four and J.D. Salinger had lifelong dalliances with women decades younger.  But such men were almost always rich, famous or both and the women often highly evolved carrion feeders.  He was neither rich nor famous and she was a vegan.

He tried to picture the two of them having dinner with her parents both who must surely be his own age and it made him sick.  Hanging out with her friends was easier to envision though he could still imagine the crap she would take.  His heart however overrode these misgivings, bronco busting reason, digging in the time worn spur of love conquering all.  Where did love fit in all this?  It did not need to be love; it could just be the pleasure of their shared company.  He wanted to go to book stores with her, hike the countryside and camp out under the moon and cedars, watch films and take her dancing.  He knew he could hold his own with any twenty year old in the club.  But could she take any delight in his middle aged body?  It was a mess!  He should just walk away from it, wanted to walk away from it.  How could he possibly turn away from it?  The truth is he embraced the ache of unrequited love as only a failed romantic could.  The incessant throb of pain making him feel more alive than the beating of his heart ever could.  It was the elixir of youth, calling up in him the bitter sweet taste of things unrealized.

Over the last few months he had made a conscious effort to lose weight and managed to shed thirty pounds.  He ran five miles, five days a week, conjuring up the ghost of the skinny youth that haunted his ribs.  It was his ritual attempt to stave off decay.  He ran on an empty stomach sometimes not having eaten for twelve hours.  And while this was completely contrary to prevailing health advice it was natural for him.  He ran in an arboretum, over pebbled roads and winding, hilly trails.  He would run and feel the emptiness in his belly spread like a burning meadow, the fire gradually subsiding to a manageable smolder.  There was fallen angel stoicism to his hunger.

He ran in all seasons, the weather holding no sway in his regimen.  The winter was tough but in ways preferable to the summer.  In the summer when the temperature and humidity were high he found himself easily winded and sweated profusely, ending the run looking as if he had just woken from a fevered night’s sleep in a salt marsh.  To make matter worse he wore headphones, the equivalent of ear muffs in August.  He could feel the effect it had on his pace, his legs seeming to drag a ball and chain that accumulated the slick, waxy detritus of the day with each step.  Not that even on the best days could he be considered a sprinter.  When it was dry and crisp out he could cut six or seven minutes off of his time.  But in general he was more of a pacer.  He ran like a man who knows death runs behind him, closing the gap with each step yet not caring, only looking to give the inevitable finish a contrivance of suspense.

What he lacked in speed he made up for in agility, having an uncanny sense of balance, the physical product of a flat existence.   The course he ran had stretches of rough and uneven terrain and though not the type of arduous trail running one usually envisions of gullies, peaks and jagged rocks, it did provide constant small challenges.  In the spring there were puddles of water and mud, causing him to slip and slide or grasping him in full stride, his feet sucked into the muck.  There were tree roots rising like sea serpents, their humps breaking the surface of earth, threatening to fell him.  Summer brought veils of mosquitoes harboring fever and other phantom pests.  A grassy rotary circled through a marshy part of the arboretum, the grass grown wild and high.  It was a regular part of his run and later one night he discovered something lurking in the tall grass had pierced through the mesh of his running shoe and bitten him on his middle toe.  Starting out like a mosquito bite it grew larger and began to weep viscously.  He went to the doctor whose best guess was a spider bite of some sort and was prescribed a topical steroid which cleared it up though a year later a faint red circle still remained.  From then on he made it a point of spraying his shoes with insect repellent.

Autumn dropped her raiment and walked naked in to the arms of winter, leaving behind vines, branches and slick mats of wet leaves that invited pratfalls, fat pine cone grenades waiting to explode beneath his bad ankle.  Winter had snow and ice, their treachery nonchalant and obvious.  During a thaw it was especially hazardous, the ice on the path partially melted, left a veneer of water on the surface, a devious construct for breaking bones.  That he was able to navigate these obstacles day in and day out was a testament to his being surefooted, more so considering his right ankle had been suspect for decades, remnant of a bad sprain from his college years.

Now it was mid winter and the earth hard and brittle under his feet.  The temperature was in the low twenties with a jagged wind.  As was his preference he was under-dressed for the weather.  He enjoyed the cold’s painful affirmation of life.  His thoughts turned to Edie and in his mind he tried to forge instruments that could capture her heart or if not, excise her from his own.  His breath came out in steamy clouds, his heart an athanor that worked to change leaden desire to gold.  Alone in the arboretum as it was too cold for most, the song,’ You, You, You.’ by the 69’s played on his head phones.  She, she, she was in his head.  He ran past a young swan floating in the river that he had watched grow up from the time it was born the previous spring.  Now almost a year later, apart from its parents and siblings, old enough to forage on its own, its feathers were still tinged a hatch-ling gray.  Summer would bring a snowy maturity.  The apricity at his back cast forth a long shadow, the bitter run as much a flagellation of his soul as it was exercise for his body.  A group of swans floated by, an enclave of white bishops choosing to ignore his penitence.  A miserable cur, he would never attain their purity.

The run took him through a green corridor of Rhododendrons growing over twelve feet high, the cold making their leaves hang in folds like a stage curtain.  Hunger induced lightheadedness combined with the frigid wind and low sun darting through the bare branches made him hallucinate.  He thought he saw hunched figures in the stasis of tall brown rushes, the late afternoon light now at eye level flickered madly between the branches as he ran causing a strobe like effect that hinted at seizure.  Heavy and impotent, the mid winter sun sank in to the frozen ground as his burning hunger rose, the breast plate of his solitude cold and rigid over his blazing heart, his heart that burned for Edie.

One day there was a blizzard and with the snow up to his ankles, he ran in a slow, choppy, caribou motion.  The virgin snowfall, wet and heavy took its toll with broken tree limbs and hunched bushes along the path he now christened.  Dormant branches bare just the other day now bore the fruit of winter, great white brains, the entire woods now bent in pensive, icy thought.

Exerting himself, his breath becoming labored, he wondered if he was courting a heart attack.  A year ago he would not have been able to do this, even at twenty he would probably have faltered.  But months of running had built up his endurance, of his heart who could say?  Still, there was no better place to die, there in the snowy woods.   Ahead, the Rhododendron path was as cold and closed to him as Edie’s heart.  The bushes on either side of the path stooped in snow, their branches interlaced and arthritic as the hands of a praying nun.  He made his way slowly, the branches clawing at the wires of his head phones which now played Sigur Ros’ Track 6.  If his life had a sound track then it was just a series of numbered tracks, comprised of simple progressions and chord changes, sometimes catchy or moving but in the end all sounding alike. The timing of this song playing just now was inspired.  For a moment he had thought of turning back but then the song came on.  It made him think of Aguirre’s fool errand, the mad conquistador pressing through a grave and alien landscape while his daughter floated high in a litter above him, an aubade in a sunless place.  He was in the habit of watching Werner Herzog films all night long.  There was a lack of passion in his life.

He pushed aside the shrubbery’s cold and brittle weight, in places dropping almost to his knees, forced to duck under knotted branches until he reached the final last few feet of the path where it met a roughly hewn wooden stairs built by the arboretum staff.   Here the Rhododendrons made their final stand, the hedges on either side of the path hunkered down in brilliant white armor.  The weight of the snow made it impossible for him to push them aside and they hugged the ground tightly so that there was no way beneath.  It was then that the song swelled in conclusion, synthesizers tolling the bells of a besieged cathedral.  With one last effort, he grabbed the branches and lifted them above his head, shaking the arteries of that implacable heart, rending them of their inconsolable weight.  Clumps of snow rained on his head and down the inside of his shirt, the transparent blood of winter leaving him wet and cold streaked.  It was a ridiculous act in the face adversity, comical and infinitesimally heroic.

His passion for Edie made him a mute animal, prey to her countenance, her long brown hair and dark eyes..  He had always been tyrannized by the figures of beauty.  He had neither the gift of small talk nor the ease to flirt.  The distance between them was heartbreaking to contemplate, like the diminishing silhouette of a ship on the horizon is to the marooned.  He went out of his way to avoid her when he knew she was working as much for her sake as his own.  The logistical part of keeping away from her was fairly easy.  She worked at the coffee bar and apart from when she went on a break she was limited to that area of the store.  He made it a point of taking the long way around the store in order to avoid contact with her like the junkie who in trying to get off the stuff takes the long way home, knowing the high his body craves is just around the corner, acutely out of sight.  At times, hearing others mention her in passing he would feel a hypodermic twinge, her name a talisman, its utterance, a voodoo piercing of his heart.

Now when they encountered each other their discomfort was palpable.  One day his young black friend insisted on buying him a cup of coffee.  He knew Edie was working and he had spent the day as usual making sure to avoid her.  But the young man was insistent and ushered him to the coffee bar.

Edie was talking with her older sister Emily, brilliant and beautiful in her own right who also worked at the store.  From both their expressions and the abrupt halt in conversation it was obvious she had been given the low down on him.  With a burning sheepishness he placed his coffee order, receiving a double shot of icy stares.  In time he was eventually able to get Edie to exchange hellos, albeit tacit and reserved.  Encountering him, her face which normally beamed would take on a look of consternation, a resignation to awkwardness.  It was not in her nature to hate while loathing came easy to him.

He was intoxicated by young women, the corruption of years having not yet set forth.    A study determined that a female’s allure peaked at the age of nineteen. He hated that one of the few things he shared in common with society at large was an obsession with physical beauty, branding him shallow and trite. Yet beauty and age alone did not account for the desire he felt for Edie as many of the women at the store were as young with their own special beauty but he had no passion for them.  There was something intangible that drew him to her, something he was unable to dissect as much as it was his inclination.  He hated his shallowness, wishing he was not a pawn to beauty.  But that was like imagining his breath not rising and falling in rhythm to the pulse of fireflies in his head as he lay dreaming at night.

Edie had a wondrous body.  Her breasts, he could not bring himself to call them tits, were magnificent and the curves of her petite body seemed carved out of air. The paleness of her flesh was a rebuke to this age of bronze, her beauty curling like pure white smoke above the garish orange side show of corruption and rust.  He had heard that she had a tattoo somewhere on her torso but would never get to see it, having a better chance of uncovering ‘Leda’, Michelangelo’s lost painting.

He made it a point of never looking directly at her but instead from that field of vision, that corner of the eye where phantoms are seen and took great pains to stay out of her range as though looking directly at her might sear the retina of his soul.  To look at her fully and openly was to finally cast him as what he loathed to be, Quasimodo to her Esmeralda carrying on his back a swollen knot of years, strange and grotesque in his longing.

He knew that after she graduated college Edie would no longer come back to work at the store and he would fade in her memory, a cut out figure in a mental diorama.  Perhaps that is why he foolishly kissed her, risking further alienation.  If he could not win her heart then perhaps at least her lasting antipathy, needing to stand out in her life in some way if only in a negative light and not recede in to the deepening shadows of her past.  It was better than meaning nothing to her.  It would have to suffice.  He also knew that in five or six years she would be married and have children. She would no doubt dismiss the notion but the actuaries in their sterile buildings like bars of random access memory, knew better.  Thinking further on it, he remembered reading that people were now getting married later in life than their parents had.  Alright, they would give her nine years, adjusting their monitors and graphs.  She would marry but it would not be to her current boy friend and the one she would eventually marry would not remain her husband.  He would look her up as an old man; find her living in the Australian outback having taken on an accent from Oz, an accoutrement to her natural charms.  There with another husband they would raise sheep purely out of love.  She would have beautiful children that she home schooled.  Her life would be as bounteous as his meaningless. Things would be fine for her.  This is what he thought.

He wanted to talk with her while she was half drunk, in some pre- prohibition bar on the lower east side, a place far older than even him.  Out in the crowded world he was reticent and invisible by choice.  From experience he knew he performed better under pressure, one on one, surprisingly shining when put on the spot and made to hold up his end of the conversation.  They would sit across from each other in a booth of dark wood seasoned by tears, vomit and laughter spilled beer, the measured breath of resting heads in drunken stupor.  In that benched coffin of dreams, furies and broken secrets his eyes would take her in, listening intently to her half slurred words fall like the patter of rain. The juke box yearning,

‘I was just guessing at figures and numbers, pulling the puzzle apart.’

He would ask her all the things he had ever wanted to, savoring her every intonation. He would watch as she absently played with her dark hair, tilted her head quizzically, her eyes going softly in and out of focus, gaze in silent envy as her finger traced the side of her glass, then lifting it to her lips, emptied it.  Last call – he would open the door for her, the heavy summer air cast upon them pungent and sweet as they were netted by the night.   A lemon sherbet moon would hang huge and low over the skyline.

Looking back, neither would recall who took the others hand.  She would lean against him, attuned to his heartbeat as they walked and for the first time in a very long while he would feel whole. The bars would be closing, the evicted loitering about, indulging in histrionics, smoking and laughing while the two of them were enshrined in immaculate silence.  They would come upon a yellow balloon caught in the branch of a small tree, an animal exotic to the night and snared by its ribbon tail.  She would unravel it from the branch only to have a gust of wind snatch it from her, making her let out a tiny gasp, the edge of the ribbon cutting her finger.  She would stand there sucking on the wound, crimson juice flowing on white as the balloon floated away.  They would watch it, the color of the palest daffodil, rise into the yawning moon until neither was discernible from the other.  At the same time he would watch Edie from the corner of his eye.  There being no phantoms, he would turn fully to her, taking her hand and press the cherry wound to his mouth.  This is what he felt.