Waiting

He had waited through Jeff and Jim. Kent and Riley. The local news-print boy and the store owners son. He had waited through three harsh winters, four summers and now, what he hoped to be his last fall.

Finally he could wait no more.

Katherine J. Williams caught his reluctant eye and off he went.

Turns turned.
Places switched.
Hearts revolted in agony.

Now she realized.
Now she sat.
Now she waited.

She waited through Katherine and Cathy. Sam and Emma. The bar girl from the pub and the pastors daughter. She waited through three harsh winters, four summers and now, what she hoped to be her last fall.

But for one another they had been molded.
For one another they had been set apart.
For one another their paths had been worn.

It didn't matter how passionately they pulled in contradictory directions for they were not the makers of North or South nor the compass upon which they followed.

Then in the field between the peach orchard and the creek they met. They spoke of expectations and how they were not good enough and how they were better off alone. He stalked her heart and she warred for his.

She had waited through Katherine and bar maids. He had waited through Jeff and store hands. And now, together, they would wait for death.

For, this was all that could separate them.

#5

Her legs collapsed beneath her as the whole of her weight fell upon the edge of the bed.

It was raining.
Lightly.
Tapping on windows.
Tapping.
Saying, "hello little girl."

Her back to the window; tears falling on her toes.
Her dress lying gently on her thighs; soaking up the wretchedness of dark corners in dimly lit hearts.

She pressed her elbows into knees and her face into her hands and her tears into her palms and her thoughts into heaven.

The room was filled with the grayness of the clouds and the scarlet of a broken heart.

I don't know why she was crying.

Maybe for a boy. Maybe for a man. Maybe for love or death or the death of love.

But I suppose it doesn't matter here.

I must be going now. I will help her answer the rain.

Song

You share a cool beer in the back of a bus. And she is sitting there, looking at you and you have no idea what to do. So you take another sip and soak in the summer heat along with her hair and her eyes.

And this is summer.

This is when you remember that one song that takes you back to your most triumphant summer. The one moment where you did that one thing that everyone will still be talking about when school starts again. The thing that got you that one kiss with that one girl who made all the other girls seem plane.

And now we listen to this song on repeat because it reminds us of our Dad's as they were when they still wore capes. It reminds us when sidewalk chalk was the only form of communication and the alias for sprinklers was Heaven.

It takes you to that time when everything was better and when 'simple' defined the majority of who we were.

And it brings back the smell of cookies and sunscreen that our mother's smothered on us at public pools. And how at the end of the day, all greasy and covered in summer filth, our mom's would still run their fingers through our hair. And we would fall asleep on top of our sheets because the heat was too much.

And this is summer.

It's that bubble of time that encapsulates that one home run that made your dad stand up and yell and cheer. And that one sno-cone after that game and how it was the best of your life solely because you ate it atop your dad's shoulders. It's the song that was playing in the car on the ride home and the open windows and the look in your dad's eye. That look that made you feel like he was twelve again and that it wasn't you who hit the home run, but him.

It's humidity so thick that you choke. So thick that you can grab the air. It makes you look as though you just got out of a pool without ever having actually taken the plunge. And it is the warm, moist hug that she gives you on her parents doorstep when you were expecting so much more.

But it's also seeing her look out of her top story window at you as you walk home, down the street, through your yard. And you realizing that this; this one summer, these few fleeting months will change who you are. They will become a memorial of summer history unto which you will worship with envy every summer form there on.

And this is summer.

This is life.

This is fleeting.

And this is...us.