It almost seemed that the fireworks over the night-black sea called the lightning. It flashed white and forked and curved and split and hissing hit the sea.
Then, the time for a breath that nobody took, the thunder rolled in across the flattened waves and shook the first, steep-fronted, houses.
The thunder landed on the roof like a rockslide. The now-dead light bulb swung as the flash through the shutters side-shadowed our faces.
Days in Italy: 4
Vipers seen: 1
Distance from foot (cm): 3
Screams (high-pitched, drawn out): 1
Warm doughnuts in air: 6
Sympathy: 0
Billy peered through the haze at the fading letter Q on his brother’s front door. The haar had rolled in in September and never burnt away. The sun, when it was, was thin and white. Billy peered, but did not stop.
They had shared a mother and a father but never shared ambitions. Billy had grown up to see the litany of lost opportunities and lies and his brother take the other road.
Crows chattered. The thin grey mist muffled the sound of the celebratory gun. Billy shivered and peered and caught his breath but did not stop.
Monday, Tuesday, Winsday, Thrusday.
Freeday.
Sitterday.
Sonday. The day when he finally visits. When he – who is he? Where has he gone?
Kilts and backpacks and Scotland shirts.
Anticipation and beer.
Cancelled flight tourists swoop round airport staff.
Some tears.
When Wise, witty and wasted met Wonderfully, wantonly warm, not the last god of alliteration could damp down the sparks that flew behind and between their eyes. Thoughts of shared single spoons, flames that lapped but did not scorch, words that glittered in the air and landed soft on skin, clever in the physical and strong in spirit. The mysterious was new and the old was a reclaimed once-forgotten memory. Time will need to pass, as time needs to. May it always last.
Dad would have been 99 today. Just one more year until he returned the telegram to sender. That small satisfaction was not to be.
They kissed and he got off the bus. He stood in the rain and waved from under his umbrella. But, head down, she was texting him goodbye.
“Open the book, hold it in front of you, breathe in the words through your eyes.” I was the only one who couldn’t. The book closed.
I followed the cross on the map you left on my heart, across the sea to the end of my world, I followed the cross on my heart to you.
simonsalento 