He unfolded the paper and reread it one last time.

You want to move on, I know. But in case somewhere down the road when your mind wanders to past things and you want to remember, I’m leaving the twig on the base of the statue in the park we used to call ours. I know how you loved it – that small, silly representation of first love I broke off from a fledgling tree during our first walk there. Remember how every walk after, we toasted the growing tree with that twig? You can have the symbol of its springtime buds and summer leaves and vivid autumn color and sparkling snow resting on its bare winter branches. You can have the path we traced so many times, the faint sound of timeless music playing at the band shell on the other side of the lake, and the pungent scent of lakeshore. You can have the sunsets so brilliant they make your heart ache.

I’m leaving in the morning. I’ll always hope for your happiness, for good things to come your way, for blessing to meet you on the sidewalk.

He refolded the note, stooped down and slid it under her apartment door. Turning, his form bathed in a sunset of deepest orange and red, he walked away.

Image: Acer_tataricum_twig-wikimedia-commons.jpg; pixabay-sunset-214576_640-CC0-Public-Domain.jpg

As the solid cement of the building resupplied my courage, he was suddenly in front of me, and the muted gray of dusk turned charcoal.

“Why do you chase me?” he asked.

“I . . . I . . . you . . .”

His intensity took my breath away. I wiped my clammy palms on my jeans. So what if he could hear my heart beat like the tell-tale heart? I was on the offense, not the defense, wasn’t I? I would not let him intimidate me. I WOULD NOT.

“What mindlessness draws people like you to chase me? You’re the same ones who would be most dismayed to catch up with me.”

I gulped and he was gone. The conversation that had taken less than a minute seemed as though it had lasted an eternity.

I ran back home, knowing he would be able to tell where I lived if he followed. At this point I didn’t care. I just wanted to be somewhere familiar, somewhere safe. I slammed the door behind me, locked the deadbolt with trembling hands, and watched as my dog took one whiff of me and hid under the couch.

Later, when my breathing had returned to normal and the sirens of the evening blended with street sounds of my city block, I sat with my cup of tea and thought about what he had said. Chasing him? Well, sure, but only because I wanted to prove I – what was it I had thought at the time? Trifled with? Yes, couldn’t be trifled with.

Maybe I did prove it. I’d caught up with him, after all. But to be perfectly honest, it didn’t feel like I’d proven anything. I turned to one of my favorite shows on the television, but the evening’s murder investigation started me thinking things that hadn’t before occurred to me. I switched it off. I grabbed a book I had been reading, and slammed it shut after a paragraph. I switched on the T.V. again and listened as a political ad droned on about someone who thought that I deserved to get what I wanted, not what I worked for. I thought for a minute about what I deserved and threw my shoe at the T.V. It went black.

I switched on a lamp. Who was he anyway, this immoveable, intense man who sent shivers straight to my gut; who I’d never seen before, but who seemed slightly familiar? Not familiar like an old acquaintance. Familiar, maybe like an old textbook. Like that.

No. Impossible.

What if it was him? Whether I was correct about his identity or not, there was one thing I did know. Loathe to admit it though I was, he was right. I had been chasing him without a thought of what that meant other than my immediate desire to prove something. I hadn’t thought of the peripheral, the fall out. And if he was who I now thought he might be, my mind had already revealed that I had been chasing him long before he confronted me on this golden day. When I inhaled the golden light of fall, I thought of tombs and pirates, not warmth and light. I really was playing that lottery that had flitted through my brain like a sudden breeze.

There are many things I chase in life, some more worthwhile than others. But on a golden afternoon that knocked the breath out of me with fright I wonder. Should Death really be one of them?

Photo: 800px-Light_In_The_Dark_2886931703-wikimedia-commons.jpg

I could just see the shadow slanting slightly like some willow bending toward the water. It turned toward me then, and I pulled back behind the corner of the building which I told myself hid me. What was I doing? The evening’s mystery had begun as an afternoon stroll through the park by my house. Isn’t that the way all trouble begins: Innocence pulled gradually by some subtle power until you’re standing behind a building a mile from where you should be, trying to breathe noiselessly though you’re sorrowfully certain your heartbeat can be heard a block away?

I had begun my walk to see the trees. They were golden this year. Maples splashed red here and there, but the air itself seemed mostly – well, like I said – golden. King Tut’s tomb. Pieces-of-eight. The lottery that changed things of value to a thin, printed paper of possibility. I digress, of course, to avoid the obvious.

You see, I was looking up as I walked, the better to take in the fire and shine of the season, when I bumped into something. At least that’s what I had immediately thought since it was immoveable, like a lamp-post. My abrupt stop and reverted sight line, however, showed me a person I would guess to be around 6 feet, 3 inches of mostly muscle knit together with intensity. He looked into my eyes for a split second while I stood fixed to the spot wondering how I would explain my disappearance to my dog who I had left at home as punishment for whining into the wee hours of the early morning. Then he was gone and I was shivering in the balmy air of the autumn afternoon.

I’m not being dramatic. He really was gone. I turned to look and there was nothing there. Any sane person would have cut her stroll short and gone home, but I told myself that I wasn’t going to allow anyone, even if they were a disappearing man, rob me of my afternoon stroll. So I kept walking until I got to the other end of the park. Then I thought what if I didn’t see him because he had hidden? That makes sense, right? Maybe I should go home like the sane person I wasn’t and lock my door. But then (I reasoned) if he was, in fact, following me, maybe I shouldn’t go straight home. Maybe I should take a divergent path to shake his trail. OR, and this is where the trouble really began, maybe I should try to find him, follow him, and prove to us both I wasn’t anyone to be trifled with.

At that point, I turned and started back the way I’d come, eyes darting behind every bush and tree. I kept walking beyond the park then because I thought I spotted him, and that’s when I noticed the golden light had turned to muted gray. Dark would follow in a matter of half an hour, fall being what it is, and I was a mile of crooked sidewalks from home.

to be continued . . .

Photo: Pinterest

It stood there, its tongue lolling out, and looked directly at him. It was a brown and white mutt with friendly eyes. It gave a hesitant wag of its tail and took a step toward him.

“Waddaya think, Hop?”

Hop responded to his whisper by tickling his hand.

The man squatted on the edge of the road and the dog trotted up to him, giving his stubbly face a quick lick with his hot tongue. It nudged his hand with its nose and sniffed. Hop slid through the small gap and hopped on the dog’s nose, pausing as the two looked each other in the eye, then up on the dog’s head and finally rested on his back.

The man looked the dog over. It had no collar nor tags and its ribs were beginning to show. He petted it for a full minute, then got up and began walking again. The dog trotted sometimes beside him, sometimes nosing into the grasses along the road, then catching up again, Hop clinging deftly to his back.

He watched the dog and its tiny passenger, riding now backward and watching the man as he walked behind them. The ghost of a smile crossed his lips. Nothing had changed. The cicadas still sang their buzz saw song, the sun still beat down its white hot light and the lilies responded with carefree orange faces. Yet he began to feel different; a small excitement somewhere in his gut, a repressed hope he’d denied. He closed his eyes and breathed in the hot air.

“What’s yer name? Shep?”

The dog stood still, looking back at him.

“Brownie? No? Look here, I’m no good with names.”

He licked his dry lips. He could feel heat radiating from his skin, his body a stove. The dog trotted ahead of him. Dust rose and settled. The sun began its slow descent. One mile. Two. He began to breathe harder. Either he was growing weary or the dog was trotting faster. Every so often the dog would stop and look back, waiting, then trot on again.

One foot in front of the other. Always onward. Why did he do this? Always. His life was a pattern of stay and leave, a wandering mission of disconnection. Five miles farther on, its sound began to wind its way into his subconscious until he heard it: water running over rock.

His life was a pattern of stay and leave, a wandering mission of disconnection.

He quickened his step and came to it, a river half a mile back from the dusty road, hidden by a dry meadow and a sudden drop from the tree line at its edge. The dog rushed its descent as the man followed him, hanging onto a bush here and there for balance. By the time he reached the bottom, the dog was splashing in the cold river, lapping the welcome water, then laying in the shallow edge, panting. He removed his boots and socks, stepped into the shallows, cupped his hand and drank. The cold water sent coolness through his tired bones. Looking down, he saw Hop, tickling the tip of his toe. The man felt hopeful, the first in a long time.

Man and dog lay on a bed of soft pine needles and slept as the moon rose and stars blinked on one by one.

A moist tongue on his face woke him. The sun was just peeking over the horizon, turning the sky from gray to violet to pink and orange and yellow. He waded in the now still water and drank freely, then pulled on his socks and boots. Rising from the piney bed, he stuck his hands in his pockets as he watched the sun’s early morning display.

“Hey. Where’s the key?” he asked, searching the ground.

The dog trotted up to him.

“Did you see it, boy? Did you see the key?”

The dog barked.

“Key?”

The dog put his front paws on the man.

“Your name’s Key?”

The dog jumped around in a circle, then lowered himself in a play bow.

“Waddaya know. Well, boy, it didn’t matter anyway, did it? Whatever that key was for might be long gone by now.”

The man began following the path upstream, then slowed to a stop.

“Key! C’mon now!”

The dog trotted up to him, looking at him expectantly, then back from where they’d come. He hesitated, looking at the man.

“Ah. Where’s Hop? Is that it?”

Key lay in the river, his head on his paws.

Maybe the mutt was more of a key than in name only. How had he gotten to a point when an animal cared more for connection than he did? He suddenly felt – he didn’t know – sad, he guessed. Lost. It was a feeling he’d not had since he’d left home at sixteen and never looked back. He’d not been acquainted with it in the twenty years of his wandering since then. He sat down, resting his arms on his knees.

What did it matter? It was just a toad, for pete’s sake, hardly as big as his fingernail. But the thought of trudging ahead without Hop – he shook his head. You had to let someone – or something – in to feel the emptiness when they were no longer there. He didn’t like it. He started on again, then stopped and looked back. Key waited, cocking one ear. He shook his head at his own weakness. A new knowledge pushed its way through his stubbornness and wouldn’t leave. He sighed. Maybe it was time. Perhaps he’d been a loner long enough. And, hard as it was to have the thought, it was possible it wasn’t weakness after all. Maybe it was strength. Maybe it was a source of strength he’d missed along the way.

Turning the other direction and starting back, he called, “Okay, Key! We can’t leave our pardner!”

Key bounded ahead of him, then began nosing along the water’s edge. The man jumped. Yanking up his jeans, he saw it perched on the top of his boot. He scooped up the toad with one hand and covered it with the other. Its tiny presence tickled his hand and he smiled.

It scooted out of his hand onto Key’s nose, hopped onto the top of his head, and found his place on his back.

Down the river’s path, they walked; one talking, two listening, three together.

Photos: 1280px-Dog_nose-Elucidate-CC-by-3.0-en.wikipedia.org_.jpg; goodfreephotos.com_.jpg; the-back-of-a-fowlers-toad-frog_w725_h483-public-domain.jpg

Lilies bloomed with glad abandon along the gravel road. The high sun shone bright and hot, bronzing his neck and arms as he trudged along. Dust, kicked up by his worn boots with every step, hung in the air long enough to cover his jeans with its brief touch. The circular saw buzz of cicadas grew louder, then quieter, then louder again.

He hadn’t decided where he was going. He just knew he needed to leave. He needed new air to breathe, fresh scenery. What was the purpose of life anyway? Not in his work, at least not the work he did. Friendships? Ha. Greetings on the street or at the corner store didn’t prove anything beyond good manners. There was that one old woman at Johnson’s Foods check-out. He’d always waited to go through her lane. She was nice. He didn’t s’pose he had any obligation to anyone. He’d paid his bills. Done his job. Didn’t poke his nose where it didn’t belong. His eyes roamed over the road ahead. It’s undulating path told him nothing of what was ahead.

He kicked an old pop can into the ditch, then stopped. Something was off with the empty sound he had subconsciously expected as the toe of his boot had made contact. Turning back a few steps, he walked into the high grass of the ditch and nudged it with his boot. A lead-like thud answered and a tiny tree-toad hopped to get out of his way. A snake slithered silently through the tall grass. Reaching down, he picked up the can, turned it upside down, and shook it. With a rattle, the noisemaker fell into his hand.

It was a key. Maybe it was to some vehicle. Probably. He slipped it into his pocket and looked around. An old junker roared past, leaving a trail of dust in its wake.

The man made his way out of the ditch and trudged on. Who would put a key in a pop can anyway? Why not just throw it away or sell it for a nickel at one of those sales so popular in the summer where one person sold old stuff and another one bought it? If it was to a car, where was the car – in a junkyard in some other county? Maybe it fit the lock of a house, but he didn’t think so. Sweat trickled down his temple and he wiped it away with the palm of his rough hand, then jumped. Yanking up his jeans, he saw it perched on the top of his boot. He scooped up the toad with one hand and covered it with the other. Its tiny presence tickled his hand and he almost smiled.

“You saw that snake too, did ya?”

He was quiet for a moment.

“Hop. How’s that for a name?” he asked the toad. “You ‘n me, Hop. I got your back. You got . . . you got . . . my hand.”

He reached the next rise of the road when he saw it.

to be continued . . .

Image: http://uploads/2014/07/standard-key-wikipedia.org_.jpg, the-back-of-a-fowlers-toad-frog_w725_h483-public-domain.jpg

I backed up and stepped on the threshold again. It creaked. I took little baby steps along the width of the entry. The old hardwood yielded slightly underneath my weight and creaked slightly every so often along the boards.

I walked back to where I had stood at the window and looked at the threshold. Was there something amiss with the lines of the house? Maybe what I had imagined was actually a bulge here and there. It was an old house, an old neglected house. I willed the spot I had peered at earlier to bulge. It didn’t.

I let out a deep breath. I wasn’t the kind to be spooked. I was probably just tired. It had been a long, empty week for so many reasons. The relationship that had prompted my escape from what was familiar as an adult to what had been slightly familiar as a child was without a doubt behind it. I had done everything I could, hadn’t I? Tried to change myself, him, and past arguments to no avail. Tried to make him see things my way, myself to see things his way. Tried. Tried. Then tried to just forget it all and found instead mice nests and cobwebs and dust enough to make another galaxy in making this house inhabitable again.

I always said I believed in possibility more than probability, but maybe that wasn’t exactly true. Maybe what I believed was that if I managed something enough – problems, relationships, dreams – I could move them from one column to the other. Anyone who didn’t believe Henley when he said, I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul, was a fool. I filled the teapot, then jumped and nearly dropped it as I placed it on the stove. Whoever designed the jangle of the old phone here should be arrested! Who in the world would be calling since no one in the world knew I was here?

“Hello?”

“Oh yes! I had been trying to change it when the power went out.”

“Um, what?”

“Proof of . . . oh. I will come in person then. Thank you.”

I replaced the receiver with slightly more force than necessary. Really? Proof of my existence? Maybe their so-called policy should be put in a time capsule along with the old black phone. I stared at the old phone, my mouth going suddenly dry. My eyes darted to the cell next to it, the one I had placed there when I’d lost contact. I slowly picked up the receiver and listened. There was no dial tone. I clicked the little knobs up and down. How in the world . . .? I picked up my cell and tried turning it on, but it remained black. It probably needed recharging. I plugged it into the outlet and laid it on the kitchen counter.

The house still held my dead uncle’s furnishings, a good thing since my few possessions fit into the back of my pick-up truck. I eased into his soft, dusty armchair, sipped my tea and stared out the window. I found myself wondering where they had found him – my uncle who’d been dead a week before anyone knew it.

I must’ve dozed, for when I opened my eyes, my cold tea pooled on the floor and the slightly cracked cup lay beside it. The storm had died and left behind a damp stillness. I felt a slight, cold breeze filter from the direction of the kitchen and shivered. The day’s light had truly been stolen by the storm and by this time the trees blended into the starless night.

I grabbed an old quilt and wrapped it around my shoulders while I went to start the water boiling for a cup of tea I hoped this time to finish. As I waited, I scanned the bookshelf replete with my uncle’s old books, selected one, and took it with me and my now hot tea to the armchair. The story was benign, really. It was of a silly girl whose efforts in controlling everything and everyone around her irritated me. I was beginning to tire of it, when the pace picked up slightly. She finally encountered a situation that resisted her efforts and wandered away into the night. Two weeks later the few who cared enough to search were on the brink of finding her. I turned the page. The next chapter would finally give some satisfaction! She would get her comeuppance or learn the error of her ways, though I doubted the latter. The page was blank. What? I examined the book. Nothing appeared to be torn out. I turned the next page and the next, suddenly frantic to know what happened. There was nothing. What cruel trick was this?

I turned toward the sound of a sudden creak and felt a slight, cold breeze on my cheek. Then the lights went out.

Image: By/Tom/Murphy/VII/Own/work/GFDL/http://www.gnu_.org/copyleft/fdl.html/CC-BY-SA-3.0-http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa-3.0-or-CC-BY-SA-2.0-http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/sa/2.0/via/Wikimedia