101 Words

“Darling, you know well I love every inch of you,” holding her whitish hand, “and I want nothing less than to spend the rest of my days with you.”

She sucks in her lower lip in childlike captivation.

I dip my right hand into my suit, hunkering on one knee. She gasps, glee erupting out of the well of her dimples.

Then my hand emerges with a cute little box.

“Sweetheart, would you promise to wear it always—especially this harmattan time?”

A vaseline container.

If looks could kill, I should summarily be cremated under the radiation of her fiery glare.

Standing in a boiling concrete hole.

Steel ball and spoon. Ringed pin. The Missouri sun beats down on my Kevlar helmet and thick wool clothing as my heart pounds hard enough to gag me. There is yelling. Always yelling. Words become indistinguishable from the constant chaotic clatter as numbness invades my ears. Pin pulled. Spoon released. Frozen.

One Mississippi. Two Mississippi.

I think of my father yelling at me. Calling me stupid. Lots of yelling now. Four Mississippi? Heavy boots land as I’m grabbed, lifted violently, and thrown from the pit.

Blast rings in my ears as the yelling is silenced.

He threw the stardust and between two heartbeats, between two notes from the band on stage, Maxim locked eyes with me and I was lost. No matter what had happened with Rebecca and the second wife, the nameless one, I was destined to join him.

After the show, walking down the steps from the theatre, my friend commented that I seemed distant. Preoccupied yes, I admitted it, she would have been too. For myself, I knew I must return to my hotel room and await his call. The play had worked its magic. Our wedding would surely be a glittering affair.

I dared to ask, you dared to say yes. Tentatively I took your hand and determinedly we climbed up the field. Clouds flew past in the brisk April wind. The long grasses waved like a pale green, storm-tormented sea. Your long frizzy hair was wild, covering your face. How you could see to walk was a mystery. Maybe that is why you held my hand so tightly? Maybe because you wanted me as much as I wanted you? Questions left unanswered; no chance to hold you in my arms. At the top of the hill, you vanished. I awoke stirred, alone.