Category: Stories

Art moaned. He sighed a melancholy sigh of resignation.

Penobscot, or “Belle” as she was known to most of the other buildings, felt that Art’s bricks looked more forlorn, more crumbling as of late. The two faced each other across a broad sidewalk that ran along the south end of campus. Through the decades she bore witness to the damage that time and the elements had inflicted on Art. The weathered lines on his façade, particularly at sunset, were external manifestation of his beleaguered psyche. Facing him every day, Belle was more aware of Art’s distress than were the other buildings. She worried about him.

Art sighed again.

“It seems like you’ve become quite the subject for the architecture students and the art students, and photography, too,” Belle blurted abruptly, apropos of nothing. She tried to sound jealous. “It used to be that they would set their sights on me, but now all I see of them is their backsides.”

“I do not think they have come so much to admire as to chronicle,” Art groused. ” I spied more than a few journalism students stopping to take notes. Vultures!”

“Oh, dear. Excuse me one moment,” Belle interrupted him. She cleared her throat and then from her belfry the chimes signaled the start of another hour on campus. Once the first note sounded, pretty much all conversation on campus suspended until the hours were fully counted.

“Mon dieu!” Foreign Languages cooed when Belle finished. “Bellisimo! Such a delicioso way to mark the passing of time.”

The Vincent and Melody Lane Performing Arts Center, on the other hand, simply smiled to itself. It knew an out of tune F-natural bell when it heard one. Still, it was nice to hear such harmony amongst the buildings.

“Foreign Languages, you have such a way with words,” Belle demurred.

“Ah! Merci, beaucoup!” Foreign Languages tittered, appreciating the joke.

“By the way,” PAC interjected on cue, sensing Belle’s attempt to lift Art’s spirits, “that was quite the crowd that showed up for your last exhibition, Art. What was it called again? ‘Campus Nudes‘ I believe.”

Art’s red brick façade turned a deeper shade of red. “Well,” he sheepishly stammered “it did cause quite a stir.”

“There’s never such excitement at my front door,” Mathematics added. Its jealousy was genuine.

The other buildings chuckled.

“What’s so funny?” Mathematics asked the rest of campus.

“Oh, don’t worry,” one of the dormitories answered for the rest. “We’re laughing with you, not at you.”

“But I wasn’t laughing.”

“Ok, then,” Engineering shot back, “we were laughing at you. Did you ever bother to take a look at yourself? Did you ever wonder why you were stuck at the edge of campus? You look hideous, that’s why. And what’s inside is useless! Theorems and such!”

The other buildings found Engineering to be overly blunt at times. Practical, but blunt.

“How could I look at myself?” Mathematics asked, confused and hurt. “That doesn’t make any sense. It’s not logical. I am the one building I cannot possibly see.”

“Oh, for crying out loud,” Engineering rolled his eyes, irritated with Math’s precision. “You don’t have to look at yourself to see yourself. Just look at your reflection in Miss Performing Arts Center’s mirrored front.”

Melody muttered that Engineering should stop being so haughty. “You’re not exactly the Taj Mahal.”

“Excuse me?” Engineering retorted indignantly. “Miss ‘Performing Arts’ drama queen is telling ME to not be so haughty?”

“MISSUS Performing Arts Center,” she corrected him. “After all, it is the VINCENT and Melody Lane Performing Arts Center.”

“Well, and don’t we know it! All flashy and shiny steel and glass façade! Talk about ‘sound and fury signifying nothing!'” Engineering raged. “When was the last time you staged any real culture? Huh? All those pop shows! Give me a break!”

“Well, what’s a venue to do? I AM at management’s mercy, you know. They can schedule whatever they want. And, besides, students nowadays. No taste, whatsoever.”

“All glass and metal. You look like a pair of cheap sunglasses.”

“Oh, come on, now, you two,” Social Sciences interjected. Belle’s attempt to cheer up Art was floundering. The discussion was veering off to the land of insults and regrets.

“Oh, put a brick in it!” Engineering retorted.

“‘Put a brick in it?’ That doesn’t even make sense,” Mathematics piped up.

“Melody is right,” Belle chimed in. “We really do not make the final decision on things.”

“Especially the BIG things,” Art agreed. “Like when your time is up.”

No one knew quite what to say to Art at that point. “Art is Life” had been above his front entrance long before any of the rest of them had even been blueprints. After Art, The Octagon was the next oldest, although few of the other buildings took Octagon seriously. Art had often referred to Octagon as an “Adventure in Poor Taste.”

“It seems my fate has been decided by some pencil-pushing bean counter armed with a spreadsheet,” Art despaired.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, you’re not going to start crying again, are you?” Engineering moaned.

“No, I’m past that.”

“Good,” Engineering harrumphed. “And at least you’re not behaving childish, like you did when it first hit you that the rumors were true.”

“Childish?” Art was indignant. The pressure in his steam heat pipes started to rise.

“Yes, childish! Like when you purposely stopped up your plumbing as an act of defiance. It took maintenance three days over the long weekend to clear you out.”

“I don’t remember it that way. Not at all. That can’t be right.”

“I am afraid Engineering is right,” Administration weighed in. “I saw the paperwork for the overtime myself. Plus, an outside plumbing contractor had to be brought in to assist.”

“Well, it wasn’t childish; it was a perfectly reasonable reaction after hearing all the rumors and murmurs and then being confronted with the reality of it all. But I’m over that now,” Art said resignedly. “Although it did sting when the campus newspaper ran with ‘Crappy Art‘ as their headline afterward.”

“That was definitely a cheap shot,” Melody concurred.

The other buildings agreed, even Engineering.

“Look, Engineering,” Art continued, “you’ve no idea what I’m going through. And that goes for the rest of you, too, especially you younger ones.”

“Well, Art,” Engineering offered in a conciliatory tone, “for what it’s worth, I do agree with you that we are at the mercy of a bunch of administrators and lawyers. No regard for functionality. The whole emphasis is on the bottom line.”

“If you think about it,” Philosophy piped up in its corner of the campus, “from the day our foundations are first dug, the wrecking ball looms somewhere off in the future for each and every one of us.”

The buildings considered this for a moment.

One of the dormitories broke the silence, “Even dormitories?”

“Yes,” Administration confirmed, “even dormitories.”

“But people live in us!” the dormitory protested.

“Ha!” Art exclaimed. “How does it feel?”

“I’m just not going to dwell on it,” the dormitory replied.

“Carpe diem!” Foreign Languages declared.

“Well put,” Administration spoke up. “For each of us, there is a scheduled Termination Date, although budgetary considerations or unforeseen circumstances could ultimately alter the actual Date of Decertification.”

“Of course,” Engineering interrupted, “for one as sturdy, well built, and functional as I, that date is way further off in the future than for the rest of you.”

“Don’t be too sure of that,” Administration cautioned.

The buildings pondered this last admonition.

“Administration,” Engineering ventured slowly, carefully, “you have all this information in the Master Plan for the campus, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Administration allowed, warily. It knew where this line of inquiry was headed.

“Well,” Engineering probed, “what might those dates for some of us be?”

“Yes, me, too,” Mathematics joined in.

“And us,” the dormitories chorused.

Art felt a twinge of sadness for his fellow structures. He detected a hint of alarm in some of their voices. He could almost feel Belle’s pulse quicken from across the wide walkway.

“Parts of the Campus Master Plan are Restricted” Administration quoted the Plan itself.

“That includes Dates of Decertification,” he added with a touch of gentleness. “I’m sorry. Those are dates I cannot divulge.”

Anxiety permeated the campus and none of the buildings said anything for some time.

Philosophy was wanted to speak up but then thought better of it.

A gentle breeze blew through the campus. The softness of the breeze helped calm the nerves of some of the buildings as they all stood silently in thought.

This was, after all, something new for each of them. Before Art, new buildings were erected on available space within campus. With that space now all occupied, existing buildings would have to yield to new ones.

The buildings had never considered this before.

Art broke the silence meekly.

“Administration?”

“Yes?” came the kindly reply.

“Is there anything you can tell me about this? What to expect or what will happen to me or what comes after?”

Administration sifted through what he knew carefully for some time. Finally, he addressed Art.

“Well, Art, the demolition plans are still in the works and nothing has been finalized.”

Art groaned.

“There are a few other details which will be announced shortly, though, and I do not think I am out of line in passing those along to you before they are made public. Unofficially, of course.”

“Of course,” Art agreed quietly.

“The first thing that was decided, before any discussion of a replacement or timeline or anything of that nature, was that a memorial must be established to acknowledge the place you’ve had in the history of this campus.”

“Really?”

“Really. There was quite a list of school benefactors who wrote to the school president asking if they could contribute, on the condition, of course, that they had input to the memorial itself.”

“Really?”

“Really, Art. I’ve seen the letters myself. I house them. They’re official university correspondence.”

“Really?”

“Yes, Art, really. Then there is the issue of your brick façade. Being that it is of aesthetic, historic, and cultural interest, significant portions are to be preserved. The thought is to create an “ambient space” within the new building that will foster a connection with the creativity of the past.”

“Really?”

“Yes, Art. Really. You know me. I stick to the facts.”

The buildings all were silent, waiting to see how Art reacted.

He became quiet, thoughtful.

The breeze stilled and the campus settled in for the night. Belle gently asked Art if there was anything they could do for him.

He answered no, there was nothing. He just needed some time to think things over.

After a few moments, though, he softly asked, “Belle?”

“Yes?” she answered just as softly.

“Remember that song the opera student played on your bells a few weeks ago?”

“O mio babbino caro?”

“Yes, that’s the one.”

“Would you like me to chime that for you?”

“Yes, that would be sweet if you did.”

I sat in a chair, the one without armrests, in Mom’s room, waiting for her to awaken.  Light spilled in from the hall and brightened the linoleum tiles near the doorway and lightened the darkness in her room.  Outside the window behind me, late afternoon had turned the November sky to a smudged sort of grey.  Occasionally, out in the hall, staff walked by the room purposefully.  None looked in nor seemed to acknowledge my presence.

The door to Mom’s room, wide enough to accommodate a wheel chair, was opened all the way.  As with the other residents’ doors, it remained that way nearly all the time.  Fragments of conversations from other rooms drifted in through the doorway.

Midway between me and the light that seeped in from the hall, the bed, with its rails up, held Mom, her head elevated slightly.  Mom slept quietly, dreamlessly in the semi darkness.  Occasionally, a toe would move under the sheets.  My gaze drifted from her feet directly in front of me to the head of her bed off to my right.  She lie quite still, arms at her side, mouth slightly open, breathing softly.  As I watched her quiet, gentle, sleeping face in the dimness of the room, a crucifix on the wall above the head of her bed caught my attention.  Was that a new addition or was that there last time I visited or had it, in fact, even been there the whole time, the years that she’s been a resident at The Manor?  It occurred to me that I did not know for sure.

The bed adjuster and call button, combined into a single hand-held unit with its long, thick cable waited next to Mom on the bed.

Medical equipment, unused at the moment but always at the ready, waited its turn up near the head of the bed in the corner of the room.  For Mom, it stood out of sight and out of mind.

On the other side of the bed, between Mom and the light of the hallway, a sheer curtain hung from its metal track on the ceiling, drawn back fully open, as it usually was.

A bed table, on wheels which fit under the bed so the top can extend over Mom, stood between the head of Mom’s bed and the pulled-back curtain hanging from the ceiling.  She still almost always takes her meals in the dining room with the other residents.  Although designed to hold meals, the table instead serves as the appointed location for the television remote control.  As a matter of unwritten policy, the remote control for the television is purposely kept away from the control for the bed, with its call button.  Many of the residents live in a fog of confusion and it would be far too easy for them to mistake the call button on the bed control for one of the buttons on the TV remote.

To my left, across the room from Mom, the television monitor, attached high on the wall, looked down on the bed where Mom slept.  Focused on her, it seemed to ignore me.  A dresser stood beneath the television monitor.  Atop the dresser were arrayed pictures of various family members and friends.  Reminders.

A bathroom door, also wide enough to accommodate a wheelchair, stretched between the dresser and a double-door closet.  The closet attached itself to the wall near where I sat.  One side served as a coat closet, the other side as shelved pantry type storage.

Two other chairs, in addition to the one holding me, two chairs with armrests, sat, one in each corner of the room, opposite from me at the ends of the wall.  The wall with the door out to the hallway filled with light.  Three chairs.  About as far apart as possible.  Conveniently, one chair each for Cindy and Tom and one for me.

As the oldest of us three children, it has fallen on my shoulders to act as the referee between Cindy and Tom. I’m the one who keeps the playing field level. I’m who ensures that neither of those two roughs up the other too much or suffers too much at the hands of the other. I’m the one who smooths things over when emotions get too far out of hand.

Yes, even at our age, we’re still children and the fact that the two chairs remained empty removed a certain amount of tension from my visit.

A bouquet of flowers looked up at me from my lap.  Not a bouquet, really, just flowers from the grocery store, wrapped in their sheet of clear plastic.  The grocery store was still open when I arrived in town, the florists had all closed for the day.

Upon my arrival at The Manor that evening, I went, as usual, to the main desk.  There is no formal check in at the facility but a stop by the desk provides me the opportunity to ask how Mom has been doing and to find out if there are any updates to her condition I should know before I visit with her.  This gives me a picture of Mom’s status that hasn’t been filtered through Cindy, who sees Mom on most days.  Cindy has her own motives for what she tells me.

Also, when I visit, especially if my arrival happens in the afternoon, a stop at the desk allows me to find Mom without searching the facility to look for her.  Mom might be at lunch or at some activity or maybe out in the garden.  She tolerates the crafts and other activities that the place has for her to do with the other residents, although in reality she would rather not participate.  Simply sitting in the garden at The Manor, if weather permits, fills her with a peaceful serenity. Or maybe she just sleeps.

At the desk, on this particular visit, the charge nurse answered my questions tersely, as usual.  After she fielded my questions she paused for a moment.  She then told me that Mom has her good days and her not so good days.  That seemed vague to me so I pressed her for more details.  She hedged a bit and then said that Mom’s condition had left her more frustrated as of late and then she said again that Mom has her good days and her not so good days.

This matched what Cindy had mentioned increasingly over the past few months.  That Mom has her good days and her not so good days.

Last week Cindy called me as she usually does each week.  On the call last week, Cindy let it slip out that Mom sometimes forgets that she has three offspring, that when people ask her about her kids, she will only remember Cindy and usually Tom but oftentimes she has forgotten me lately.  She sighed and paused after telling me this, her way of emphasizing the point.  Cindy’s recriminations don’t come to the surface very often but they are there.  They usually simmer just out of sight.  Generally she reins them in so as not to drive me to Tom’s side.  Sometimes they break through.  This was one of those times.  Some days she is able to deal with it better than others.

It seems that Cindy has her good days and her not so good days, too.

As that conversation replayed itself in my head, the flowers looked up at me from my lap and quietly suggested that the time spent waiting for Mom to wake up could be used in finding something to put them in.

A scan around the room, though, revealed no vase.

A quick glance over each of my shoulders at the windowsill behind me turned up no vase, either.

A more thorough search was called for.

Perhaps on the floor by the dresser.  From my chair none was visible to me on the floor on either side of the dresser.  Nor was one on top of the dresser, covered, as it was, with those of pictures to remind Mom of loved ones.

No vase on the wheeled dinner table holding the television remote.

No empty vase on any other flat surface, either.  Space was used carefully in Mom’s room and each square inch was occupied by something more essential than an empty flower vase.

Nor, for that matter, sat any vase with flowers past their prime already in it, ready to be replaced.  No vase and no flowers, new or old, at all, in fact, anywhere in the room.

I looked around again to be sure.

None.

This called for a visit to the charge nurse at the main desk.

Holding the flowers in my right hand, I put my left hand on the edge of the seat of the chair and quietly pushed myself up to stand.  The cellophane around the flowers crinkled but Mom did not stir.  A few tiptoe steps took me around Mom’s bed and few more out into the brightly lit hallway.

At the front desk, the charge nurse appeared to be busy writing.  Was this really work she was doing or was she working out a crossword puzzle?  I stepped up to the desk and peered over the chest-high counter top.  She was writing notes on a resident.

“May I help you, Mr. Bradford?” she asked without looking up.  When did she sneak the glance that told her it was me?

I waited until she finished writing and looked up at me.  She raised her eyebrows as if to ask the question again.

I lifted the flowers high enough for her to see over the counter top and tilted my head towards them.  I said I was looking for a vase.

“Oh, you didn’t need to walk all the way up here, Mr. Bradford,” she replied with false solicitude.  “There is one in the closet in your mother’s room, in the left side of the closet, on the bottom.”

“Message noted,” the thought flashed through my mind like a neon sign.  “Ok, you are much more familiar with my mother and her room and what’s where.  Got it.”

I thanked her with a slight nod of my head as I turned away.

Back in Mom’s room, I heard Mom breathe ever so slightly as she continued her dreamless sleep.

I set the flowers on the seat of the chair by the window and cautiously opened the left door of the closet.  I crouched down and there was the vase, on its side, atop a large shoe box.

Something about the box, perhaps its large size or its neon orange color, intrigued me.  I stood the vase on the floor and glanced at the end of the box.  Men’s size thirteen and a half basketball shoes.

I wondered. Was this something else the staff knew about Mom that I didn’t?  My imagination rushed through a number of wild scenarios, Mom playing basketball or dating Big Foot.

I tilted the end of the box upward to inspect it.  The sight of the shoe brand and the size and the thought of Mom hyped up enough to dunk a basketball brought a wry smile to my face.  As I tilted the box, the contents shifted slightly.  The box felt almost full of something that slid around inside.

I shook it slightly back and forth.

Setting it on the floor before me, I lifted its lid.  Envelopes neatly filled the box. The scores of envelopes were all in order, oldest postmark first, newest at the back.   Thumbing through them, starting from the front, I recognized my own name and address written in my own hand on the upper left corner of each.  The return addresses on the first bunch of envelopes was from an old house.  Two years ago, though, Helen and I had decided to down size.  Empty nesters, we moved from our old four bedroom colonial to the townhouse where we now live.  After that first slew of envelopes, our new address took the place of our old address.

The box held letters, only letters, no Mother’s Day cards nor birthday cards nor cards of any sort, except one postcard from Paris, where Helen and the kids and I went as a family to celebrate Stephen’s graduation.  Many of the postmark dates brought back memories of much that had happened during the past several years.  For some of the dates I could remember exactly what I had written.

Then I noticed.

None of the envelopes were opened.

I started from the front of the stack and thumbed through them in bunches.

My smile evaporated.

I thumbed through them again, from the beginning, this time one by one.

None were opened.

None were read.

Not one.

I turned my head and stared out the window.

The cold, dark, grey November sky stared right back at me from outside.

Mom’s continued her quiet breathing in the bed behind me.

Again I looked at the open box before me.  The nearly full box became blurry and I had to wipe my eyes.

A squeaky sound of rubber soled footsteps in the hallway jolted me.  I carefully straightened out the envelopes and patted them down so that none were sticking up.

A quick glance toward the open door brought relief.  Nobody was watching.

I placed the lid back on the shoe box and gently pressed down each corner, then slid the box back into its place in the bottom of the closet, the big sticker with the brand and the model of the shoes and the big bold thirteen point five on it facing outwards.

I grabbed the vase, stood, quietly picked up the flowers from the seat of the chair and took them into Mom’s bathroom.

The cold November gloom followed me home after my visit.

At the airport after the short flight home overcast skies made the evening seem even darker, later than it really was.  The visit with Mom had left me feeling hurt, embarrassed, tired, befuddled.  The somber skies only added to my own sullenness.

Outside the baggage claim, at the curbside, pairs of headlights came at me from the darkness.  Approaching cars, indistinguishable from each other.  Presently, a pair of headlights approached, slowed, and flashed twice at me to announce Helen’s arrival.

She slowed to a stop.  The car door locks clicked open.

As I opened the car door and started to sit in the passenger seat, Helen asked how my trip was and how Mom was faring. I wasn’t even in the car yet and the conversation was already discomforting.

“It was fine.  Mom was fine.”

I just didn’t want to talk about it.  Fortunately, I thought, we would be home in under fifteen minutes with light Sunday evening traffic.

Helen waited for me to say more.  She was not going to let me off that easy.

“It was fine.  Mom was fine,” I repeated.

Helen frowned disapprovingly as she pulled away from the curbside into traffic.

“She has her good days and her not so good days,” I cringed inside as I said it.

The ends of Helen’s mouth arched downwards.  It was her way of telling me that I was not finished.

Traffic came to a stop at the exit from the airport.  The line of cars before us led to flashing red and blue lights ahead.

“Who gets in an accident on a Sunday night?” I said, irritated but also relieved to change the subject.

Our car slowly crawled forward till we made it past the mishap.

Helen resumed, “You were saying?”

After a bit of silence, I related the events, the basic facts: my arrival at the airport, the cab ride, the flowers at the grocery store, my front desk briefing, waiting for Mom to wake up.  I left out the part about the shoebox.  No, Mom didn’t wake up then but she was up and looking rested this morning when I went back to see her.  Yes, she remembered me (sort of) and yes, we had a good visit, although she seemed to tire of it fairly quickly.  The cab ride back to the airport and the flight home were both fine.  My carefully edited story came out in a rushed, rehearsed, monotone.

Helen looked at me skeptically.  “Are you okay?”

I half nodded.  “Yeah, I’m fine.” I looked out the side window, away from her.

“Look, I know you’re upset about your mom and how she’s been sliding downhill for a while.”

The shoebox loomed in my mind.  “It hurts,” I let out.

“I know it hurts,” Helen jumped right in and agreed.  Then paused.  “What hurts?”

“She hasn’t read any of my frickin’ letters,” I thought.  “Nobody has.”

Instead, “seeing her slide,” came out in a mumble. It was the only answer I could think of.

I didn’t hear much of Helen’s consolation the rest of the way home. The ride seemed to take forever. Occasionally, Helen would pause and I would fill in the silence with an answer or an agreement, anything to let the topic end.

Mercifully, we finally made it into our garage. I thanked Helen, climbed out of the car and led the way into our townhouse.

Helen followed and closed the door from the garage. She turned, stepped toward me, hugged me, and gave me a pat on the back.

“I understand what you’re going through,” she added.

 I turned away and walked down the hall.

The study welcomed me with a cold silence.  I dropped into the chair at my desk and thought about the weekend behind me and the rest of the evening ahead of me.  An urge to do absolutely nothing came over me.

Instead, pulling out paper and a pen, I began to write, “Dear Mom,”

✍  ✍  ✍

Deanna’s eyelids sprang open.

The ceiling of her bedroom still seemed dark so she closed them.

She opened them again, halfway, just to check.

Maybe not that dark; she could not tell. She kept them open to decide. She could not quite discern if morning had really started or not, so she turned her head on her pillow to check her alarm clock.

The glowing numerals informed her that it was 5:56 AM.

Well, she definitely had not slept through her alarm. It was set for 9:00.

She pondered. Was this still nighttime or morning? She peered toward her bedroom window. Annoyingly to her, it faced the east and brought in the rising sun far too early on mornings such as this one, which was nearly cloudless. The sky was starting to lighten but the sun had not yet crawled out of its own bed so Deanna closed her eyes and stayed put.

Something bothered her, though she could not figure out what it was.

She turned her head once more on her pillow. The clock now read 5:57 AM.

She studied the time and compared it to the slowly rising light in the room. They seemed to match. Still, something was not right. She studied the clock some more.

The date.

The day of the week.

Missing. Both were missing.

She closed her eyes and rolled back, triumphant, relieved. Mystery solved.

Then disappointment struck. Stupid alarm clock.

A new uncertainty seeped into her. What day was it?

She glanced out the window. The warmly brightening sky pulled at her. She sat up, propped by her arms, legs extended. Her right foot slid out from under the covers, down the side of the bed, almost on its own. The left followed close behind. Deanna tilted forward, resting her elbows on her thighs, hands dangling between pajamaed legs.

The first blinding hump of molten hot sun suddenly burned over the horizon. More of it pushed its way upward. Deanna smiled faintly. Beneath the over-sized t-shirt she wore she could feel her heart gently drumming the inside of her chest. She glanced down briefly and smiled at it.

Then Deanna returned her gaze out the window to the east. By now, enough of the sun had appeared to paint the few clouds a luminescent yellow and to force Deanna to squint.

Her thoughts returned to the day at hand and wondered for just a moment, what day it was. The clock alarmed her. Her mind set the sunrise aside to remember the night before.

Friday. The night before was Friday. That made today Saturday. Encouraged by her small victory and gladdened by the prospect of an early start to the weekend, she smiled. Perhaps if starting off weekends early rather than sleeping late was always this pleasant, she would try it more often.

With that, Deanna wiggled her toes and reached over to the clock. She gently slapped the radio button.

What she heard put her in a state of perplexity.

A Special News Report was airing. The reporter paused several times and backtracked over what she said, restating and trying to clarify her rambling commentary. She seemed confused.

The evident nervousness of the reporter put Deanna at some unease. The story revolved around the timing of the sunrise and, as the reporter put it, “astronomical positionings.”

Deanna wondered if everyone was this disoriented early Saturday mornings. She thought that maybe the reporter stayed out too late the night before.

The broadcast then cut to an astrophysicist from NASA. The astrophysicist’s voice prompted Deanna to think of bushy white eyebrows on an older, somewhat overweight avuncular man. She imagined him to be in need of a haircut. He sounded every bit a scientist and the expert, which reassured Deanna.

After a rambling flurry of technical jargon, the astrophysicist added the phrase “not Saturday, yet.”

Deanna’s reassurance faded.

Deanna stared at the alarm clock, half expecting an explanation to be streaming across the display in place of the missing date and day of the week. She did not hear the rest of the astrophysicist’s remarks nor the rest of the report until she heard the reporter sign off with, “Live from NASA Headquarters in Alabama.”

No longer gently drumming, her heart was now thumping and Deanna felt a prickling as the hairs on her forearms stood upright. She realized her mouth was open.

“Not Saturday, yet?”

Without bothering to turn off the alarm clock radio, Deanna pushed herself up from the side of her bed and rushed out into the living room of her apartment. She picked up the TV remote and clicked it at the screen. Immediately a reporter appeared, looking down at the small reporter’s notebook in his hand, occasionally flipping pages back and forth. He tried to put together a story, stumbling over words he had written but not understood. Reporting from a local university, he had evidently spoken to another astrophysicist.

Deanna figured that a simpler, non-technical explanation of what was going on would help. What she needed was a sports channel to dumb it down.

She headed to ESPN. What they had to say wasn’t always right, but at least it was something your typical third grader could understand.

The ESPN studio crew, though, apparently was preoccupied with anticipating what would become of, as the anchor put it, “this unprecedented scheduling anomaly.”

Deanna then switched over to the most reliable channel she could think of, The Weather Channel. Surely they could tell her what was going on.

The Weekend Forecast weatherman was standing in front of a weather map of the Northeast, which was presently replaced by a picture from somewhere in Europe of the sun, already high up in a cloudless sky. A room full of puzzled meteorologists soon replaced that background.

Beyond the rapid, disorienting switching of backgrounds and the tentative, halting, unscripted chatter by the weatherman, who spent much of his time asking questions of off-camera people in the studio, something else was not right with what Deanna saw.

The date.

There was no date on the screen. Nor a day. Just a time and a time zone.

Deanna switched back to the local news. Local time but no date.

And no day of the week.

Instinctively, she turned toward the calendar on her kitchen wall. That was no help; it was not even showing the current month, May.

Back to the television, cycling through the national news stations. CNN, FoxNews, BBC, MSNBC, Al Jazeera, Bloomberg, all had BREAKING NEWS banners emblazoned across the tops of their screens. All had befuddled, babbling B-team reporters. C-SPAN simply had a running ticker which informed viewers that “Scheduled programming will begin shortly…” None displayed the current day of the week nor the date.

Deanna decided to make some coffee and let the news teams sort things out.

When she returned to her living room, she switched to one of the local stations. Her favorite weeknight anchor, Gayle Force, was just settling in at the studio news desk. Deanna found it upsetting that the weeknight anchor was sitting in on a morning broadcast.

Deanna listened intently as she cradled her too-hot cup of Kenyan Peaberry. Her heart had slowed back to normal, but only for a moment. Gayle’s words reignited the anxiety that had engulfed Deanna. The Peaberry steamed, undrunk, on Deanna’s lap while Gayle informed her viewing audience that the world was awaiting a clearer explanation from the experts.

Deanna needed a break from the confusion and intensity that this morning had brought her. Her neck and shoulders, past tense, were knotted and needed to relax. She felt she needed to wash her face, clear her mind.

She sipped her coffee and returned the cup to the kitchen on her way to the bathroom. While passing though the kitchen she spied an envelope with a note card and a letter from her aunt. Aunt Millie wrote regularly and sometimes included newspaper clippings from the small town daily from where she lived. Deanna had often meant to write back to her aunt but the closest she ever got was sending a Christmas card once or twice.

In her bathroom, the warm water on her face did soothe her and did calm her. She paused as she dried off. The TV in the other room tugged at her.

Washed and settled, Deanna returned to her living room to find out what was going on.

Across the channels, the consensus was forming that somehow a day had slipped in between Friday and Saturday. Some people wondered how that could be, but nobody was able to convincingly dispute that that was, in fact, what had happened.

Once that was established, a variety of groups raced to be the first to put out some sort of interpretation for the phenomenon. Others found in it something sinister. Democrats and Republicans each quickly blamed the other party for the development. Once polling results indicated a surprising amount of acceptance among Americans for the situation, though, congressional leadership in both parties appeared ready to claim credit.

A prominent Shia cleric pronounced it a Zionist plot and an equally prominent Orthodox Rabbi shot back that it was the work of Islamic extremists, each expressing the suspicion that the other was grabbing an extra day of prayer. Both ignored the fact that, since the day was neither a Friday nor a Saturday, the day belonged to neither religion.

Other religious leaders expressed a variety of denunciations and predictions, some apocalyptic. A number of televangelist-backed fundraising hotlines were quickly established in response to the situation and volunteers were available to take credit card donations by phone.

Back at ESPN, several sportswriters had been gathered for a round-table discussion of what effect a day without any scheduled sporting events would mean for America.

Switching again to her local station, Deanna saw the weekend weatherman try to explain that none of the forecasting models would be able to shed light on what the day’s weather would be. Deanna figured the weather would be somewhere between whatever Friday’s weather was (she had trouble remembering) and what Saturday’s weather would be. The map displayed behind the weatherman was blank. His frazzled explanation became a bit overly technical, however, and the station decided to go live to the weekend sportscaster, who, in the absence of any scores or scheduled events to announce, had been sent out to the streets to get reactions from passers-by.

The first passer-by that the sportscaster stopped was a somewhat older woman on her way to distribute food to the homeless at the park next to where the news crew and sportscaster were filming. When asked about the very odd extra day, she replied with a peaceful glow that she felt it was a miracle, but that even on miracle days, the homeless and the hungry still needed to eat. With that, she hastened on her way.

Before the sportscaster could even turn back to the camera, a young man on a skateboard flew into the picture, stopped, and waved to the camerawoman.

“Who are you?” he demanded of the sportscaster.

The sportscaster rolled his eyes at the camerawoman and answered that they were a news crew.

“A new screw?” the skateboarder exclaimed. “I prefer the old screw!”

The sportscaster ignored the joke. After all, he’d heard it a hundred times before. He paused for only a second and then pressed the young boarder for his opinion on what to make of the extra day between Friday and Saturday.

“I don’t know,” the skateboarder gave an insouciant shrug and he skated away.

The sudden shrill sound of Michael Jackson singing at the top of his voice in her bedroom made Deanna jump up from the couch. Calming herself, she realized that it was just her alarm clock.

She gingerly trotted to the bedroom, circled the bed, and stopped the music. She noted the time was 8:00, halfway between her 7 A.M. Friday alarm time and her Saturday setting of 9 A.M.

Outside her bedroom window, the sun had climbed to a commanding position in the sky. The day, whatever day it was, charged ahead.

Deanna’s bladder prodded her for attention.

Back in her bathroom, Deanna looked in the mirror and reflected, for a moment, about the opportunity this day presented her. This was, she realized, a free day to do things, perhaps even meaningful things, a chance to pad the numerator of her life without touching the denominator.

When she was finished in the bathroom, Deanna headed back into the kitchen before heading to the living room, ideas for the day percolating into her consciousness.

Aunt Millie’s note called out to Deanna. She picked it up off the counter and smiled.

Note card and letter in hand, Deanna strode into the second bedroom, which served as her home office, of sorts. She searched for some stationery, then laughed at herself. She could not remember ever having written anyone a letter. The thought of stationery amused her.

She instead tore off three sheets from a legal-sized pad of paper, grabbed a pen and headed back to the kitchen.

Deanna fixed herself another cup of coffee while she decided what to write.

As she waited for the coffee to start brewing, it occurred to her that she did not know the form of a personal letter. While the coffee readied itself, Deanna returned to her office. Her laptop, upon being opened, greeted her with more news of the day, again, with no date or day of the week displayed anywhere.

She read a few of the news flashes from her usual set of news sources. A few more details were available, but nothing much. The bottom line was the same, a day had injected itself between Friday and Saturday. Each of the religious leaders that had earlier spoken out maintained their positions. Many of the fundraisers that had been hastily set up were now, after consulting with their credit card providers and their banks, urging donors to send cash, afraid that, without a posting date, payments would not go through. Volunteers were available to take pledges by phone and to offer instructions for mailing in cash donations.

Deanna came across one posting that referred to a comprehensive web search of sites and the poster posited that unless someone made one up, no date and no day of the week were available anywhere in cyberspace, only the time of day. Astrophysicists, the post concluded, were right, the world was stuck in a day lodged between Friday and Saturday.

The mention of time prompted Deanna to check the corner of her computer screen. Just past 10 AM. She decided to shower and continue her day.

The hot water of the shower soothed Deanna’s neck and shoulders. As she washed, her mind revisited what she had seen so far that day. The image of the woman on her way to feed the hungry entered Deanna’s thoughts and the word “miracle” gave Deanna pause. She watched a small cluster of bubbles slither past her chest, hop over her ribs, run down her side, climb over her hip bone and spiral to the inside of her thigh. Together, the bubbles slid down the length of her leg, past her knee, down her calf, pausing slightly as they edged to the outermost point of her ankle, and then slipped off her foot onto the shower floor. They circled the drain once and then disappeared.

Deanna stared at the drain for a moment, almost wishing that the bubbles would crawl back up out of it. It took some effort on her part to finish showering.

After her shower, Deanna meandered about her apartment, wondering what to do next. She settled on texting her friend, Carla. Carla possessed an inner calm that was impervious to calamity. Deanna was sure that Carla would make sense of the day. Deanna asked what Carla thought.

“About what?” came the reply.

Deanna was incredulous. How could Carla not know about the extra day they were living through that had elbowed its way between Friday and Saturday? She texted back frantically about the day and what was happening and what it meant. She pressed send and waited, her breath quickening.

Carla replied, telling Deanna that she was just kidding and to relax. The day was certainly off to a strange start, she wrote. She proposed meeting for lunch to discuss.

Relieved, Deanna accepted.

Lunch plans with Carla helped settle Deanna and gave her enough time to write the letter to Aunt Millie. She grabbed the note card and letter and the envelope that had brought them, along with the three sheets of legal sized paper and the pen and headed to her office.

At her desk, she pushed aside the still open laptop. The movement brought the screen to life.

A series of email notifications flashed on the screen, each lasting long enough for her to read half the subject. Some presented the appearance of great importance. Several were marked “URGENT” or “READ IMMEDIATELY.”

She pushed the note and letter and three sheets of legal sized paper aside. She pulled the laptop closer. She decided to go through the URGENT emails and then start her letter.

One by one, the emails turned out to not really be all that urgent, in fact, not urgent at all. A few, from her bank or from credit card companies spelled out arcane details about interest calculations and amortization adjustments, followed by lengthy disclaimers. Deanna followed each as well as she could before coming across some clause or another disclosing that the information enclosed therein was tentative, pending review by the company’s legal department.

Deanna closed the last of the URGENT emails and realized that she needed to leave soon in order to meet up with Carla.

She took the note card and letter and envelope and the three sheets of legal sized paper and pen back out to the kitchen. She left them prominently in the middle of the table and promised herself that she would write the letter after lunch with Carla.

In her car, Deanna scanned radio stations. Weary of breaking news and questions and uncertainty, she sought answers. Absent that, she resigned herself to music if any stations were playing any. She finally came across a classic rock station playing Pink Floyd’s “Time” but the line about “one day closer to death” left her feeling rattled so she just turned off the radio altogether.

Lunch with Carla did not help Deanna in the least. She had hoped to be able to seek Carla’s advice on how to use this bonus day. The lunch, however, turned out to be one long string of interruptions. Deanna was not the only person who sought Carla’s advice and reassurance. Evidently, Carla was the nexus, the hub of all the chatter for several groups of friends and they all wanted to chat.

After a couple of hours of Carla constantly excusing herself to answer another text or phone call, and then dealing with a balking waiter who informed the pair that the restaurant was only accepting cash that day, the lunch date finally ended with Deanna frustrated that those were two hours of her life she would never get back.

She decided to return to the sanctuary of her apartment. All the way there, the word “miracle” kept returning to her. So did the vision of the soap suds racing down the drain. She felt confused. Each day might be a gift, but that gift came with no instructions.

Back in her apartment, she started to check again on the form of a personal letter.

She realized that she didn’t care about the form of a personal letter and it did not matter.

So, she sat at her kitchen table and noted that the time was already 3:30 in the afternoon.

She started to write, unsure of what to say. She jotted some notes, a few words about this subject or that, figuring she could at least get something down on paper. She would turn it into a letter later.

Her mind drifted.

When it returned, she looked at the paper on the table in front of her. She saw “half a page of scribbled lines” and could not think of anything else to write.

She felt a not so gentle rumble from her stomach, which reminded her that she had been too nervous at lunch with Carla to eat much of anything.

Pushing herself from the table, she went to her cabinets and rummaged around in them but could not decide what to eat. Finally, she settled on something and went about preparing her dinner.

After eating, Deanna re-read the note card and letter from Aunt Millie. She smiled when she read what her favorite aunt had written. She thought about the patience and simple joy her aunt lived each day with and how she could make even small things seem warm and interesting.

She took the note card and letter and the half filled sheet of scribbled lines to her second bedroom turned into an office. She looked among the books on the bookshelf. Some of them she held onto from when she was a young girl back in her hometown where Aunt Millie still lived. She looked for inspiration, for a hint of what to say.

Then she reminisced.

A noise outside startled her from her thoughts and she noticed that the time was after seven.

Moved by something unknown within her, Deanna grabbed a light jacket and headed out from her apartment.

She made her way down the boulevard a few intersections, turned right and followed the street until it ended at a local park.

Deanna found a quiet, unoccupied rise in the park. She sat in the grass, which needed mowing.

She watched for a while as other people, mostly families with young children, but also couples and a few people by themselves, arrived and found benches to sit on or a patch of grass that suited them.

Just a bit after eight o’clock, everyone had found their seats and the show was ready to begin.

Before her, the sun made contact with the western horizon. It slowly melted into the earth, at first imperceptibly. As the widest part disappeared, it sped up and quickly pulled the remnants along until the last molten hump extinguished quite suddenly.

And just like that, it was gone.

Behind her, from the east, Saturday steamrolled its way toward her through the time zones.

Deanna stared at the darkening horizon for a moment more.

A tear gathered itself in the bottom of each eye and together they dashed down her cheeks.

She sighed, slowly pushed herself up from the knoll and went home.

Back at her apartment, she quietly sank into her couch and clicked the television to life.

Gayle, back in her nighttime slot, recapped the day and bid her viewers good-night.

Deanna turned off the television. She rose from the couch and made her way to her bedroom. On the way past her office, she spied the letter-to-be.

In her room, she slipped into her pajama bottoms and t-shirt, crawled under the covers, and, without looking at her alarm clock, went to sleep.

The buzzing sound wakes him, but only slightly. He is curled up on his left side, lying on the sandy floor in the furthest recess of a cave. It is not so deep, less than twenty feet overall. The inside of the cave is cool and dark nonetheless, despite the hot tropical sun outside. His face is pressed against the coarse sand on the cave floor. Sand is in his matted, singed hair. He is exhausted and the cave is cool and dark and he just wants to sleep.

Still, the buzzing persists. It gradually becomes louder. He groans and rolls onto his back. He coughs a rough, hacking cough. Grains of sand stay embedded in his cheek. His eyes remain closed. The buzz fades until it is faint, barely audible above the crunching of the sand as he rolls over some more onto his right side. He wonders what had happened overnight to put him in this deplorable mess.

The buzz fades but not completely before it starts to grow louder again. The sound of the buzzing becomes strangely soothing to him.

He falls back asleep.

But only for a moment.

When he awakes, the buzzing has already faded again. He hears it grow louder, close to the cave. Then it grows quieter.

He is exhausted and his body is aching all over from the night before. His mind is in a fog. The buzzing once again grows louder. He puzzles over it, eyes closed, dreamlike. It sounds vaguely mechanical to him. Mechanical and high above outside the cave. Again, it fades away from the cave. He puzzles some more.

Then his eyes pop open. He pushes himself up onto his knees and scrambles to his bare feet. A stabbing pain shoots through his back and he staggers for a moment. His head spins. He takes in a deep breath. His head stops spinning and starts to throb. The air is cool. It tastes of smoke. The sand still clings to his cheek.

He takes an uncertain step toward the opening of the cave. A hand against the cave wall helps to steady him. He takes another step, then another. Step by step he staggers to the opening.

Swirling smoke greets him at the mouth of the cave. The smoke burns his already painful eyes.

He steps out of the cave and looks about. After a pause, he tries to step around the smoke to survey the landscape and to scan the sky for the source of the buzzing. With his back against the rocks of the hill the cave is sunk into, he feels his way down the slope a distance. Hiding under an outcropping of rock, he closes his eyes. He remembers the night before and how this all happened.

What had happened was that he had made the decision that he had to get off the island. The island was too small. It was too small and he was not going to spend the rest of his life there and die there, alone. So he had to get off the island. He had to be rescued. It was his attempt to get off the island the past few days which had led him to this deplorable mess.

He winces as he thinks about it. About how lonely he was. How lonely and scared.

He had determined to get off the island somehow, some way, any way he could.

He remembered that much. The rest started to come to him.

Under the outcropping of rock, with his burning, teared eyes closed, he recounted how he formulated the plan to get off the island and how he planned and hoped and how he started to put the plan into effect.

First, he knew that making a raft and putting out to sea was not an option.

Not after what happened to Janet. He couldn’t make himself do it; he just couldn’t.

He could not get to safety. He would have to beckon his rescue to come to him.

So, desperately, he devised a plan. How to get someone’s attention so that they could come to the island and rescue him, that was the question.

Early on, the shape of the island had reminded him of a foot, a left foot with a shallow bay near the instep of the foot and a few caves just above the ankle, near the top of the island. One cave, the one he slept in, was tall enough to stand in and deep enough to escape rain or wind.

Or smoke.

Up from the cave, the highest point of the island rose a few hundred feet above the waves that lapped the shoreline. The highest point wasn’t really much of a point, more of a flat area at the top of the hill.

The slope down from there was steep at the ankle. Lower the slope was more gradual as the island flattened out near the shoreline.

The plan had not come to him all at once, complete. He had formulated it only after the failed attempt to raft away. However, once it started to form it grew quickly until he was satisfied it would work.

The plan would work. He just knew it would. It had to.

He intended to create a light, a beacon that would lead someone or something, a plane most likely, but also maybe a ship, whichever, to him and he would be rescued. He knew in his head that his chances were slim, but in his heart he felt it would all work out.

He decided that the highest point on the island would get him and his light, his beacon, seen for miles.

So he searched the island for dried, dead wood, which turned out to be not all that difficult. Although quite small, the island was hilly and had plenty of dead trees and shrubs. So many small trees had been levelled by the infrequent storms over the years, including the one that had brought him to the island. Broken, downed trees littered the island, just waiting to be burned.

So he started dragging logs and sticks and shrubs. He started with the driest he could find. Fat logs, skinny logs, whatever he could find, so long as they were the driest.

He was confident that if he made a big enough, bright enough light then some passing airliner or ship would see it and report it and rescue would be on its way.

So he started to build his pile. He was determined to make it big enough, to pile not just barely enough, but rather to pile way more than enough.

He set out to find the driest.

He found a small tree, dead and brittle. It had been growing a short way down the slope from the spot he had chosen for the fire. He grabbed the tree with both hands and leaned hard into it and it snapped just above the ground, causing him to lose his footing and almost fall on the jagged stump that was sticking out from the ground. He recovered his balance and grabbed the narrow trunk by the base and tugged it as he walked backward up the hill. When he made it to the crest of the hill he dropped the end of the trunk and brushed off his hands. A smile crept onto his face. The first log was done.

With that he felt a surge of energy within himself and quickly found another small trunk and then some brush and then more small trees.

The pile grew throughout the morning. Starting close to the top of the hill, he slowly worked his way down the slope, retrieving trunks and branches and brush from a bit further away on each trip. A path was being forged out of this work. After each trip down the hill he would pretty much retrace his steps back to the top.

With each trip, the slope to the top seemed to grow steeper and steeper. His early burst of energy started to wane and he felt the need to pace himself as the day went on.

He took a few breaks to rest or to search for fruit on one of the pandanus trees near the bottom of the hill for energy to keep going.

Late in the day he was hauling a stump he had worked loose. Exhausted, he stumbled several times up the slope to the fire spot. On one of these stumbles, he looked to the west and saw the sun about to sink below the horizon. He managed to get back on his feet and plod onward, dragging the stump behind him. Darkness was beginning to descend as he finished the journey up the hill. He was grateful for nightfall. It was obvious he needed rest.

After heaving the stump onto the pile, he turned from the pile and gathered some palm fronds and used them to make a bed. It would be a clear night. There was no reason to sleep in the cave he had found where he sought shelter from the storm that brought him to the island. Instead he would sleep by his pile and begin again in the morning.

A gentle breeze caressed him as he lay down on the leaves. His wavy brown hair, which had grown long, fluttered in the soothing wind. The unending sound of the waves on the shore eased him into a deep slumber.

Morning arrived. He awoke, hungry and thirsty. The sun was already fully risen and urged him to resume his work. Yet he knew that further wood-gathering would have to wait until he ate and drank.

Slowly, he eased himself to his feet. His body ached from all the dragging and pulling and lifting and carrying he had done the day before. His hands were rubbed raw. His muscles ached and his stomach rumbled.

The path he had worn through the dense growth the day before led him downward toward the water in a circuitous route that wove its way through the dense growth and eventually brought him out between the heel and the instep of the foot that was the island, ushering him onto the end of a beach near a reef. Shellfish made their home in the shallows of a protected pool close to shore.

The water was cool and inviting and made the harvesting of his breakfast a welcome relief from the hard work that occupied him the day before and which awaited him again. It did not take long to gather enough shellfish for a quick breakfast. When he was finished gathering, the shade of a large palm tree waited for him next to the flat rock he used as a table. Broken, empty shells littered the area, remnants of the meager meals he had eaten since being stranded. He used rocks on the shore to break open the shells. The meat inside was salty, sweet, and delicious.

As he worked at the shells he tried not to notice his own emaciated body. Finding shellfish and small bits of fruit was a daily struggle. It seemed to take almost as much energy to find food as the food gave him and that struggle showed itself in his protruding ribs.

When he finished the last of the shellfish he scrambled back to his feet and headed for the pandanus and the small pools of water near the base of the hill. Then he selected the next bit of tree and brush to haul up the slope to his wood pile.

This went on for three days, at the end of which he looked at his ragged heap of logs and sticks and brush and decided that he had enough wood. It was time.

Sunset was almost at hand, it would arrive in less than half an hour.
The canister with the matches was far too precious for him to carry about with him throughout the day. The canister was watertight, so there was no real danger of the matches being soaked. The real danger was losing the canister or having it fall out of his pants, which had become flimsy and tattered since he arrived on the island. The match canister had its own special niche inside the cave.

It was incredibly good fortune that even had the matches. When the boat went down, the matches were in his pocket, protected in their canister. He had forgotten to put them away the last time he used them and it was not until after he was on the island that he even realized he had them.

As the sun dropped down to the horizon, he shuffled down the hill to the mouth of the cave and then quickly retrieved the canister from its spot. Quickly but carefully, he returned to his wood pile.

He scanned the horizon, not really expecting to see a plane or hear one either. Oftentimes he had searched for a plane or a ship off on the horizon and once or twice he thought he had seen a plane or the lights of a plane at night, far off in the darkness, but he had not been sure. It might have been a plane. Or it might have been a star obscured by clouds or a meteor or just his imagination.

He felt the pocket of his tattered pants for the reassurance of the match canister.

Then he sat on one of the larger logs he had brought up to the site.

Trying to be patient, he waited for the sun to dip into the ocean. It paused before making its final plunge into the horizon and this tested his patience. It touched the line at the end of the earth and then seemed to pause again. Finally it was halfway submerged, the visible half and its reflection on the surface of the water forming a perfect circle. He pulled out the match canister and carefully unscrewed the top. There were only two matches left. He had been careful not to use these last two. They were precious and he knew it.

He also knew that he could not wait until the sun was completely set. The moon would not be up for hours, just before dawn, and he needed to see what he was doing in order to strike the match. He could not afford to mishandle the match or lose it or break it while striking it. So, before it turned completely dark he crouched down beside the mound he had made from the driest of the leaves and twigs. He unscrewed the cap from the canister, took out one of the matches, held it in his teeth, carefully screwed the cap back on the canister, and placed the canister deep within the pocket in his pants.

He took a deep breath, surveyed his pile of logs one more time and then struck the match. It did not start. He slowly twirled it in his fingers and examined it. He struck it again.

Nothing.

He closed his eyes, whimpered slightly, took a breath to calm down, and struck the match again.

It started.

His head swam for a moment. He briefly felt elated. Then he regained his composure.

Shaking, he slowly moved the match toward the pile of dry leaves.

He hesitated. From his low crouch he looked over the pile of wood. His heart sank. The wood he had gathered was mostly very dead and very dry. The fire might need to burn all night long but when he looked at the pile of wood he had it suddenly occurred to him that he had no idea how long it would last. He tried to calculate how fast what he had gathered would burn. As he was calculating, or trying to, the flame on the match burned down to his fingertips. The burning sensation startled him and he instinctively shook the match and dropped it. It lie on the ground between his feet, finished.

He gasped and cried out.

His heart raced and his breaths quickened.

The last match sat lonely in the canister.

He looked again at the pile of wood and tried to imagine how long one of the logs or branches would burn. He had no idea. He whimpered and started to breathe faster.

Then he closed his eyes and tried to calm himself. He pressed his open palms against his temples.

When he opened his eyes it was already beginning to get dark.
He thought and thought.

Finally, he said aloud to himself, “If you don’t know how much is enough, then you’ll just have to have too much.”

It sounded so right to him and he nodded.

Somehow, agreeing with himself was reassuring. His breathing slowed back to normal.

The thought of more gathering, however, made him feel tired. He crawled over to the bed of palm leaves that had served as his bed these past few nights. He slowly lay down on it and rolled onto his back and stared at the stars for a minute and then he was asleep.

A sharp pain in his ribs awoke him the next morning just before dawn. Still drowsy, he groped beneath his side and found the object that was sticking into him. He pulled it out from beneath him and instinctively started to toss it away. Something made him stop himself. He looked in his hand and recognized the canister with the last match. It must have slipped out of what was left of his pocket as he tossed fitfully while he slept and then he woke when he rolled over onto it.

A whimper came out of him when he realized what he had almost done.
Struggling to his feet, he made his way in the pre-dawn moonlight back down to the cave, where, trembling, he put the canister back in its niche in the wall.

A couple of deep breaths steadied him.

After another meagre breakfast he was back at another day of wood gathering.

This went on for three more days, at the end of which the area at the top of the hill was so full of trees and brush that he felt he could fit no more. The time had come.

As he brought the last armful of branches to the pile, he took a moment to survey the island from his vantage point. He had hauled so much dead vegetation. His hands and arms were raw. Scratches and gouges covered his feet and ran the length of his legs.

Despite how much he had carried and dragged to the hilltop, the island still seemed to him to be covered with growth and he could have brought so much more but there was no room for it.

The time had come.

Just a couple of hours remained until nightfall. He had time to catch his breath and reflect. As he scanned the island, the waves that encircled it, and the ocean beyond, the memory of the events that brought him to the island started to seep into his mind. He had been so busy these past days that he had managed not to think about it but with sunset not yet upon him, he sat and remembered.

He remembered how the trip had started so uneventfully. The plan was to sail from Honolulu down to Tahiti, then west across to the Cook Islands, then head northward, stopping at several places along the way up to the Marshall Islands before returning to Hawaii. The first leg, to Tahiti, would be by far the longest stretch at sea. Janet and he had stocked the boat well, with more than twice enough food and water for the sprint down to Tahiti. This would be the first such voyage for him, as for her. Nonetheless, he felt quite sure of what he was doing and though she had been nervous, she found his confidence reassuring.

As he sat watching the sun continue to drop in the sky he thought some more about the journey. He could barely remember the first few days on the open sea, which had passed so quietly, with blue skies and steady, forceful winds. The pair had quickly left their home port far behind. As they crossed the equator, they had noticed the winds picking up and Dave was encouraged. They were ahead of schedule by his reckoning.

He vividly remembered what followed. The winds had continued to increase the next day and dark clouds had appeared on the windward horizon overnight, giving the couple a blazing red sunrise. The strong winds had driven them off course, far to the west. Dave had responded by heading back to the east in order to get back on course.

As he sat atop the hill and watched the setting sun, his pulse quickened and his head started to pound as he remembered the next day of the voyage.

The couple had awoken to huge swells and fierce winds. They were quickly losing control of the boat.

He winced as he remembered how Janet had started to panic and he had screamed at her, “Now’s no time to panic!” and how Janet had looked at him as if he were crazy and screamed right back, “Now would be the PERFECT time to panic!” She had had enough of his overconfidence.

The next few hours seemed like an eternity, he thought. The boat tossed about until it struck a rock just below the crest of a wave. A horrific groaning, crushing sound came from the bottom of the boat and the jolt of the impact sent him crashing into Janet, nearly knocking her overboard. Water started rushing into the boat and immediately they both knew it was going down. It was Janet who spotted the island not far away, dimly visible through the storm. They jumped in the water together and swam as best they could through the wind and the waves.

Somehow they made it.

The storm, meanwhile, carried “Mer de Chien” off a distance before it sank to the bottom of the sea.

The clearing of the storm and the appearance of the sun brought out his optimism. “Look, we’ve survived the storm of the century, didn’t we? We can handle anything!”

For Janet, a sick feeling wrung her insides. She didn’t share his rosy outlook. The two of them had quickly determined that they were on a small, uninhabited island. They had been blown tremendously off course. The realization that they had no idea where they were was soon followed by the notion that, in all likelihood, nobody else knew where they were, which made the island seem even smaller, to the point of being cramped. Janet became claustrophobic.

She was in a panic to leave.

He came up with the plan for the raft. Janet, despite her urgent desire to leave, took considerable convincing. How could they possibly build a raft? They had no materials, no tools, no real know-how. And where would they go, how would they navigate? Eventually, though, he persuaded her that they could overcome all those obstacles and, besides, they had no real choice. They had been stuck on the island for days with no sign that a rescue was on its way or that anyone even knew they were there. Janet finally agreed to his plan.

They dragged logs to a point on the island where they could build the raft and push it out through the breaking surf and, hopefully, the prevailing winds and current would carry the craft along the length of the island and on to civilization. Vines held the logs together. Two short stumps, carved hollow and fastened to the two front corners of the raft, held drinking water for the journey. A section of bark and leaves plugged the top of each container to keep the fresh water from splashing out in the rolling waves. By carefully rationing the water, they figured they could last a couple of weeks. Flat, small lengths of wood served as oars. They would be of little use, but they were better than nothing.

A calm day with surf small enough for them to break through was what they needed and they had to wait several days for that. When it arrived, the two checked their water supply, filled makeshift woven baskets with fruit from the pandanus trees that littered the island, and pushed their raft from the shore.

They rowed as best as they could out to the breaking surf. Though they were small, the breaking waves were too much for the couple and their makeshift oars. So they paddled harder. Each time they made some progress a wave would come along which was just too big.

He jumped off the raft.

“Where are you going?” Janet screamed.

“Jump in and help me!” he hollered back.

The two grabbed the edge of the raft and kicked as hard as they could. Two tiny tugboats pushing their rickety craft to the open water. Finally, with one all-out struggle, they managed to break through the surf. They kicked until they could kick no more. Safely beyond the breaking waves, they paused.

Too tired to even celebrate, he pushed himself onto the deck of the raft and slowly dragged one knee up. Pausing for a moment to catch his breath, he heaved himself onto the craft and turned around, kneeled, and reached for Janet’s wet hand to pull her aboard.

Then it all happened so fast.

The huge, dark shadow shot from under the raft and, without even breaking the surface, grabbed Janet by the leg and pulled her under so quickly that she didn’t even have time to scream. The shark quickly disappeared to the depths with Janet. Only a small, dissipating cloud of blood marked what happened.

Soon other fins broke the surface around the raft.

Shaking and sobbing, Dave sat in the middle of the raft, pulling his knees up to his chin. Eventually, as evening settled in, waves and a gentle breeze pushed the raft in past the breaking surf to the shore. It gently settled on a small cluster of rocks near the beach.

A wave lifted the raft slightly and it appeared to be about to slip back into the water. He jumped off the raft onto the rocks. Soon, the waves reclaimed the raft and almost immediately dashed it upon the rocks, breaking it apart. Some of the logs remained on the rocks, a few drifted away.

It would be days before he could force himself even into the shallow water near the beach to search for shellfish to eat. When he did finally venture in, he kept looking for approaching fins.

The realization soon set in that he would never be able to bring himself to sail away on a raft. The thought of Janet disappearing below the waves sent a shudder through him each time it crept into his mind. He just couldn’t do it.

That’s when he formed the plan for the fire.

Once he had the plan then there was the work of gathering the firewood. Three days of hard work, then almost lighting the fire, the reconsidering, followed by three more days of gathering.

As he sat on the hill, looking out over the water, waiting for nightfall and reflecting on those past days, he pushed out any doubts or worries. It was too late for that.

Finally, the sun began to set on his last day of captivity.

This time the match, the last match, started on the first strike and the fire blazed almost immediately. More than a week of no rain made certain of that. A gust of wind acted as bellows and the pile responded. This brought a smile to Dave’s face and soon, as the fire grew, the smile turned to a laugh.

Another gust of wind fanned the flames even more and soon much of the pile was catching, more than he expected. He started to worry that the fire would burn itself out too quickly, but he convinced himself that this could not be so. The sun was now completely set and the top of the hill glowed in the moonless darkness that surrounded the island.

Another wind gust scattered hot embers. They fell a short distance from the pile and he quickly scooped some sand to throw on the smoldering grass.

Another, stronger gust blew and was quickly followed by another. Embers blew into the air and were carried out of reach down the hill.

Soon the fire spread. It seemed like no time before the whole island was on fire.

As the lower logs of the pile burned smaller, the logs and sticks and brush on top of them tumbled down the flaming pile and scattered toward him. He moved away but the brush and grass that ringed the top of the hill was soon blazing and he was nearly surrounded by fire. It closed in on him and a terror started to seize him. He felt he would roast alive.

He moved toward the path that led to his cave but a burning tree fell across the path and blocked his way. He frantically searched for another way down the hill to safety but the only alley not engulfed by flames led to the steep, rocky side of the hill.

Soon the grass beneath his feet started to catch and he had no choice. He scampered to the top of the steep face of the hill and started to scramble down. Burning brush cascaded down the rocks after him and his hair briefly caught fire. He slid down the large, flat face of the hill and then some more on the scree at the bottom.

Eventually, he made it to a place not much lower than the cave, part of the way around the hill from the opening. He had to fight through some thick brush which had not yet caught fire and soon he was trapped in the briars. The barbs sliced at his arms and legs and he slowly tried to make it through despite the excruciatingly painful cuts, all the while mindful of not falling down the steepest part of the hill to the rocky surf far below.

As he was almost through the briars and onto a safe path to the cave, a burning bush rolled off the top of the hill above and soon the briar patch was ablaze. Panting, he made it through the last of the briars and tore off some of the shreds of his shirt which had caught fire.

From there, he stumbled to the entrance of the cave. Soon the gathering smoke forced him to the farthest recess, where he cried himself to sleep.

And now, awakened by the buzzing of the plane, he stumbles outside and struggles to find a place away from the cave, away from the smoke where he can be seen.

The drone of the reconnaissance plane fades and the plane itself becomes a speck before disappearing altogether.

By the time he makes it to the water’s edge, away from the smoke, visible at last, the plane is gone.

He listens for the sound of the engine returning but all he can hear is the crackling of the last of the fire and the rush of the wind as it blows smoke through the charred remains. That, and the sound of his own raspy breathing and the surf beside him.

He stares at the empty sky, his arms hanging at his side.

After what seems an eternity, he surveys the black, smoke-covered island. He looks out at the waves coming in from the open sea. In the distance he sees two fins circling.

He looks back at the hill he had just descended. The opening of the cave is barely visible through the smoke.

He turns, wades into the surf, and starts to swim out to the fins.

A knock on my front door roused me from the couch the other day. Mary was out of town, the kids were off at college and I was not expecting company. I wondered who it could be.

Ryan, our golden retriever, followed me to the door and looked up at me as I turned the knob. He nudged me out of the way to see who it was. I told him to get back behind me and kept my eye on him for a couple of seconds to make sure he stayed there, in case our visitor was wary of dogs.

When I opened the door, there was my dad. My eyebrows furrowed and I stared at him for a moment. Surprise and confusion spread across my face. Dad died almost twenty years ago. I did not expect him at my front door. However, that was no reason to be rude, so I invited him in.

Wearing his typical flannel shirt with a white t-shirt underneath, Dad followed me to the living room. I motioned to the couch and offered him my spot, the spot I had just settled into before he had knocked. Without a word, he sat in the middle of the couch and leaned back, making himself comfortable.

I lowered myself onto the love-seat, facing perpendicular to the couch , elbows on my knees, hands clasped loosely together.

Ryan sniffed Dad’s hands and Dad scratched him behind the ear. Ryan curled up on the floor in front of the fireplace, where he could keep one eye on Dad and one eye on me.

Neither of us said anything for a moment.

Sensing a slight bit of awkwardness, I got the ball rolling.

“So, what’s up, Dad?”

His right arm draped over the back of the couch, his left hand on his thigh, he glanced slightly upward and answered slyly, “The ceiling… the roof… the sky.”

He smiled devilishly.

I looked down at the floor between my feet, nodded and smiled.

A dad joke. Great.

I started to ask where he had been but then thought better of it. Instead, I waited for him to lead this conversation.

After a moment of taking in the room, Dad’s eyes settled back on me.

“How’s it been going, son?”

“Okay,” I started and then briefly detailed where Mary was off to and how work was and how life in general was going for me. He listened without saying anything or doing anything, without even nodding. I got the sense that he was being patient with me, that I was somehow rambling, even though I had only spoken a sentence or two, so I stopped.

“And how about the kids, how have they been?” he asked, his voice low and gravelly, just as I remembered it.

I started to tell him about their past week at college.

He interrupted me, “No, what have they been up to?”

“Since when?” I asked.

“Since last time we talked.”

I drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. That was a lot of ground to cover. After all, it had been almost twenty years. I pointed that out to him.

“That’s okay, I’ve got time,” he replied with a grin.

I pondered that answer for a second or two and searched for where to begin. I figured I would leave out the bit about his funeral and other events around that time. He probably wouldn’t be too interested in those.

I thought a bit. Then a bit more.

Some of the stories I used to tell him pushed their way into my memory. Usually, anything that resulted in me suffering the brunt of misadventures with either of the kids seemed to tickle Dad back when he was alive. I cautiously started with a few similar stories from when the kids were still quite young, stories that usually ended up with me becoming vexed and on the brink of being overwhelmed.

Dad chuckled.

Those anecdotes seemed funny to me, too, after the fact as they were. They prompted me to smile.

I felt encouraged, so I related some other stories to Dad, accomplishments, adventures, proud moments. I told these slowly at first, but he seemed drawn in by what I told him, sometimes saddened, sometimes amused, always interested. It felt good to tell them. He urged me on.

Even as I was talking, I reflected on how I had sometimes, when I was younger, been uncomfortable with Dad and his stories. I felt as though he enjoyed telling the stories more than the stories themselves were worth. He would embellish and expand and have so much fun with what he was telling that often the story he was telling would bear little resemblance to the real actual event he was describing. And when he told such things at gatherings, it seemed to me that his audience would enjoy his telling as much as he did.

I thought maybe they were just being nice.

I talked a bit more. A strange feeling overtook me, a feeling that maybe I was overstepping my bounds and venturing into territory that was really Dad’s. It was unusual for me to most of the talking and there were things I wanted to ask Dad but he did not seem to be in the mood to speak all that much. Instead, he egged me on.

So I told him a few more of the antics the kids had been up to. I added a bit, just a bit, to some of the tales and Dad delighted in what I related. He also seemed genuinely pleased with the way I was becoming more caught up in my own stories.

Then I remembered a time when the kids spun a wild, convoluted tale out of thin air, bit by bit, detail by detail, until they had me completely bamboozled.

We laughed.

My laugh slowly melted into a proud smile.

I told Dad that the kids had grown and were no longer kids, but persons, people, adults, sometimes they were even adults that other adults looked up to. I told him how proud and how humbled I was at the two individuals they had become.

I thought I detected a wistfulness take over Dad’s face. His gaze, which had been fixed intently on me for much of the conversation, settled on his hands as he gently, pensively wrung them. His eyes seemed to mist up, or, perhaps it were mine that did.

Silence settled in the room. I heard the clock ticking on the wall in the kitchen.

He didn’t have to tell me it was time for him to go. Somehow, I knew.

He told me anyways.

He slowly, reluctantly, pushed himself up. I remained seated. I did not want him to leave. I stared at the floor in front of me.

He gently put his hand on my shoulder and quietly told me to get up.

I followed him to the door.

Ryan got up off the floor and followed closely behind me. When I reached the front door, he edged me out of the way and walked out onto the front porch just in front of me.

Before I could grab Dad to hug him, he was down the steps and on his way out to the street.

Ryan sat. It is our custom, the two of us, to sit on the front porch as visitors leave and bid them farewell. I took my place next to Ryan and instinctively sat beside him.

Dad reached the end of our front sidewalk. He stepped into the street, turned, and waved.

I waved back.

Ryan wagged his tail.

I wondered for a moment how Dad would leave. Would he float away? Would he suddenly disappear? Would he slowly fade?

He walked.

The route he chose to walk was to my left, up the street toward where we used to live. He walked slowly, hands in his pockets. Though it was warm for February, it was still cold, but, as usual, the cold did not seem to bother Dad.

When he was most of the way up the street, Dad paused very deliberately and turned to face the house next door to where we used to live. Milan lived in that next-door house until he died just last month. Before Milan, there was Milan and his wife, Lisa. Before Milan and Lisa, until their son, Benji, went off to college, it was Milan and Lisa and Benji. Now the house stands empty.

Dad seemed to consider Milan’s house for a moment, and I thought maybe something would happen but nothing did.

Dad simply ambled on, past where we used to live. That house had been torn down and replaced just this past year. Dad hardly gave the new house a glance.

He continued on, around the bend, down the hill, and out of sight.