6:17 am

The dull moan of a train horn lulled far away in the distance.

Hiss of the AC keeping the bedroom at as low a temp as physically possible in the brutal summer morning.

Rose was always sensitive to temperature. And smell. And emotional tension.

Bad dreams woke her in an unsettled state and her frustration simmered over in short biting remarks. She was angry the room wasn't cooler.

Jack tried to be reassuring, but Rose’s frustrations quickly became Jack’s. His unresolved and ongoing weight.

“Strange,” Jack thought, “that knowing doesn’t make it easier.”

He wondered what was wrong with him. Why no matter how quiet, how vocal, how diligent, or how lax, he had little to no power to control or manage the emotional storms.

Only the tenacity of weathering.

Kindnesses, when they came, were as wonderful as the fall breeze. But the tone of life for decades was like the turgid heat of summer: cruel, burning, and seemingly without end.

What kept Jack going was the realization that, like summer, every season must end.

The tenacity of weathering.

He sat on his faded deck now. The morning sun warming him while a cool breeze let him know the actual season was, indeed, about to change. Contemplating why the deck chairs were tumbled and piled in the particular fashion they were, Jack swatted at the tenacious and hungry mosquitoes.

The thoughts were too heavy for a Monday morning.

While Jack was lost in a dark reverie, a jet roared far overhead carrying bleary-eyed souls from one end of the continent to the other. Loved ones to or from loved ones. Lives made whole.

Or sometimes broken.

More closely, the birds chittered and gossiped about who was building what nest and where this other bird had migrated.

The cat prowled and poked at the woodpile while the squirrels barked and ch-ch-ch’d at the feline from high in the mulberry tree.

And the bees, little darts of light in the morning sun, cared not at all for the rivalries of mammals or aves alike.

The world and the universe turned in spite of it all.

In spite of Jack’s heavy heart.

Just as it always had, and always would.

—

‘Do you miss her?’

Jack was surprised by the question.

‘What? Where did that come from?’ he responded.

‘I don’t know. Just wondering… you get that faraway look sometimes when you get quiet.’ she said hesitantly.

Jack sighed. He wanted to talk about this. He needed to. But there was never any resolution, only accusation and incrimination.

When ‘she’ came up, it no longer ended in argument, just being reminded how wrong he was. A thing that, while mathematically wrong, felt absolutely correct. Like standing on perfect level. This thing had come to define him.

Jack found this strange. There were always definitions. His wife defined him as an inattentive workaholic, a sweetie but clueless. His coworkers defined him as never-fail and get-it-done. His congregation knew him as always-on and always-answers-the-phone.

How quick it seemed others were to rewrite the dictionary, while never really knowing him. Without seeing the cluttered mess of his heart or how important it was to feel loved.

Oh, Jack had heard plenty of expressions of love. And he even believed they were earnest. But no matter how desperate you were to make someone understand you in German, if they didn’t speak German, all you’d convey is energy.

The nuance washes away. The details never known.

Feeling. Un-conveyed.

‘Sometimes.’ That was all he said. Anything less would be clearly a lie. Anything more would just introduce negative energy.

Jack’s new steady reality was tenable, like most of his life. He’d endured worse than this.

Way worse than this.

The world was still full of micro and macro miracles. All things considered, feeling sorry for himself was hardly even worth the effort.

—

Jack recalled their last argument. No, not an argument. Arguments are two parties disagreeing, each stating their justifications.

But in this case Jack presented a game he’d made six years ago. Nothing special. Just a retooled version of Pictionary.

Incomplete but they’d had fun playing back when he rolled out v1 and he wanted to revise it with some new and improved features.

But Rose had no memory of the game, or of ever playing it.

‘Where’d you get THAT?!’ She barbed, the implication clear.

Jack didn’t bother trying to convince Rose of reality, he just explained the facts and let her accept them or not.

She did. Eventually. Jack thought it strange that reality took five hours to sink in. But, at least it did sink in.

—

September 14, 2026. Jack wrote it in long hand. And he counted forward and back 5019 days:

- December 17, 2012 – He was newly minted in the world of cave diving. Determined to find his treasure in the shoals and caves of the Carolina coast.

• June 11, 2040 – 'Jack', he thought, 'you'll be a very old man if you live that long. And you'll still be looking for your fortune off the beach.'

Today was a pivot, a moment halfway between then and now. His spaceship would never be in this place in space-time again. The planet moved, the sun moved, the galaxy moved...his heart moved. All while the universe breathed.

Breath. That's what Jack needed to do.

Put his bare feet on the cool stone and name 5 things he could touch.

“Okay, let's start.”

#amber #orbit #weather #ghost #undertow #static #gravity