Thread: 2 days, ten years apart

January 30th, 1999:

Michael's eyes lit up when I entered the gallery for his first show.

"You came!" he said.

Four hours later, the doorbell rang. When I answered it, he was there on my porch, with a bottle of wine.

"ummmm . . . . hi!" he said, suddenly shy.

Later still, I stood outside in the cold on the back porch with him while he smoked. He caught my eyes with his and then looked down at the ground.

"I am kinda attracted to you," he said.

"I'm kinda attracted to you, too," I said. He smiled, just as he had when I walked into his art show.

"I thought maybe you were," he said.

A few minutes later, back inside in front of the fire, I pulled his lips to mine.

* * *

sometime in 2001:

"I had a weird dream last night," I told him. "I owned a helicopter and you were flying us somewhere and you wrecked it, but we weren't hurt."

He laughed. "Flying a helicopter would be the best!"

Five years later, long after our lines-blurred friendship/love had ended, he joined the national guard and became a helicopter pilot.

* * *

January 30, 2009:

A guy Michael and I used to hang out with years ago called me at the office. Every two years or so he has some legal problem and calls me for free advice, after asking how I've been and saying that we need to get together.

"Oh yeah," he said, " I talked to Mike a few days ago. He is leaving for Iraq today. Crazy, huh?"

A few hours later, my doorbell rang. My husband answered it. It was our surrogate mother and her husband, with cups of our favorite coffees from Starbucks. And a positive pregnancy test.

When I finally got to bed that night, my mind was mainly focused on my happiness, my future, my growing family.

But not entirely. I remembered him, too. My exuberant artistic ex-marine adrenaline junkie. The first guy I loved. It turns out that we both got what we wanted in life. Just not with each other.

I don't think that dreams can be prescient. But I worry. I don't want his helicopter to crash.

I like this piece a lot, came back here and read it on two different occasions. I am curious about why it is posted in nonfiction.

I don't have any real crits except that the use of the term "hang out" strikes me as painting somewhat more a masculine image.

Other than that, I'd say you have done a very, very good job of covering a great deal with very few words.

Good, solid writing.

Thank you, Lester. Very much!

I posted it here because it is autobiographical. Hence the use of "hang out". Maybe I should have put it in "how was your week"?

How is it that you seem to have the most interesting life of anyone here, Alan? Is it just the way you write about it--Well, I suppose it has to be because the only things I know of you are what you've written here.

What a neat window you've stuck into the forum wall with this piece, Alan. Bravo.