Geir
Emperor Mongoose
This doesn’t belong here, but its been a tough couple of months and I’ve not gotten the writing that I’m supposed to do done, so when words come to me in the middle of the night, I have to write them down.
People in here about my age might or might not relate. There’s been a lot of drama and change (and I still don’t have my new computer all the way set up) and that leads to bad sleep and jumbled dreams. Fortunately not dreams of preparing for a trip.
Dreams have enough reference and conflation to keep a narrative track, at least while you’re still asleep, and I translated the middle of the night conflation into this. Could possibly be an opening to something, or just thoughts in the mist.
It was a chance encounter. She was in town for some conference and I was really just wasting some time until my pension came in. It had been thirty years, but we recognized each other right away.
I invited her to lunch.
She looked at the ring on my finger and raised an eyebrow.
I said, “She trusts me. I’ve been married twenty-seven years and I love her very much.”
She smiled and said. “I’ve been married three times and I don’t even hate them.”
I looked down at my weathered hands and up at her face. “You’ve hardly aged.”
“Oh, there’s a wrinkle here and a sag there, but I try to stay out of the sun.” She gave another faint smile, slightly menacing, exposing sharp incisors. Her eyes glinted that she was joking. Probably.
At lunch I did most of the talking, regaling her with tales of people we once knew and others she’d never met. They were characters pompous and regal, ambitious and foolish, sometimes all at once. She laughed at my jokes and asked leading questions. I didn’t want to dominate the conversation and tried to ease her out, but she said very little with words meant to deflect. I let her get away with it. It was a fun lunch.
As we left the lounge we talked of meeting again before she left, but I knew we wouldn’t. She gave me a hug and whispered in my ear. “I would have hated you.”
People in here about my age might or might not relate. There’s been a lot of drama and change (and I still don’t have my new computer all the way set up) and that leads to bad sleep and jumbled dreams. Fortunately not dreams of preparing for a trip.
Dreams have enough reference and conflation to keep a narrative track, at least while you’re still asleep, and I translated the middle of the night conflation into this. Could possibly be an opening to something, or just thoughts in the mist.
It was a chance encounter. She was in town for some conference and I was really just wasting some time until my pension came in. It had been thirty years, but we recognized each other right away.
I invited her to lunch.
She looked at the ring on my finger and raised an eyebrow.
I said, “She trusts me. I’ve been married twenty-seven years and I love her very much.”
She smiled and said. “I’ve been married three times and I don’t even hate them.”
I looked down at my weathered hands and up at her face. “You’ve hardly aged.”
“Oh, there’s a wrinkle here and a sag there, but I try to stay out of the sun.” She gave another faint smile, slightly menacing, exposing sharp incisors. Her eyes glinted that she was joking. Probably.
At lunch I did most of the talking, regaling her with tales of people we once knew and others she’d never met. They were characters pompous and regal, ambitious and foolish, sometimes all at once. She laughed at my jokes and asked leading questions. I didn’t want to dominate the conversation and tried to ease her out, but she said very little with words meant to deflect. I let her get away with it. It was a fun lunch.
As we left the lounge we talked of meeting again before she left, but I knew we wouldn’t. She gave me a hug and whispered in my ear. “I would have hated you.”
