Breathless

I am a conservative young gentleman.

I walked towards the front door, pulled open the screen door. I turned and starred at Merriam. Her dark ruby lips pull away from the coffee mug as she sets it on the table.

"You still owe me eight fifty,” she says as she closes her eyes and then opens them. I see her eyes trace the trail of blood pooling underneath me from my forehead.

She can be very persuasive.

I leave. I turn left after getting to the end of the boulevard. I walk and walk and think and pray. And come to the pier. I stare at the deep appropriately named Lake Eerie. It was misty and endless and hopeless and godless. It reminded me of Merriam. It was mysterious and dark and beautiful.

Weeping softly, I ran to the only safe place left.

“Robert!” I cry, bursting through the door. “I’m going to do it. Jump off the Pier.”

“Frank, Frank, no, no, no.” Robert always tried to be strong, but he couldn’t be strong for me right now. So he mixes strength in a bottle, and we drink in silence to memory. Some to remember, mostly to forget.

I run back to the Pier, and just look. A very wise man once said “if you’ve never starred off into the distance, then your life is a shame.” I would hate to die in shame. So I looked, and saw a bird hovering over the lake. It didn’t seem to move, just floating in front of me. Then in an instant it was gone.

So I step, one step too far, far too few steps in a lifetime. And as my feet move over the ledge, my head stays behind. I lay there on the end of the Pier, with Merriam clenching a fistful of my hair, still attached to my head. We stared into the distance, inside each others shallow eyes.

The next morning they found us, naked, breathless on the beach.