Circle line

"She would be so touched if she saw all this..." (sic)

Somehow, I think not. I rather think She would run screaming for the Hills... and right over them, and cross, still screaming, into another dateline.

... perhaps I'll show all this to Her one day, when She's eighty, has a hip prosthesis and can't run up hills anymore. Laugh.

*****
"Hello, X...?"

My God... "K...!"

Every word a laugh, or a precursor to a laugh....

A doorway of light and laughter so very unexpectedly opens in my darkness which has been steadily growing, and turning me to the night.

Unexpected - I was expecting a somber shot at a halfway-apology. Dispassionate discourse between two strangers. Hello, Goodbye.

Not You, sounding the way You always did, that same concern, that same wit.

I don't need to remember the exact details of our conversation.

Save for that in those ten brief minutes, all the troubles of my world melted away and I didn't need to talk to You about them... the dingy consultation room evaporated, the apology came and was dismissed, and it was so much easier to breathe, and laugh, and laugh again.

And when reality finally tried to bite, it didn't really hurt that much anymore.