Breakfast

The smell of fresh brewed coffee and sausages frying in the pan drew him up out of bed and into the kitchen. It was arrayed much in the same way it always was with floral place-mats and silverware exhibited on the table as though the morning bore no uniqueness or significance to any other. The only unfamiliar mark was the collection of flowers in a banded vase on the sill, giving him a reminder of the thorny reality. She hardly saw him sit down against the golden windowpane through the grease smoke from the stove and her own pivoting labor. She said nothing to him, instead going over and giving an embrace that was close and still and prolonged. She took a seat at the table and wiped her eyes. "Did you sleep good?", she asked him.

"Not really", he said. "Where'd those flowers come from?"

"Oh, those." She looked up from her mug. "The Williamson family dropped them off earlier. They came with a sympathy card and they apologized for not making it out yesterday."

"That was nice of 'em."

"Yeah. I made some breakfast if you're hungry. Some scrambled eggs and sausage. Are you ready for coffee?"

"I guess so", he said and she got up to pour him a cup. With squinted and sleepy eyes he watched her cut through the awakening light in the weathered kitchenette. Her grandmother's cast iron skillet crackled and popped in the narrow passage. When she returned she sat again and they started drinking together. He peered into the drink. "I... uh. I had dream", he looked up and said.

"Really", she replied. "What about?"

He straightened his posture and bent his arms on the table and around the cup. "Do you remember the Chastine brothers?"

"I think I remember you talkin' about them, yeah. Wasn't one of them in a wheelchair?"

"Yeah, Bobby was. The older one. They both fought in Nam. Bobby lost his legs. We were just kids."

"Where are they now?"

"I don't know. I haven't talked to 'em in years. I remember when I saw Bobby after he came back from the war. I couldn't believe it was him. He was so different. It wasn't just the chair. It was just how he was. Like he was an old man or something. He told me about happened over there. I told him I was just happy he and Ray were alive."

"Ray?"

"Ray was the younger one. Anyway, Bobby said being in the chair wasn't that bad. He said what got him was these dreams he would have every night. Cause in his dreams he still had his legs. He would walk around and just, you know, do normal stuff. Like ride a bike or..." His eyes trailed off and a vague smirk formed in the corners of his dry lips. "...Maybe he would run those touchdowns like he used to do when we were in highschool. Yeah. But the thing was, the dreams were so real that he believed them when they were happening. So when he woke up he'd have to remind himself all over again that he couldn't walk. That he'd never walk again. Every single morning."

He sat quiet with eyes falling down to the scuffs and notches on the heavy oak slab, barely acknowledging the lithe giver across it. She sipped her beverage and watched him clench his jaw in meditation of thoughts weighty and incessant. She broke the silence. "What are you saying?", she asked him.

Injury was in his voice. "He's not coming back", he sighed. "My father is dead."

Comments

  1. AnonymousJune 6, 2012 at 8:37 AM

    Wow! Excellent work on this one, friend. Great pacing; slowly introducing all of these different, seemingly unrelated elements of the story before tying them all together with that last line. Especially since, after he started with the story about the brothers, it looked like he was gonna eventually say that the dream was about THEM. But at the end, suddenly you get the full perspective of what he was talking about. A very satisfying sort of "reveal", if you will.

    Very nice. Looking forward to more! :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. JeremiahJune 6, 2012 at 9:13 AM

    Sank yu.

    ReplyDelete

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