You Will Never Walk Again

Here's the last installment. Thanks for staying with it!

"Mark called," Josh says, when I walk in the door. I set down my purse and collapse onto the couch. "Where have you been all day?"
"Shopping for Christmas presents. I don’t want to do it all last-minute," I say.

"Me neither," Josh says. "But it always turns out like that." He’s drinking a Rolling Rock and watching Fight Club. Brad Pitt is telling Edward Norton what he is not. I wish someone would tell me what I am, but then again, maybe not.

"You want to go out tonight?" I ask, expecting a no, but Josh surprises me by getting his coat. I look at the caller id and see Mark’s number and some strange numbers, ones that could be anyone, Coley calling from her parents’ house, Kevin calling from his trip with the wifey, telemarketers, people dialing the wrong person. Despite the cold, Josh and I decide to walk to Nolan’s, a bar a couple of blocks away. It’s deader than usual inside, but it’s somewhere different. Nobody knows where we are and can’t drop by. Someone has already put up Christmas decorations, big red stocking hung on the bar with employees names in gold glitter on their white tops. Our waitress brings us whatever we want and we sit without talking while the snow comes down, covering everything and making it look cleaner and more beautiful, like a Christmas scene. We don’t have to get up for anything so we don’t. You will never walk again, I think, except it doesn’t have the ominous ring that it did when we were children, and I know we will walk again, if only to return home.


Michelle's Spell of the Day

You know, all writers are vampires and ... they'll look around and they watch you when you're not even thinking they're watching you and they'll slip stuff in.” James Gandolfini

Cocktail Hour

Drinking music suggestion: Celebrity Skin Hole

Benedictions and Maledictions

Happy Monday!