What Does It Say? by M. K. Dreysen

This one, almost a tone poem, is for my friend George. It's not given to me to know if stories can reach behind the Veil. But if so?

Hey, George, it's not precisely a time machine. And, I'm not sure that it'll ease the heartache completely. But this one's for you: a little 12-bar, I hope, to make the turnaround a little easier.

What Does It Say? by M. K. Dreysen

I used to write letters. Long ones, short ones. Mostly, I sat in class and scribbled away.

Knowing that my profs and fellow students would see a diligent fellow scholar. Sure, I hid from myself.

I felt like I was throwing myself into the sun. But she has that effect on people.

Time tells me I played the fool. Hell, I knew it then. I enjoyed dancing at the end of the tether I'd woven from dreams.

I would have told you those ties had been severed.

By someone else. I was never that brave. My one and only is, and did the cutting while I worried at other things.

That's what I believed, anyway. What I would happily have said, if anyone had ever thought to ask.

Until yesterday. That's when the letter came in the mail.

I wrote on whichever pad of paper came to hand. Mostly those yellow legal pads, they fit my hand and eye. But I had a stack of spiral-bound, as well, so half my letters went out with the rough tear polka of stuffing the mess into the envelope.

Hers came back in just as random an assortment, only she'd quite the collection of stationary. So in between the onion skin papers she filched from work, others appeared on those Auntie's favorites that show up on birthdays and holidays.

One of my moms gave me hell the first time one of these letters came, with perfume artfully dabbed somewhere within the envelope. Mom Lis gave me sheer hell over that one.

Did you know it's awfully difficult to hide from loving ridicule? When your work schedule doesn't overlap with the mailbox run? Yeah.

Smells still hit me like a brick. MawMaw's cooking. Cut grass. Ok, and the borderline awful, the pig pen or horse stalls.

Those, and I'm helping PawPaw fill the wheelbarrow, because the garden needs it and this is the best stuff your garden ever had. Only that means I'm about to get knee deep behind the tiller, because we always get too much rain when we don't and too little when we do.

I didn't notice the smell until I'd torn my way, ungraceful as usual, through the top of the envelope.

The paper had faded from pink? Hard to tell, except that the fade to washed-out fit with the wearing, the handling. Like the letter had sat in its envelope for decades.

I withdrew the onion skin paper. Caught my breath at the fragility of it.

And then came the scent.

And then today comes another letter. Only this one in a cascade of little paper nubbins and that old familiar hand that even my one and only despairs of after all these years.

I remember how I used to love those pens with the little ridges, the way they wore into the second knuckle after a long day. I've still got a little bit of a callous there, it comes out when I take myself to pen and paper.

It seems I have a couple of appointments to keep.

****

The first one, I went there believing there was no way the place even existed back then. Shit the road didn't even exist. Only, we're a new city growing up over the threads of an old town.

So the diner might have sat the side of a country road back then. I wonder how I knew? I walked an entirely different forest then. Jungle, even.

Just like today it's wheat toast and ice water and one egg and one slice of bacon, please and thank you. The kid on the other side still iron-lined enough to pile on the ranchero and the plate full of huevos and just leave the coffee pitcher please and thank you.

"Don't go," I tell myself.

"You know better than that," I reply.

"We'll regret it." "Yeah."

I nod and accept it just as I do the check. I make myself leave the tip. In that particular moment we're good for that much, just.

****

The second one is the movie theater. Site of midnight Rocky and Casablanca and Somewhere In Time and a thousand other chances to see what they looked like on the big screen.

She doesn't wear the perfume. She never did, wear it I mean. Just a little glass vial on the dresser.

I want to wonder what she thinks of the grey beard and the paunch I want to do something about but never quite manage.

But that's just noise, like asking myself why my one and only gets to pick out the cars when I'm the one doing a daily drive.

I smile and set aside my vanity. What I do wonder is why she's here, besides the popcorn and the chocolate.

She ignores the question, along with the few others I manage. I remain unable to convince.

Then as now, I am accustomed to failure. Though the distance and the time help, I find.

She leaves before the credits; I see a knowing, familiar smile lit by the floor lights.

****

My one and only asked me why I've been reading old letters. "She hasn't responded to one of my group emails in years," my lover reminded me.

The big holiday and invite emails. Last year, the company surprised us with a gift card. So we bought a big old whole ribeye, sliced it thick and told everyone when the charcoal would be right.

Never a word from her; my love hadn't even mentioned her name in years. Now my one and only just rolls her eyes at the old fool who shares what little space the dogs and cats allow in the bed.

The reason my love is braver than I am?

There's no bravery in just sitting quiet, not reaching out. No matter how long it took me to talk myself into not doing those things.

****

So one young fool sits down to a class where the prof fills three boards a day, in tiny print. Theorem lemma lemma proof.

Every line matters.

And our boy is busy writing a letter. Can you imagine?

I can. Which is why I'll be sitting down soon to write this out. I owe you a response.

And yeah, I'll be writing another letter, as well. Yeah, it'll be to her.

That one I owe to myself.