night of the living

That night, as the Big Bang Theory was about to start at 11 p.m., I laced the short shoestrings on my boots, added a sweatshirt with a hood, unhung my heaviest and closest jacket and wrote a note: "Mom or Dad, I'm outside. Don't worry. I'll be back. I have my phone with me - 330 268 6904. I'm not driving, I'm walking. Be back, Love John."

I had just been lying on the spacious floor between my bed and window. The moon shined in a high corner of my window. I could see it. From another angle I might have just seen a slightly brighter room. "Okay, I'll go." Even as they are here when a month ago they were not, even as it is snowing as a month ago it would have not.

I wrote the note, grabbed hats and gloves and considered where to drop it. The bar in the hallway, by a pair of shoes, the kitchen table near the telephone or the second from the bottom step. That's the one I picked.

How did I feel? Like I'd just spent the day at school and could recall every 52 minute period but answered - to keep consistent - fine. I felt fine. Oh, I guess my blood was boiling some. I had just "exercised my middle finger" through an unrecoverable, soon to open email. Stay away I say! Leave me to have night on the road, vulnerable, looking over my shoulder.