I Want to Hear Your Story

The loneliness of my existence is my own doing. I realize that. I might as well be in a starship heading to proxima centari B. I suppose by then there will be a real doll like in the twilight zone to keep me company. I have enough food, water, and fuel to go indefinitely. Toilet paper and Kleenex shortages will be my undoing though. Everyone is gone. Light years ago. Space is cold. Space is dark. The stars cluster..a few billion here, a few billion there. Things that have been discarded still cling to the ship for lack of anything better to cling to. At my speed if it gets loose,any planet it hits would think it was a nuclear bomb but in reality it was just a dump I took several years ago.

I still see here face. Her smile. Her dress,. White diamonds 1/4 x 3/8 inch on a silver backing. I looked away and she was gone.

I am in the bar. The lights are low. Booths line the curved wall. Paneling goes halfway up. The two of them are sitting in the booth at the end. She sees me. She stands. She runs to me with hopping steps and that tight smile. She hugs me and the next moment I'm alone outside the bar in my car on a cold winters night in December. She has been gone for months.

I'm by her bed in the hospital. Tears streaming down my face onto her. I'm praying. I'm telling her how much I love her. We are alone. The windows are dark. It is night or are we in space? It is hard to tell. I sit there my head resting on her. I hear her whisper, "I'm thirsty".