A Perfect Life
by Moshe Dann (November 2013)
A grey winter sky drooled over lines of cars that wound along the icy Boston streets around the park. I imagined him hiding among the dark trees that hovered above the snow. Mac, I thought, where the hell are you?
Standing up, he wiped his hands on his overalls and nodded.
Glancing at my watch, I figured that I could still make it back to the plane in time.
The cabin consisted of one large room: a pot-bellied stove fashioned out of an oil drum in the center, a bed and dresser against one wall, and a thick wooden table covered with papers. Cardboard boxes were stacked in a corner. I compared it with my apartment, with its color TV and modern appliances.
He nodded unsympathetically.
I looked at my watch. Dutch would be taking off in a few minutes. There was no time to get there. I was stuck.
Back inside he lit a fire and we ate his rice and vegetable stew, our weariness overwhelming us. The smell of burning wood and the heat curled around us as we sat around the stove watching red embers dance with flames.
When I awoke, Mac was cooking cereal in a heavy black pot covered with layers of previous fires. I stretched and yawned, wincing as I pushed myself up.
My stomach rumbled. Even cooked cereal, which I never eat, smelled good. I washed my hands and face in a bucket of cold water outside as dense mists lifted into the clear blue sky.
He leaned on a tree. I put an arm around him, feeling his weakness, our worlds and fragility now intertwined.
By the time we got to the end of the trail, I was almost carrying him and when we made it to the paved road, he collapsed. I flagged down a car and asked the driver to help us get into town.
I was afraid Mac had lost consciousness. He was hardly breathing as we rushed him into the emergency room where a young doctor examined him.
Standing in front of the cabin, I remembered how I had surprised Mac and had a fantasy that he would surprise me now, his eyes peering from the shuttered windows, his absent voice caught in the creaking stairs, in the groan of the old wooden porch.
here.
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