On the Ionian

He dropped to his knees and kissed the ground. Would she still be there? He had no reason to believe she had waited for him, but something in his gut told him he deserved a second chance.
The fog had lifted around half past two in the morning, and the man who rented out the boats had stayed as he had said he might. Business was bad these days, and the frail old codger depended on the three or four visitors who came his way each month.
Edward watched as the man put the money in the little drawstring sack he wore around his neck. As they climbed into the boat he thought, “What a life! This geezer must survive on barely more than bread and water, and still he remains.” No doubt, he too felt the lure of the islands.
Two dogs picked through scraps in a small pile of rubbish on the beach. Obviously, they managed their meager existence through watching out for one another. The larger of them deposited a bone or something in front of the other and returned to the pile in search of his own meal. There were no gulls scavenging at that time of the morning.
“What must the old man think,” Edward wondered, “Seeing me drop to my knees like that?” He had entirely forgotten himself for just a minute or two and lost his composure in his happiness at being once again on Corfu.
As they rowed out to the smaller island, he considered the gifts contained in the bag stowed in the prow. Would he don the mask in an attempt to take her back in time, or would the gesture appear too frivolous? If he overcame his doubt, there would be time enough as he ascended the stone steps, but if he recalled the sound of her breathing, in those moments, he would not be able to stop himself from whispering her name, thereby rendering the playful mask a redundancy.

A Close Relationship

It is all my mother’s fault. I’m in this wheelchair because of her. She insisted on dressing me up for high tea with her friends. She kept me hidden from the sun’s harmful rays throughout my childhood. She published a book of children’s stories she let it be known were inspired by our close relationship. She demanded I erase entries made in my teen-aged journal, and burned it when erasing proved ineffective. When she was about to remarry, she decided I was a liability, and one afternoon held a pillowcase over my face until I stopped breathing. I didn’t die as expected, but the loss of oxygen to my brain crippled my legs. She then left me stranded here in this institution when she went off on her honeymoon.
Now, you say she wants to visit me?
Tell her I don’t know where I can find the time. I’m too busy writing my book. You might advise her it is based on our close relationship.

New Data Coming In

What else should I be, and where? I’ve been taking an online course in computer programming, but I almost never leave the grounds. I have Anthony Rother muzik piped through the house now and it keeps me edgy and somewhat frantic. A cover letter with my resume, such as it is, sits unsealed on top of the television that rarely gets turned on. Also, I’m probably drinking too much coffee.
I keep running into a young woman at the 7-Eleven. She’s all emo, but in a good way. She told me she was punk in the eighties, and though her appearance belies the age she would have to be, I believe her. She might be recalling the nineties and just got her decades mixed up. It took her long enough to open up.
She smells like attar of roses, and claims I’m fortunate to have met her as she is today because when she was pumped full of teen spirit, in the days before Kurt Cobain turned himself into a memory, she says, she never used to bathe regularly, and though her au natural odors were offputting, she enjoyed the privacy they afforded. She could walk through crowds with aplomb and did not have to stay down in a hole.
I haven’t had my hair cut in months, and the other day when I just threw on an old flannel shirt to run up to the store for some cigarettes, I met Andrea there, and she told me I looked like Kurt, and that was the highest compliment she could pay a stranger. I reminded her that we couldn’t really consider ourselves strangers by this time, and she said, “Yeah, whatever.”
I was stocked up on dry noodle soup and invited her over for lunch, and she said she’d have to think about it. I asked, “Do you work?” never thinking she might still be going to school, and she said, “You mean for money?” So what was there to think about?
Andrea is about to change her mind. I can feel it. I’ve changed mine.
I decided to have my hair cut, and send out the resume. I don’t want to remind anyone of Kurt Cobain. It’s going to take a while, however, to leave off the digital music and the coffee. Those kinds of things are habit forming, but if she does show up at my door, I know there are some Pearl Jam and Nirvana albums in the record collection gathering dust in the basement.