One Direction Home

Out of the netherworld, through an oppressively humid haze, I materialize at a shore front — the city behind me a stony sentinel, silent and shimmering, in the vapor. I turn from the city and there, where the lake meets a path line, stands a weatherworn green bicycle with drop handlebars.

I intuit that this is my way back home to Boston. The mushroom hiss haze fades away as the sun zeppelins its own path out of the clouds. There is only one direction home and it unspools out to the northwest and I intuit, again, that it will turn sharply east and I’ll be home again.

Just pump the pedals — grind away through the hottest days in recorded human history — and all will be well.

Well. Well. Well.

It’s good to be home again.

What I’m Reading:

It’s only fair that the person who gets left behind gets to tell the story.

— Debbie Urbanski / Portalmania: Stories