Sleeping with the Storm

The blood speaks.

Sorry. You’re on your own. The heart’s in charge. Don’t blame me. I would if I could. You know I love fingers like the next guy. But the brain, the core. There’s a limited amount to go around. That’s just the way it is. You asked for it. Good luck. 

Then silence—the white-noise silence of 50 mph gusts, winter cracking its icy whip across the sunset mountain’s exposed summit. I windmill my right arm so hard it seems as though the problem hand will separate, arc into open space, catch the gale, ride away. Down to the valley floor, that impossibly distant world of roads, meadows, cozy farms. Down to that L.L. Bean catalog where a bitter, blasted evening is an invitation to snuggle up in flannel pajamas, pour a noggin of brandy, and look out the window. Down to that quaint, gentle, relaxed Vermont where my life mostly lives.

Please, blood, don’t forsake the fragile pinky, the innocent stumpy thumb!