Heat

I don't know why or how it was that he came to knock on my door, but he did. When I looked through the screen at a younger me, he turned around and ran.

He was faster, lighter, and younger, so I had to go extra hard to keep him in sight. I yelled at him to slow down because I had things I needed to tell him about women, work, and money. He slowed just enough to be able to hear me, but not enough to let me get close, to reason with him.

I was out of breath.

"Don't give up your soul for comfort," I shouted.

He cocked his head and thought about that. I noticed his jeans were worn at the seat and that he was skinnier than I remember being. There was something very sad in his eyes.

I wanted to tell him things about being a man. That he should get better organized, not be in such a hurry, so desperate, so needy. I wanted to tell him about pain, about being with pain, learning to study it, to breathe in it, even though part of you is panicking to end it, get it over, take painkillers. There was also the stuff about our father, how he would forgive.

But he picked up his pace until he saw a young woman running toward us. An older one was chasing her, as desperately as I was, more winded even, but tougher too.

The young ones met and ducked into an alley before speeding off in  a car I sold thirty years ago. I didn't get a chance to tell him that I wrecked that car.

A familiar face looked into mine from the face of an old woman, more or less my age. She shook her head and looped her arms around my neck.

She cried softly as my old car sped past in the other direction, into an unknown future.