Solitude

He and the cat greeted the morning by sleeping in. It was October, finally, and the swamp cooler, failing as it was, took a break after the marathon of summer in the desert. Glorious is the work of the slug-a-bed. But there was more here. He tasted the rare prospect of being at the helm of his day. No honey-doos, no work drudgery, no immediate home crisis. This had to be one of the rarest of rare experiences a human being can have he thought to himself. True, he was limited by money and his lack of fitness, but he was free to get up and do whatever the hell he wanted for maybe the first time in his long, plodding adult life. This was the key, he realized, to finding some of what he had lost over the years. The way, as usual, but now so utterly distinct, was to find a blank sheet of paper and pick up where some part of him,that part that still held a dream, had left off.