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Night run

I never run for long. Just long enough for a pleasant loop around all the pretty houses, around all the ugly houses. When I run, I teach my mind to wander.
            Just yesterday some folks and I went out for clam chowder. I’m an old fool and a lazy conversationalist. Making good conversation is like avoiding sprinklers in your mother’s garden. I had to do something in that damn fish house, so I scribbled a few words on a napkin: romance: an empty tin of chocolate covered raisins.
            Anyway.
            I’m running under silver rain on a weepy street that sweats worms. The moon hums. I listen to restless, slithering serpents in the grass. Funny what might be considered a song.
A voice shatters everything.
“Dad?” Oh no, that’s my son. My son and his burgundy van.
            I try to look small like a rabbit on the side of the road. I think rabbits make a conscious effort to look small.
            “Dad!” he scolds me, “You can’t be out here like this.” All at once I am swallowed by a blanket, and Drew opens the back door of the van and rolls me inside. I hate that door. Every time he opens that door I hate it all over again.

            You know what else I hate? The fancy floor mirror in my entryway. Every time I pass that mirror I see myself and my hollow imagination. I see my wheelchair. Mostly, I see where my thighs end before my knees.  

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