He sits on the edge of the bed a while, not thinking about anything but the bed itself, the broken-down softness of the old mattress and how it will accept him. How good sleep is, after such a day. Six hundred miles, and nothing to see but tail lights and rain.

There was a time when he was much younger – in high school and college – when he often thought it was alright, coming in barely at twilight, to lie down on his bed for a while, for no reason at all but to forgive the day’s serrated edge before dinner. But middle age blunts the blade of days, and one learns to tolerate the hammer blows of years. A man does nothing for no reason at all.

On the nightstand, he finds the remote for the CD player and starts the concertos for flute that help him drift to sleep. He stands and steps over the dog waiting on the oval rug beside the bed, closes the curtains, slips into bed and kills the light.

The darkness is sweet, entire, pure as the winter air that presses on the glass. He feels the dog jump up by his feet and take her place behind his knees. He reaches down into the void, picturing her just laying her little head on the folds of the down comforter, and finds her soft ears and the top of her head with his fingertips. He speaks to her.

“That’s my good girl. Dat’s my bestest friend. Now we’ll get some good rest…” And in seven minutes, they are both asleep. They are far and away.

________________

He is on a street corner downtown, in an older part of the city that he knows from his past. He hasn’t been there in years. But it is as it often was when he left work late and walked to the rental parking lot to retrieve his car. It is moonless, misty and wet. Rain drips from the streetlamps, as though it has just stopped pouring. The small shops and bars in the old brick buildings are dark, their windows ash gray.

Ash gray and blown black with fresh rain, the street recedes into his deep unconscious, as the dog sleeps against the backs of his knees, breathing and kicking a little with her paws, dreaming of birds.

There is something he needs, must have. Something. Down there, where the night, blown black with rain and dripping darkness, disappears. He moves on. Can’t imagine what it could be. Must have it, though, and moves down the street, catching glimpses through the ash covered windows, of broken furniture caked in dust.

At last a window, a shop full of light; the light of it achingly white and falling out onto the puddled bricks. He turns. The shop is empty, but for a table and on it a box. Red oak, black latch and hinges, dust. Rounded top and half a coffin long. This has belonged to him forever, waiting here.

Freight on Board.

Cash on Delivery.

He goes in. Bell over the door jangles like a dry cough. Dust sifts from the rafters as he shuts the door. The old man looks up and nods. The shop is small and the light is going dim. When he opened the door, the night came too, envious. The night, wet and sick and far from home, wants the box for herself.

The night has the means to pay.

He turns to the box, which is shrinking, falling away as the old man watches him, nodding.

Take the damn thing and go. What you need and must have is inside.

He takes it, heavy and cold, the size of a loaf of bread. He lifts the lid as the night falls back, dejected. And inside, after all these years, the dog shifts on the bed behind him, where the covers have gotten too warm for sleep. She rises and jumps to her rug on the floor, where a good dog can stretch out and dream.

© 2005 Kyle Kimberlin