Looking out across the lake there's something coming. Ignore the sky and it could be rain or an unnamed, unexplained swarm boiling beneath the surface. But the clouds are few and colorless and the fish hold no mystery. They've all been caught at least once, don't you think? No, it's just the wind sending ripples across the pane glass surface. The boats rock against their tethers.
***
My seat is a curb in this crowded parking lot where people oooh and aaah to my left and right and I am alone. I sit down late and last minute never leaves the scene. I look up but look back, remembering years ago, lying on a blanket watching the lights explode and fade leaving smoke imprints in the sky floating like specters behind the here and now. The sound echoed in the hollow of my chest and light after light lasted forever. Tonight I'm not looking for magic but I wanted to feel something. Lonely is not what I expected.
***
She's sitting near the shore, lake up to her waist, legs in front of her floating on their own accord. She pulls stones from the soft sand and declares them BIG before tossing them into the water. A boat passes. She points. When the wake reaches her, pushing her pulling her, she watches the waves fold onto the shore -- shouting where moments ago there were only whispers -- and her eyes are big and wary. The water gentles and she remembers the stone folded between her fingers. She tosses it. It splashes.
***
I turn on the tap and look out at the grainy purple dusk settling over our backyard. Glass halfway to lips I freeze frame, arrested by the ordinary, made breathless by the everyday. A hundred fireflies take turns sounding in a silent symphony, pricking holes in the approaching black that fill with light rushing in from another world. I can't drink deeply enough.
***
I'm pretty sure I know my body but I've pretty nearly convinced myself this can't be real. I take the test anyway. A plus sign. It screams POSITIVE and FOUR and OMG. It flips my calendar and timetable and expectations and forecasts over and upside down and out the window. I never saw this coming. I'm rocked. I'm at square one. I'm bewildered. But here I am, two once again, and totally, totally awestruck.
