Fire Down Under

He pulls the curtains open, can’t see the sky for the dry weeds. He’s been thinking of his wife.

Cancer took her before the drought. He’d grumbled about their cat, but his wife knew his heart.

When a starving dingo killed it, he’d cried like a little kid. He leaves the fridge open for the cool, but today it chugs to a final stop. He lays out three lines of what his buddy C.J. calls Indigo Moon, but it’s all the same to him.
When darkness falls, he checks the cabinet. There it is, the bottle of Bundy Rum with all the little marks on it he’s made on it, an inch or so at a time, to make it last. Screw this, he fills a glass to the brim, lights a cig, opens the window to let in some cooler air. Horizon’s lit up like Christmas, the smell of smoke, a rising wind.

∼ Marge Simon