There was the rattan chair in the corner where the light streamed in from over top of the pale verdant tips of the new budded trees. The light. The woven seat and back. Hand made bookcases I’d never see again. A mirage of light expanding over books no one wanted. A collection of words strewn into boxes headed for Goodwill. Emotions centered in reddish clay dust, emotions that rode out to California to the co-creator of UNIX. Everything a language, the light, the rattan weave, the lost books of implication. The medicine laid out behind the toilet like the preparations for a carpet bombing. I knew what he knew in very slight mannerisms and cautious retaliations. Everything lit by a dropping sun, scented by the fresh blossoms even as the temperature took cover. The car was gone, they took the scooter chair, they came and made ashes. I got an archive of images of people only he knew the names of… the light flickering into sepia, into the blank face of absence. And you dipped your hat, like this was a cabaret.
by Hank Cherry
