vOYAGE:O'Side

by Francis Kroncke

CHAPTER 22

  When he woke, night had come. January’s heat—dry and leeching—had kicked—in...snow outside, just a thought; ten below, just a thought. Mom! just a thought. Dad! just a thought.

  When he woke the second time he knew he was not alone.

  With great effort he resurrects himself.

  The head agony is customary. The toilet mouth, a known entity. The fearful dread of coming back to consciousness—encountered so many times.

  Who?

  “Jack!” Half-croaked, hoarsely whispered. No one, not a thing stirs in the deprived light.

  Shit, not Jack. For Frank sees that the room has been cleaned and straightened.

  Shit, not Bertha. She wasn’t into “housekeeping.” But just her name has him searching down his trousers—Still there.

  It was a half-moon, Mid-Western bright on frigid January early morn...a moon which did things with shadows and snow and the wind which neither Frank nor Bertha nor Jack would, could, maybe even should ever know. But, if asked. Frank would have had no recall of anything like the stage of the moon, or the clock-time, or any detail of his life before this moment, for it became “The Moment”—where he first became fully not—alone.

  “The Moment” was present as Dalores.