The Sun, the Moon, and Maybe the Trains

by Rodney Jones

  She turned to me. “What the hell is this?”

  I nodded, doing my best to hold back the energy bubbling within me. “That key you’re looking for.” I pointed to the spot where it fell. “It’s right there. If it’d make you any more comfortable, I’ll move on back while you get it.” I took a large, deliberate step backward.

  She eyed me up and down, just as I remembered her doing the day we met. Her eyes darted down toward the flowers and then back to me, studying me with what seemed more like curiosity than consternation.

  I was surely beaming. “My name’s John Bartley.”

  I wasn’t certain it registered; she appeared more interested in my clothes. “Are you homeless?”

  Home. I felt the smile fall from my face. The picture I’d always carried in my mind was still there, though I knew it was no longer true.

  “Yeah.” I glanced toward the mountain. I was in no mood to explore the truth beyond that obvious fact, so I replied, “I reckon I am.”

  about the author

  While a past resident of Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, Florida, New York, and Vermont, Rodney Jones now resides in Richmond, Indiana, where he whiles away his days pecking at a laptop, riding his ten-speed up the Cardinal Greenway, taking long walks with his daughter, or backpacking and wilderness camping.

  His list of past occupations reads like his list of past residences, though his life-long ambition was to be an artist until he discovered a latent affinity for writing.

  “In art,” Rodney says, “I was constantly being asked to explain images constructed from a palette of emotions and ideas, which usually required complex narratives to convey their meaning, if there even was a meaning. In writing, the words are creating the images, images are telling a story, the story is evoking feelings. I like it. There’s nothing to explain.”

  Rodney’s interests include: art, science, politics, whiskey and chocolate, music (collecting vinyl records), gardening, and travel.