One Miracle Left

It’s a windy late afternoon, like so many other windy late afternoons. I can just see the sun, hidden behind the dust and dirt that hangs in the air as if it’s always been there and always will be. The dust and dirt that must move in the wind, but never seems to change from day to day, as if there’s a filthy lid over the world. It is late afternoon of a day measured not by hours or ticks on the clock, but by the dim light of the sun, masked by clouds thick with sand and dirt. It is measured not by the endless drone of mind numbing television told in thirty minute blocks, but by the stories that the old man relates as he sits on the steps, to anyone willing to listen. There is an old clock in the garage, behind the skeleton of a car stripped of any part that could be used or traded. It’s hands forever proclaiming 3 o’clock, and nobody knows why it stopped just then. Or they aren’t willing to talk about it, because of what happened just then. It could have been so many things and none of them really matter now because there’s no going back. So we move forward, at a pace measured by the sand and the stories and the dim light of the sun. And I think about you.

When a motorcycle screamed past us a week ago, I prayed that it was you. But then I prayed it wasn’t you because it kept going. I think of you when I see the nameless cat darting between buildings. Nobody tries to catch it, and everyone finds a scrap of food to leave for it because it has a litter of kittens somewhere. It is life, and its litter is the persistence of life, and that’s more powerful than a little hunger or the missing of a meal.

When I wake up to find no message from you, as has been the case for what I think is six months, I am reminded of what I became accustomed to before I lost it, just like so many others lost their own. I am reminded of distance and time and the low and slow ache of never hearing from you again. I am reminded of what I had that now is so very far away and unreachable. So imagine my surprise when a woman arrived, on horseback, at our nameless little strip mall of a town at dinner time. She had your letter with her, along with about a dozen more letters, for people who lived, I assume, further along the road. We fed her and her horse, who looked as if it would not make it to your coast, and she was good enough to wait while I wrote you this letter:

By a miracle, I got your letter, and I’m sorry to say that I just don’t see how it can work out. I understand why you do what you do. When Hope is all you’ve got, you use it. But there isn’t any more mail delivery. The last train went through here two weeks ago. I’m entrusting this to a complete stranger for two hundred dollars and a gallon of gas. I don’t have any use for either of them anymore. I would come myself, but I don’t think she can take me, and if I got there and you were gone I’d lose my last illusion of hope. And if for whatever reason I couldn’t reach you, I’d be lost and you wouldn’t be able to find me anymore. Our threadbare connection would be gone. And no, I don’t expect to get an answer. With no mail or Fedex or anything like that anymore, it’s just impossible. It would have been lovely. One dinner would have been nice. One concert. A drink somewhere. A cup of coffee and a sunrise. Maybe there’s one miracle left in the world, and it will be for us. In the meantime, we can still dream. Is that why you still hope and plan and dream? I suppose if we worried about it making sense there’d be no reason to get up in the morning, and like you, I still do. Hoping for a miracle. Bless you my dear.