One Final Time

All day at work in his office, his headache grew in intensity. After the lunch hour, about 1:00, Les told his secretary, Susan, (a pretty blonde in her early forties) that he was heading home early from work.

As he drove the streets toward his house, his head pounded with an such increased pressure that he barely remembered that drive home. He didn't notice then Stella walking hurriedly down the sidewalk towards the nearest bus-stop, the same he had dropped her off a week before.

He pushed the door from his garage to his house open and slowly walked down the hall towards the kitchen, in search of a glass of water, perhaps, or something to ease the pain. The living room was dark and his eyes were blurry from the pain, so he did not notice Monica huddled over on the sofa. He moved into the kitchen without thinking and reached for a glass of water. Monica's cracking voice full of emotion startled him.

“She's pregnant,” was all Monica said. He turned slowly and tried unsuccessfully to bring his wife into view through the blurry-eyed perspective. Failing, he let her swim before her as he moved partially into the living room.

“Who?” he asked cautiously and hopefully.

“Our babysitter,” Monica said sarcastically, glaring up at him. He gulped soundlessly.

“Judy?” he wondered.

Monica sighed and stood up.

“No,” she said and walked over to him. “Stella, your little girlfriend.”

Les stumbled backwards as she approached him, trying not to fall over in the process. He felt his body start to shake as if in fever.

“How could you do this to me, to us?” Monica's voice shrieked to a thrill piercing the pain in his head. He grappled at the air, mouthing silently in anguish, as he felt his legs crumble beneath him. The last thing he saw was Monica's eyes in fear as he fell and her voice screaming, “Les!!” and then everything went dark.

Ruby was sitting up in her hospital bed. The psychiatrist had come and gone. It had been three days since the incident and the psychiatrist had decided that she was stable enough to be released. Her wrist was no longer bandaged and sported the familiar long sewn scar, reminiscent of high school. She wondered if she still had those arm bands her mother had made her wear back then. Her old room-mate, Nicole, had stopped by a little earlier and agreed to let Ruby crash at her place for awhile.

The door to the hospital room opened and Rob entered, cautiously. Slowly, he crossed the room and sat at the chair by the bed. He carried with him her guitar case and a duffel bag.

“I, uh, brought you some clothes and your guitar,” he said, breaking the silence. Ruby stared straight ahead and did not look at him.

“Thank you,” was all she would say.

“Won't you,” he began and then broke off. In a minute, he breathed in confidence and said, “Won't you come home?”

Ruby looked fully at him, trying to hide her lower lip trembling.

“Why?” she demanded to know.

“Can we work this out?” Rob offered.

“Why?” Ruby asked again, louder. “What am I to you, really? How do I know it won't happen again? God, I'm so stupid. What are we, just play-things to you?”

“No, no, not like that,” Rob pleaded. Ruby stared up at the ceiling then back at Rob. She surveyed all of him, saw a vision in her head of the first time they had met, in class, the moment she fell in love with him when their eyes had met, the first time they kissed, the feel of his naked body against hers, and then the flash of his face between the other girl's legs.

“Go!” she said at last.

“But--,” Rob protested.

She shook her head and said again, “Go.”

He stood and looked at her, his eyes pleading.

“Just go,” she said, her lip trembling, her voice starting to crack. She could feel the tears swelling in her eyes. “Go and don't come back.”

He looked longingly at her and then he turned and left the room. She let the tears flow freely, feeling loss of him, the heartbreak of letting go, and strangely a sense of empowerment. As the sobs subsided, she pulled herself from the bed. Opening the duffel bag, she pulled out the clothes and began dressing herself, preparing to leave.

Down in the emergency room, the doctors and nurses were busy with the intake of a thirty-eight year old unconscious man being wheeled on a gurney into the hospital. Unbeknownst to him, he was hooked up to IVS and life support. Flying behind him, his wife, soon to be separated, came carrying a baby, her eyes wide with worry.

She hurried over to a desk with a window and began filling out the necessary paperwork and answering the doctor's questions. In the room, Les had been taken into, a young blonde intern was busy drawing blood and running tests.

Monica paced, carrying Sam, in her arms in the waiting room, trying to calm her breathing. As the young blonde female intern came to get her, Monica thought how fitting it was that this would be his on-call doctor, that if he was awake he'd probably flirt with her. This doctor looked like a much younger version of herself, Monica thought.

“We've ran some tests and your husband tested positive for meningitis,” the blonde doctor was saying. “We would like to start him on some anti-biotics, we just need your signature.”

“Will that help?” Monica heard herself ask, as if from faraway. “Will he wake up?”

“We aren't sure,” the doctor said slowly and thoughtfully. Monica slumped into the chair further, holding Sammy closer and harder. The baby squealed a little and Monica released her grip a bit.

“We'll make him as comfortable as possible, give him a private room,” the doctor continued. “While we wait for more answers.”

“Um, okay,” was all Monica could say.

In another part of the hospital, Ruby sat filling out forms, preparing to leave the hospital and begin all over again. In the seat by her, perched her guitar case. The duffel bag was on the floor. She finished the paperwork and handed them to the secretary across the desk.

“We'll send your information to your insurance,” the secretary was saying.  She was an older, very rotund woman with short, bluish-grey hair. “We'll be in touch. You take care of yourself now, okay?”

The secretary's eyes scanned down to Ruby's left wrist and Ruby automatically pulled her sleeve down over her arm.

“Thanks,” she said and stood up, shouldering her guitar and duffel bag. She left the office and began slowly to make her way down the hall and out into the freedom of the big, bad world, to face it now all alone.

She stopped halfway down the hall and watched as several hospital staff wheeled a hospital bed in the adjacent hallway. Once they passed, she continued her journey, turning down in that same hallway but in the opposite direction, towards the front entrance of the hospital. To her surprise, a very shaken looking Monica, carrying a baby, was coming towards her.

“Monica?” Ruby asked, startled. “Why are you here?”

“It's Les,” Monica was saying, her voice full of emotion and trembling. “They say...meningitis, he's unconscious, in a coma. I don't know...”

In silence, Ruby felt the beating of her heart increase, almost could hear it beating louder. As if my heart couldn't break anymore, she thought.

“Where did they take him?” she asked.

“Room 203,” Monica answered. She hesitated and then continued, “You know he cheated on me?”

Ruby said nothing.

“Well, he did,” Monica continued. “I had just found out when he passed out in my living room. I was confronting him and then he...I thought it was my fault.”

She broke off and Ruby could see the tears falling down her face. Ruby gave her friend's wife a side hug in consolation.

Monica went on: “While I was waiting for him at home, after SHE left, I went into his office at home, I don't know why or what I was looking for, just something, some evidence of--”

She broke off and wiped her eyes with her free hand. Her purse swung by her side with the movement.

“Anyway,” she sighed and went on. She reached into her purse and pulled a photograph out of it. “I found this on his desk, right by his keyboard.”

She handed it to Ruby, who looked down at it. It was a picture of all of them from camp. She remembered that day as their day-off from counseling, when they'd all gone to town to do laundry, have a little fun. That evening of that same day she and Les had kissed. It was the whole bunch of them in a group shot, there before her was Geoff, Tara, Jess, herself, and Les. In this picture, Les had his arm around her shoulders and both of their faces beamed in a large smiles. A happier innocent time reflected back into her face, when their futures were still brightly laying before them and yet unknown.

“He always really cared for you,” Monica was saying. “I know that he didn't always show it, for whatever reason, but you really mattered to him.”

Ruby blinked back the tears from her eyes and looked up at Monica.

“What room?” she asked, her voice faltering.

“Room 203,” was Monica's automatic answer.

“Can I see him?”

“Let's see,” and the two women and one baby moved down the hallway.

Monica let Ruby enter Les's room by herself. Ruby stood dumbfounded in the room, staring at her long-time friend's still body on the bed, IV's of life all around him, a beeping and blinking machine matching his heartbeats beside him. She moved over to the chair by his side, setting her duffel bag down. Gently, she laid the guitar case on the edge of his bed. Still clutching the photograph Monica had given her, she looked for a very long time at Les.

Finally, she spoke.

“I can't believe you still have this photo,” she began, trying to sound cheerful. “I think I have one like it somewhere, I don't know where. It was so long ago, it seems now. Where did you find it?”

She waited, half wondering if he would answer. She breathed heavily.

“God, Trip, won't you just sit up now? Say this is all some stupid practical joke or something,” she bit her lip hard. Then held up her left wrist, “Kind of ironic that we both are here right now.”

She looked at the picture again in the same hand as the sewn up scarred wrist.

“You were always so good to me back then, always there for me,” she said, her voice faltering as tears began to fall. “I never really got it, you know, I don't know why I...we...never...oh, you know. We were just kids then, right? Just kids--”

She looked up tiredly at her friend.

“God dammit, Trip, just wake up. Wake up now. What the hell would I do in this world without you in it?

No answer came but the soft beeping of the monitor. Ruby laid the photograph on her lap and opened the guitar case, pulling the guitar from within. She set it cautiously on her lap on top of the photograph.

“I remember it was you that first taught me to play, you started it all,” she said almost laughing. She began to strum softly, then a song came fluttering back to her memory and she began to play.

From the depths of his unconsciousness, a memory fluttered through. A memory of a young girl on a camp stage, lit up by fire-light, singing a song from long ago, and that long ago self began to understand and inside of him now he began to feel it too.

Ruby sang and the hard years fall away, all the bitterness that had come between them dissipated with each line, her true feelings revealed themselves once again:

“I wanted to write you some words you’d remember
words so alert they’d leap from the paper
and crawl up your shoulder and lie by your ears
and be there to comfort you down through the years.

But it was cloudy that day and I was lazy
and so I stayed in bed just thinking about it.

I wanted to write you and tell you that maybe
love songs from lovers are unnecessary.
We are what we feel and writing it down.
seems foolish sometimes without vocal sound.
But I spent the day drinking coffee, smoking cigarettes
and looking in the mirror practicing my smile.

I wanted to write you one last, long love song
that said what I feel one final time.”

Ruby felt herself began to crumble inside. She gulped back her tears and went on.

“Not comparing your eyes and mouth to the stars
but telling you only how like yourself you are.
But by the time I thought of it, found a pen,
put the pen to ink, the ink to paper,
you were gone.”

She stopped singing, abruptly, unable to continue. She held the guitar in silence and looked at her unconscious friend, her childhood crush.

“And so, this song has no words,” she whispered softly. Slowly, she stood up and placed the guitar back in its case, closing the case. The photograph had fallen to the floor and she retrieved it and moved over to Les's side and looked for a long time into his face, his eyes closed from hers.

Setting the photograph on his pillow, she leaned over close to her face.

“Ollie right,” she whispered, smiling slightly. And, she kissed his lips. Then, she moved away, leaving the photograph beside him. She picked up her guitar case and her bag. Then, closing the door softly behind her, she left him.

In the hospital bed, now alone, Les's eyes opened.

Somewhere Only We Know

The End

One Final Time is lovingly dedicated to my Y-Camp friends & faithfully written for my "Trip"

One Final Time

The fire cackled bright and the smoke billowed upwards that last night at camp, their last night as junior counselors. The head counselor, Raven, took the stage to tell a story that would remain in their hearts and grow with meaning throughout their entire lives.

“There was once a little girl named Yellow,” she began. “Yellow lived in the land of yellow, where everything was yellow. Her parents, the King and Queen, told her never to go beyond her yellow walls. But, one day when Yellow was playing with her yellow ball, she threw it and it went over the wall. Not thinking, Yellow ran after it. She ran and ran until she came to the ocean, where everything was blue. A little girl walked up to her and said, “Hi, I'm Blue, what's your name?” Yellow said, “Well, I'm Yellow.” Blue said, “Let's be friends.” So they played and played until one day when they were sitting by a tide pool, Yellow noticed her reflection in the water and that everywhere Blue touched her she would turn a strange green color. She got up and ran and ran until she came to the desert where everything was Red. A little boy walked up to her and said, “Hi, I'm Red, what's your name?” She said, “I'm Yellow.” Red said, “Let's be friends.” So, they played and played until one day they were sitting by an oasis and Yellow noticed that wherever Red touched her she changed a strange orange color. And, she started to cry. “What's wrong, Yellow?” Red wanted to know. Yellow said, “Everyone I get close to changes my color. Blue changed me green and you are changing me orange. I don't want to change. I'm Yellow.” Red thought a minute and then said, “Isn't it special though that the people you love change you in such a way that when you leave them you carry a piece of them wherever you go?” Yellow thought and said, “Yeah, you're are right.” Yellow went up to Alaska where everything was white. A little girl walked up to her and said, “Hi, I'm White, what's your name?” Yellow said, “Hi, I'm Rainbow, let's be friends.”

Raven looked out into the dusky dark at the assembled senior counselors, junior counselors, and campers alike. She smiled quietly and then said, “Jewels is up next but what you really want to know is, Whose on deck?”

The campers recited the last question with her and she beamed at all of them.

“That would be all the junior counselors,” she answered and moved down into the audience.

Jewels, or Ruby, climbed onto the stage with her guitar. She stood and looked out into the sea of faces in the dark, timidly. This was the moment she had been waiting for her entire three summers at camp. She had yet to stand up on stage at campfire and perform by herself, let alone one of her songs. This was also her final time to let Les know how she felt, she hoped against hope that he alone would truly hear her message.

“This is a poem by the poet, Rod McKuen, that I adapted into song. I hope you like it,” and she began strumming the chords that led to the lyrics. Nervously she began but soon lost herself in the power of the song, the words so vibrant to her.

“I wanted to write you some words you’d remember
words so alert they’d leap from the paper
and crawl up your shoulder and lie by your ears
and be there to comfort you down through the years.
But it was cloudy that day and I was lazy
and so I stayed in bed just thinking about it.

I wanted to write you and tell you that maybe
love songs from lovers are unnecessary.
We are what we feel and writing it down.
seems foolish sometimes without vocal sound.
But I spent the day drinking coffee, smoking cigarettes
and looking in the mirror practicing my smile.

I wanted to write you one last, long love song
that said what I feel one final time.
Not comparing your eyes and mouth to the stars
but telling you only how like yourself you are.
But by the time I thought of it, found a pen,
put the pen to ink, the ink to paper,
you were gone.

And so, this song has no words.”

She finished the song and the rest of her family of junior counselors joined her on-stage. The stood arm and arm and began singing A'Capella the song they had memorized these three years at camp, the closing campfire song with a simple truth of life that brought back memories of what Crowshaven had done for them in their awkward and sometimes needy teenage years.

Together they sang, “Peace I ask of thee, O'River, Peace, Peace, Peace. When I learn to live serenely, cares will cease. From the hills I gather courage, visions of the days to come. Strength to lead and faith to follow, all are given unto me. Peace I ask of thee, O'River, Peace, Peace, Peace. Abide with me, fast falls evening tide, the darkness deepens, Lord with me abide, when other helpers fail and comforts flee, help all the helpless, Lord, abide with me.”

It was over and the junior counselors helped guide the campers back to their cabin for their final night before boarding the bus back to the 'real world'. Jewels' senior counselor took her campers up to the cabin so Jewels hung back. She walked down to a cliff over-looking the flowing, singing river below, the one that was the boundary between the magical world of Crowshaven and the outside reality. She sat down on the still warm surface from the day's sun and in the dark listened to the sounds of camp, trying to capture their memory in her heart for all time. Trip, or Les, walked up behind her, she could feel him. He stood for a moment and she held her breath. Would he say anything, had he heard?

Trip hesitated for a moment, standing and listening himself. He thought about sitting beside her but then heard his campers calling to him. He slowly turned and walked away into the night.

Peace & Abide

Support this blog

One Final Time

The phone clamored incessantly. Ruby reached over to her bedside table and felt around for the receiver, her eyes not opening. She picked up the phone and said a groggy hello into the phone.

“Hi,” Tera's voice rang out clear through the receiver. “Did I wake you?”

“Yeah, but its okay,” Ruby said, sitting up and propping her pillows up behind her. “What's up?”

“Well,” began Tera. “I need a date for my school's prom, but there are no guys that I'd like to ask here so...”

“So, what you're asking me?” Ruby laughed into the phone.

Tera laughed in return, then quieted down and said, “No, um, not exactly.”

Ruby swallowed nervously and said, “Well.”

“I was thinking of asking Les, you know, just as a friend,” Tera explained. Ruby swallowed again, trying to hide her jealousy and smiled into the phone.

“All right, good idea,” was all she said.

“You're okay with that?” Tera asked.

“Why wouldn't I be?” Ruby wanted to know, as innocently as she could sound.

“Well, don't you, I mean, don't you kind of like him?”

Ruby thought about how to start this. Tera was her best friend and she couldn't really lie to her but she had no right to Les either. He hadn't exactly been pounding down her door or calling her off the hook. He hadn't really expressed undo interest in her, therefore, she couldn't really stop anyone else from seeking him out. Not that she had really gone after him or expressed interest, as she usually found herself clamming up whenever he was around, palms sweaty, as she anxiously searched for something “cool” and “witty” to say, usually finding none she felt like an outcast even in her small group of friends. Tera was really the only person she felt she could be completely herself with, no judgment or insecurity attached.

“Well, we aren't dating or anything,” was all Ruby said.

“So, you're cool with it, then?” Tera wanted to know, to clarify. “I mean, just as friends, okay?”

“Yeah, of course, hope you two have fun!”

Tera thanked her and Ruby got off the phone. She pulled herself from the bed and padded down the hallway to her bathroom, pulling her hair into a messy bun to wash her face of the nightly grime. She then walked lazily into the kitchen, anti-depressants pressed firmly in her left hand, to retrieve some breakfast. She opened the refrigerator and pulled out the orange juice container. Pouring a glass, she then slipped her pills inside her mouth, swallowed some juice, and felt them dissolve down her throat. She poured a bowl of cereal and walked into the living room. She noticed leaning against the sofa was her guitar, near by on the coffee table lay her journal and her Rod McKuen poetry book. She had been working on transcribing one of his poems into a song the night before. She walked over, picked up the poetry book, and brought it to the table to peruse while she ate. Opening the book casually, the page fell onto the poem, “Three” and as she read it over she felt it couldn't be more appropriate and a melody matching the words started forming in her words. She finished her breakfast and moved to the sofa, with the book. Picking up her guitar and setting the book on her lap before her, she found herself strumming out some chords and sang the words brokenly.

“We were three, my true friend, my new love and me. And none were as happy as we as we walked beside the Mediterranean Sea. Passion grew as passion has a will and want to do and long before the summertime was through they walked beside the oceanside as two. July's done. It fell beneath the knife of August sun and long before the summertime was done I walked beside the oceanside as one.”

Les sat at his dining room table, sipping his morning coffee and listening to the loud cartoons his little brother was playing in the living room adjacent to the table. Lost in thought, he stared ahead of him at the newspaper lying before him, unread. The phone rang and he did not hear it. His little brother, Skip, ran to answer it and brought it towards him.

“Les, its for you,” he said and then continued tauntingly, “its a girl.”

Les took the phone from him, swatting him gently on the back of his head and held the receiver up to his ear.

“Um, hello?” he said, not really alert yet.

“Oh god, did I wake you too?” came the girl's voice on the other end of the phone. “I keep doing that.”

“Um, no, not really, who is this?” Les answered and wanted to know.

“Its Tera,” she explained.

“Oh, hi Tera, how are you?”

“Doing all right, yourself?”

“Good,” he answered.

“So, what are you doing today?” Tera wanted to know.

“I don't know, not much, maybe homework, hang around the house,” he answered, sipping his coffee. He got up from the table, opening the sliding glass door, and stepped outside to escape his brother's cartoons. “You?”

“Um, the same,” Tera began and then said, “So, I was wondering, I mean, my school is having their prom in two weeks and I was wondering if you wanted to go with me...”

Les hesitated, wondering if all the girls from camp were going to start chasing him down, somewhat flattered he might add.

“Just as friends only,” Tera continued.

“Um, yeah, you know, that could be fun,” he answered smiling. He did like Tera as a friend. She was fun to hang out with. Tera gave him the necessary details and they planned to talk more in the next two weeks to discuss further plans. Tera would be driving since she had her license and Les did not yet.

A few towns over, Ruby sat in her living room, still in her pajamas, and sang out,

“Passion grew as passion has a will and want to do and long before the summertime was through they walked beside the oceanside as two.”

Stay (I missed you)

One Final Time

One Final Time

The second week of that first year passed and before she knew it Ruby and her campers were packing for the bus-ride home, wading across the river the other way, and carrying their packs up the hill. The bus heaved its door closed with the campers inside and pulled away from the camp entrance, rumbling down the highway back into the throes of the world beyond.

Ruby and Tera sat side by side, giggling and chatting about the weeks previous and the days, the school year yet to come. They promised not only to keep in touch but to see each other soon. A promise that would definitely become a reality in the winter months. The campers chatted excitedly about their experiences with one another, every once in awhile broke out in a campfire song, and laughed joyously all the while back to their city lives.

The junior counselors traded phone numbers and addresses, promising to keep in touch. When the bus reached its final destination and as the counselors helped the campers find their bags and locate their parents, Les spied Ruby awaiting an opportunity to speak with her. After the last child had departed, he watched her waiting, sitting on the curb of the sidewalk, watching for her parents' arrival. He approached her cautiously.

“Eh, Ruby?”

“Yeah?” She turned and noticing it was him found herself blushing a deep red. She let her hair fall in front of her face.

“I didn't get to give you my phone number,” he finally said. He pulled out a piece of paper, folded up and handed it to her. She took it slowly and held it for a moment in mid-air before bringing it down to her jeans pocket. “Please call me, we should hang out sometime.”

“Yeah,” she managed. “Yeah, that'll be fun.”

“We could keep up the guitar lessons, you know,” Les continued. He was waiting and hoping that she would return the favor and give him her number. She stared at him, willing herself to say something, searching through her mind to find something cool and flirtatious to leave him with, but then the silence was broken by the honk of a horn. Turning, she saw her mom drive up in her Mercedes Benz. Ruby stood up and looked over at Les.

“Um, looks like you are the last person here,” she finally said.

“Yeah,” he said, looking at his feet.

“Um, I'll call you, I will,” she said. Then, she leaned in and gave him a quick hug. Before he could really respond, she pulled back and ran off towards the car, her backpack and sleeping bag dangling on her legs. She climbed into the front seat of her car, tossing her stuff in the backseat. As the car pulled away, Ruby turned and waved at Les and as the car moved down the street, she could not remove her eyes from his.

During the school year, Ruby found herself busy with band practice, student council, and yearbook. For Christmas, her parents' bought her a guitar and she started private lessons, in both guitar and singing. The scars, both emotionally and physically, began to heal. She started seeing her school therapist and the medications her doctor had given her seemed to be working. Her grades improved and life seemed to be getting better.

Still there seemed to be an ache ever present on her heart, a longing as if something was not quite right or as if something was missing. In short, she missed camp for it was the only place she felt like she could truly be herself, with people who accepted her as she was, not knowing her past but only her future. She never had to be anything but herself with these friends, they loved her no matter what. She giggled to herself about all the jokes they'd made during those summers, unaware of the awkward stares she got from her classmates.

Most notably, she could not get her mind off of Les, with whom she missed the most. She'd stare at the folded paper open before her with his number on it, willing herself to reach for her phone and dial the numbers, but always she'd chicken out. Once she did manage to call, but hung up when his mom answered. She wrote long winding love poems about her unrequited love for him and how they were meant to be together. She told as much to Tera on the phone and when they stayed at each others houses.

One Saturday she met Tera in the local county seat. They walked through the bustling city streets, stopping at a upcoming coffee shop called Starbucks and then making their way through the different shops, sipping their drinks. Both with a love of books, they lost themselves for hours in a small neighborhood bookstore.

In the back of the store, was a rack of old poetry books. Somewhat without thinking, Ruby picked up a book with poems by Rod McKuen. The cover intrigued her and the title spoke to her, “Listen to the Warm.” She sat on the floor of the shop and leaned against the wall, setting her coffee by her. She let the pages open before her and casually flipped through them before her eyes fell upon the poem entitled “Song Without Words.” Silently with her lips moving, she read through the poem, twice no three times, reveling in the power of the words. As she read, she could feel a soft beat and melody flowing through her from the book.

“This could be a song,” she said out loud, surprising herself. Tera popped her head around the corner.

“What was that?” she asked, coming over and sitting beside Ruby, almost spilling her coffee. “Sorry.”

“That's okay,” said Ruby. She held up the book to Tera and said, “I have to get this.”

“What is it?” Tera wanted to know.

“I just randomly found this,” she said, matter of factually. “I've never even heard of Rod McKuen but I really love his poems.”

“Well, show me some,” Tera wanted to know.

“Okay,” Ruby said, flipping through the pages. “Here's one...The World I Used to Know....Someday some old familiar rain will come along and know my name. And then my shelter will be gone and I'll have to move along. But till I do I'll stay awhile and track the hidden country of your smile. Someday the man I used to be will come along and call on me. And then because I'm just a man you'll find my feet are made of sand. But till that time I'll tell you lies and chart the hidden boundaries of your eyes. Someday the world I used to know will come along and bid me go. Then I'll be leavin' you behind for love is just a state of mind. But till that day I'll be your man and love away your troubles if I can.”

“Nice,” Tera said, smiling at her. “You should totally get it.”

Ruby flipped to the opening cover and looked at the price, which read $9.00.

“I think I have just that,” she smiled, happily. They got up and moved, coffees in hand, to the front of the store. The shop owner was an older man, with sagging eye lids and pants to match, barely held up by his belt. He slumped over slightly and shuffled his feet while he walked. His hair was a la Albert Einstein and white hairs sprung out of his nostrils. He smiled at them over his half-moon glasses and took the money from Ruby.

“Enjoy that,” said the shopkeeper. “A definite classic, or should be. I've loved McKuen for years, hope you do too.”

“Thanks,” Ruby said. “We'll be back.”

Tera grabbed Ruby's hand and they hurried off into the street, laughing and chatting happily.

Song Without Words