7 comments/ 6445 views/ 9 favorites Falling Leaf By: Adrian Leverkuhn He sat by the large window in the living room, looking out over the marina – and the raging Pacific beyond. A small boat, an open cockpit fishing boat, was pounding through heavy swell, beating it's way against strong winds towards the T-shaped breakwater that protected the marina entrance, and as he watched the scene unfolding below the apparent anxiety of the skipper down there was almost too easy to understand. That poor yellow-slickered man was in the thick of it now, struggling to keep his little boat from being swamped by steep following seas that rolled under his boat on their way to the rocky breakwater. He watched as the skipper struggled anew as the boat yawed atop a truly monstrous wave – then slewing backwards, down into the next trough. Terrence Carpenter watched the man in the boat from the safety of his living room, safe in the house he had first designed in his mind forty years ago. His house, his refuge from the storms of life, embodied all that he cared about in architecture, and this house – where he had lived and worked incessantly since1980 – had become an extension of his soul. Now he watched as the little boat rounded "the T" and slipped into Marina del Rey – into the safe embrace of calm water – from the equally safe embrace of the island sanctuary he had built along this hillside. He felt a certain sense of relief as the boat motored into the marina, because from bitter experience he knew how treacherous and unforgiving the sea could be. He watched as the little boat disappeared from view, and only then did he relax. Carpenter turned and looked at his house with pride, as he always did. Today the rooms felt like a cocoon, all safe and warm, protecting him from the coming storm. He stood there, taking in the reddish-gray brick and varnished redwood walls, the deep gray slate floor, the massive fireplace – all the visible hallmarks of one who'd studied Wright's style of architecture for decades. His house had become his calling card, and then his reason for being, for more than thirty years he had called this place home, and to this day, several times a month people in fact, knocked on his door, asked him about his house, and many asked him to design them something "just like this". And he did too, so many times over the years he had almost lost count, but his vision and the legacy he built around the integrity of his belief in that vision had sustained him. And quite comfortably, he said to himself as he smiled. He turned and looked to the monstrosity beyond the trees outside his kitchen window, a huge slab of cheap beige stucco, torn screens and corroded aluminum windows, an eyesore of an apartment building that had popped up a year after he'd finished building his house, an aesthetic affront that had kept him up nights for years. His office, and more importantly, his drafting table, was on the other side of the house and looked out over the Palos Verdes peninsula, and his office had become his sanctuary, that one space where he spent most of his life. He looked at the beige monster and sighed, as always angry when he laid eyes on ugly architecture – if only because such buildings represented an unnecessarily lazy, and intellectually compromise approach to life. It was growing almost preternaturally dark outside now; he stopped where he stood, looked out over the water and his almost heart stopped. A sinewy rope of white water coiled up into a gray-green wall of cloud – a waterspout! – and he almost gasped aloud as the writhing snake danced it's way north towards Malibu. Savage gusts whipped the water now, and Palos Verdes disappeared behind streaking walls of rain. He stepped out onto the terrace and smelled the air – pure, cool ozone covered his flesh and he closed his eyes, slipped into memories of that distant day, and another storm too desperate to forget. +++++ Amila Sirri dashed inside her apartment just as the first ragged gusts tore into the palms that lined the street; from her open door she turned and watched them sway in the wind, then – after one huge frond tore away and landed on the walkway leading away to her patio – she hopped inside and slammed the door behind her. With her hack against the door she sighed, glad this day was over. The bus ride home had been interminable, the air conditioning barely able to keep up with the knotting press of hot sweating bodies, and she had found herself wishing for the hundredth time that day she might soon be able to afford an automobile. Life would be so much better, she thought, so much easier – with even a little Toyota or Nissan. If only...but no. Things were still just too tight. Money didn't go very far in this city. She hung up her white lab coat in the closet by the front door and walked into the little living room where her only child, her daughter "Suki" sat studying. Suki was all that was left of that other world, that life before this one. Her daughter was all that remained of the life they'd both been forced to flee, when beautiful Sarajevo had crumbled under storms of constant shelling and aerial bombardment. She shuddered still when she recalled how crossing the street had meant exposing yourself to random sniper fire, and you had to cross many streets just to fetch enough water to drink. Her soul mate, her husband, had fallen not a meter from her, a sniper's bullet shattering the left side of his face, blood and bone spraying everywhere as they'd carried little Suki home from the hospital. Four days old, her father's last smile disappeared as her eyes opened for the first time, and as her father's eyes closed – forever. Amila's world had turned dark that day, for Suki would never know a father's love. Their desperate flight to Germany, then America, was an echo of that day, a moment in time that had left both survivors bitter, their lives empty, devoid of all love save one for the other. And that love had always been enough for them both. "And how was your school today?" Amila asked her daughter. "Good. We're going to be doing some cool projects next month!" "This is good. You are happy still?" "Very much. Why?" "There is so much in the news these days. So much hate. Sometimes I wonder..." "It's no worse now than when we got here, Mom. Sometimes people's hatred is palpable, other days it's not there." "But still, no one suspects...?" "No, Mama! What is there to suspect? You need to relax!" They had arrived in America weeks after the September 11th terrorist attacks in 2001, and Amila had been wise enough, or perhaps simply paranoid enough, to understand that affirming their Islamic faith in America would be tantamount to suicide. On their immigration forms she put down that they were Catholic, and though they did not practice any religion these days, she and Suki had seen enough in America to understand that the simple act of acknowledging any sort of Islamic backgrounds could mean certain ruin. This was not a problem for either to understand: they had both just escaped Milosevic's campaigns of ethnic cleansing on their desperate flight to Germany, and Amila had witnessed more than her fair share of Islamophobia both in Germany and upon their arrival in California. To this day she feared being exposed, yet some days she wasn't sure her fear was reasonable. Still, she considered herself lucky to have survived the civil war. She was from the former Yugoslavia after all, with all it's complexities of ethnicity and history, and while Amila had been born near Rabac, on the Istrian Peninsula – and not all that far from Italy – she held no illusions. She comforted herself that she looked as "European" as anyone from Italy might, or perhaps even the South of France, but she hadn't understood the true import of her looks until she arrived in the United States, where everyone seemed to think Muslims were either Arab or African. She and Suki were as "white" as anyone from Iowa, and Amila's honey colored blond hair looked anything but Muslim to the people she worked with. Her husband Viktor had been another matter entirely. His features were more classically slavic, and he'd had thick brown hair and the deepest brown eyes she'd ever seen. Suki had inherited his looks, which Amila loved – if only because when she looked at her daughter she felt Viktor was still, somehow, with them both, but Suki's differences worried her. Amila had met Viktor at medical school, in Sarajevo. That had been in 1989, she remembered, the year the Berlin Wall fell. The year real change cascaded through all the former Soviet satellites in Eastern Europe, the year when Soviet troops faded away like leaves on autumn breezes, falling to an unusable history. Their love had blossomed in the heady rush of independence that followed, and the first feelings of freedom either had ever really known had shaped the contours of their love for one another. They had just finished their clinical year when the civil war broke out, and that had been that. A sniper's bullet put an end to all their dreams just when the future had seemed so limitless. On their arrival in California, Amila began working in the Pathology Department at the UCLA Medical Center in Westwood, that peculiar little academic enclave sandwiched between Beverly Hills and the Pacific Palisades, but her medical degree had not been recognized and she simply couldn't take the time off from work to study for the exams. She had found, more a simple matter of inertia than anything else, steady work in the bowels of the medical center, in the labs that classified tissue samples send down from operating rooms. Being a de facto physician, the work came easily to her, and she enjoyed her contributions to the lives she, perhaps, saved from time to time, but she was not at all content with this life. Nevertheless, she had found a steady rhythm within this existence, yet even so she still feared being "discovered" more than anything else. Experience taught her that all that she had endured, all the stability she had worked so hard to achieve, would unravel if someone, anyone, discovered she was not a Christian. Suki, as it turned out, had no interest in studying medicine. She had, instead, majored in mechanical engineering and had graduated from UCLA last year. She had been accepted to, and had enrolled in USC's School of Architecture, and now there was a huge Apple computer on her desk in the living room. She was either at school or sitting at that desk, working on drawings night and day, and while Amila had at times felt depressed that her Suki wouldn't follow in her footsteps, she could see her little girl had grown up with a real passion to understand the simply amazing structures they found around Los Angeles. And now her daughter was looking up at her with the most astonished eyes she had ever seen. She was holding a book in her hands, an architectural monograph she called it, a book dedicated to just one house. "What is it you are looking at, Suki?" "Come. See for yourself." Amila came and sat by her daughter, and she took the book from Suki's hands and gasped at the pictures she beheld. Bold horizontal lines defined the spaces she looked at, lines defined by bands of brick and wood. Traceries of wood stood like the branches of trees, supporting a delicate glass roof that defined an atrium that appeared for all intents and purposes to shelter ponds and a Japanese garden. Pages after page she turned, each image washed over her soul leaving an almost iridescent feeling of peace. How could it be that she had never heard of such a place? She closed the book and looked at the cover, and her hands began shaking. "Terrence Carpenter's Falling Leaf" was the title, and when she looked at the cover photo of the house's exterior she cried out loud. "Is that...?" "Yes, mama," Suki said. "That's the house next door. The house just outside your window." +++++ The waterspout was perhaps a mile away when it turned towards the marina, and appeared for a moment to take direct aim at Carpenter as he stood out there watching the noisome creature, then the roaring beast turned north once again and skirted the surf just off Venice Beach before suddenly dissipating. Deep gray clouds scudded along the horizon, and he could hear a mad surf crashing on the sandy beach below. His hands were shaking he saw, but not from fear. A strong wind was coming off the ocean, and the temperature had suddenly fallen into the fifties, and now he was cold. Very cold. He slipped inside and walked to the kitchen, and there he put on a kettle. He found the tea he wanted, and the mug he always turned to on rainy days like this one, and he smiled at the memory the cup offered. While the water boiled he prepared the tea, and when the water was ready he filled this ancient cup, a gift long ago from the Emperor of Japan. He held the hot cup to his face and breathed in cardamom and cinnamon, felt the heat penetrate the bones of his fingers, then he looked up, looked at the window on the beige monstrosity that stood there so menacingly, hoping against hope she would be there. +++++ She put the book down, looked at Suki. "Hard to imagine, isn't it? We've lived here almost fifteen years and had no idea what was right under our nose." "We're studying it in our Theory class this week. Professor Sloan kind of implied it's one of the most important houses built in the last fifty years, and maybe even the most impressive 'neo-Wright' style house ever built. Wouldn't you love to go knock on his door and take a peek inside..." "Well, why don't you?" "Mom, you're like – nuts. You just don't..." Amila regarded her daughter's speech...so American, now so completely 'California'. So unlike her own slavic accent. She looked at her daughter as they talked. Cute in a way, but short and a little heavy; Suki had her father's eyes: deep, penetrating eyes that radiated soulful warmth, unlike her own cool gray orbs. And while Suki was short, again, like her father, she had always considered herself too tall, and too thin. Her breasts were too small, or so she thought, and now her hair was turning white. Streaky white in places, and the honey tones she loved were beginning to fade. And the wrinkles! She smiled, laughed inside her vapid thoughts. 'And I'm becoming so American!' "What is it, Mama? Why are you smiling?" "Oh, I was just thinking. About you. And this architecture stuff. How your face changes when you talk about the things you study. Your passion. And how proud I am of you." The two hugged, Amila wiped away a tear as she thought how proud Viktor would be of this girl. She would always love Viktor, always remain true to him. That much was bedrock. Amila stood and went to her bedroom, turned on the light as she walked in, and she saw the man in the house next door, and this time, and not for the first time, she smiled at him, and waved. The man turned and walked away, the confusion in his eyes, on his face so achingly clear it almost took her breath away. She knew who he as now, and though she had smiled at him a few times over the years she'd never thought much about it, only that she thought he looked like a nice person, though getting very old. They decided to eat out that night, and dressed to walk up to their favorite little Indian place up on Pershing. It was a weeknight, and the storms had cleared – leaving a windswept, crystalline sky, and the rising moon was brilliant. Gulls called out in the evening sky, and the fresh breeze that crossed the treelined street lent a spooky, almost enchanted air to the evening. They walked along under swaying trees, and Amila thought she felt magic in the air. A huge jet thundered into view as it took off from LAX, the white and red Qantas livery still visible in the twilight before it turned south. "It's Halloween this weekend, isn't it?" Amila said to no one in particular. She still had the Falling Leaf monograph in hand, wanted to look at the pictures again while they ate, but the lumbering jet had awakened some long repressed sense of wanderlust, and she found herself wondering about the people on the airliner as she walked along. "Yup, it is. Wanna go 'trick or treating' again, Mom? Been a few years..." Amila laughed at the memories that came calling, and she smiled when she felt Suki's eyes fall on her own. "Wouldn't that be fun!" "Let's do it, then!" "I don't have a costume! What could I possibly wear?" "Oh, we can figure that out. Can we do it?" "Sure, why not!" They stopped at Campbell Street and looked across the street to the restaurant. There was a car pulling into the parking lot, but the place looked quiet, and they crossed Pershing and cut through the parking lot as a man got out of his just parked car. Her eyes went wide when she saw him. It was the man from the house next door, from the Falling Leaf, and she clutched the book deeper, protectively under her arm. She had never seen him up close, but now she was more than a little curious what he looked like. She looked at him intently, took him in... He was very tall, and impossibly thin, but it was the man's skin that was so astonishing. His hands were the purest white, and the flesh was almost translucent, yet the skin around his eyes was whiter still. And his hair! Pure spun silver, long and straight, gathered in a 'pony tail' that hung almost to his waist, and she noted how his hair stood in stark contrast against the long, black woolen overcoat he wore against the evening chill. They walked up the steps ahead of the man, and yet he made his way to the door first and opened it for them, then he stood aside to let them pass. "Thanks," Amila said, and the man nodded silently before he followed them inside. The restaurant was a family run affair, and locals were always greeted as friends might be. Amila and Suki were hugged by one of the daughters, led off to their usual table, while the owner greeted Carpenter and took him to a large corner table well away from the two women. Amila looked at the man's back as he was led away, a feeling of fire in the pit of her stomach, a feeling she hadn't experienced in many years, and she thought magic was alive in this night, over and over again. +++++ The instant he'd recognized her he'd felt weak in the knees, and he had seriously considered getting back in his car and driving off into the night. When he'd seen her in the window just after the storm, when he'd watched her enter that small bedroom while waves of cardamom and cinnamon sated his parched soul, he danced in the memory of the first time he had seen her, oh those many years ago. Those eyes of hers. That golden hair. And he had just turned sixty, hadn't he, those oh-so-many years ago! Seeing her that first time, feeling her beauty had left him feeling more impotent than ever, and his age became a gulf between whatever happiness remained in this life and the reality of decline that lay ahead. He would go to the window in his kitchen and look across that gulf from time to time, hoping she would be there – if only to rekindle memories and possibilities, yet praying she wouldn't be there – as that would only force him to pick away at the wounds that lined the edges of his soul. He saw her perhaps once a month as it turned out, just enough to measure his advancing years against the certainty of her beauty. And when he'd seen her in the window this evening? He'd recoiled from the sight of his own reflection in the window, an image of decline that lay superimposed over her eternal beauty. He'd hated himself in that moment, loathed the emptiness he saw within that gulf of time. Now he turned away from her, turned to the solace of a menu well known, already knowing what he'd order for his evening meal but wanting to turn off the vision of her legs as he'd walked up the steps behind her just moments ago. His hands shook as the memory lingered. He'd never imagined any woman could be so incredibly attractive. Falling Leaf He looked at her once again after he ordered, and he saw the Falling Leaf monograph in her hands, and he watched as she turned page after page, wondering what she thought, how she felt when she saw his work. He looked down at his hands in that moment, his hands the instruments of his craft, the truest measure of his soul, and he regarded them with pride. His hands were the link, he knew, the means through which his vision reached upward towards expression, and sometimes, into being. He steepled his fingers almost in prayer, imploring her to like what she saw within the pages of that book, crying out to the infinite silence of the universe to allow that woman to see across the gulf. To see – him. +++++ She stopped once again at that image of the geometrically timbered forest atrium, her eyes dancing between the precision of the angles and echoes of ancient bonsai gardens that sheltered below. Then she closed the book, lay it on the table and slid it across to Suki. "Go. Talk to him. He's just sitting there, and he looks so lost...so alone. Ask him about the house, tell him you're studying architecture. See what happens!" "Mother! You're impossible! Why disturb the man? Does he look like he wants company?" She regarded her daughter curiously, realized Suki had never been alone even once in her life. Suki had almost no understanding of loneliness, she could see now, and certainly no real appreciation for loss. Suki had grown up just far enough away from the merest shadows of loss. The pain she herself knew was so different from what Suki might feel... "Perhaps so," Amila replied. "Perhaps he would like to talk." "Then why don't you go talk to him!" "Perhaps so," she said to the universe, and yet she was unaware she whispered those words as if in prayer. +++++ He watched her take the book in hand again, but then she stood. She looked his way, and then – came his way! He looked down at his steepled hands, then back up as she stopped beside his table. "Excuse me," she said, "but are you this Carpenter? This is your house?" He looked at her eyes, so impossibly large, so luminous. "What?" he said. She held the book out, pointed at the house on the cover. "This is you?" He regarded her hands, grew lost in the slender beauty of her fingers. "Yes, I suppose you could say it is me." "I wanted to ask..." she began, but he stopped her. "Would you care to sit down?" he asked as he stood. "Please, yes. That would be nice." He moved to the other side of the table, pulled out her chair. When he finished, when he had returned to his seat, he regarded the book as she placed it on the table. "So, what is this?" he said as he picked up the book. He turned it over, saw the USC School of Architecture label on the spine and smiled inside. "Ah. Old Sloan's still at it, I see." "Excuse me?" "Your daughter. She must be a first year, at USC." Amila nodded. "How do you know this?" "Oh, every year around Halloween this book makes an appearance. One or two students come to the house, ask me to show them around. It's a ritual now, I suppose." Smiling, he put the book down, steepled his hands as he looked at her. "And what do you do with these students, Mr Carpenter?" "Show them around." His smile faded a bit. "We live next door..." "I know. I know your window." "Oh, yes. I understand this." 'I doubt that,' he said to himself. His gaze turned to her hands, then his own. "So? You wanted to ask me about the house?" "I wanted Suki, my daughter, to talk to you about the house, but she is shy. Too shy." Crestfallen, he looked away, searched his memory because suddenly he remembered something. Another day, years ago. "Perhaps I am, how do you say, forward in asking this," Amila continued, "but I am sure she would love to see this house. If you have time, of course." He turned back to her, listened as she spoke. "Listen, would you care to join me for dinner? Both of you?" "This is not awkward for you?" Amila asked. It feels awkward not to, he thought as he smiled. "No, of course not." He turned to the owner, asked him to move the women to his table, then stood and walked across the room to Suki. He looked at the little girl he had met once years ago, and he smiled knowingly at her, then asked her to join him. Clearly embarrassed, Suki stood and followed the architect back to his table, wondering just what her mother had gotten them into, wondering if tonight would finally be the night to talk about the greatest secret of her life. +++++ She had just turned seven when they arrived in California, and she remembered those first days as the most important in her life. Her mother had an appointment at UCLA that first morning, something to do with her job, and a lady there had given her mother a list of affordable housing in the area. "Affordable" had apparently meant one thing to people in Los Angeles and an altogether different thing to people like them, and her mother's wild-eyed terror when she saw the rental prices on that list had been one of the most frightening experiences of young Suki's life. Reassured by the lady who gave her mother the listing that assistance would be available, someone from the office had driven them around "the Westside" that afternoon, and they'd spent hours looking at row after row of bleak tenements until they came upon a simple beige building on a prosaically named street called Vista del Mar, or View of the Sea. And in a way, there was a view, if you could crane your head enough from just one of the bedroom windows, but that wasn't what had captivated Suki. She had been captivated by the house next door, and fallen under it's spell. Something about the lines of the house, the almost hidden hexagonal shapes that seemed deliberately masked by other, overlapping forms. The warm brick, the weathered copper roof, the mitered glass windows; she took one look and felt a sudden, overwhelming affinity for the concealed mysteries hidden within such sublime form. The house pulled at her from that very first moment, the very instant she laid eyes on it, and it had pulled at her ever since as if the very soul of the house held a special magnetic attraction only she could feel. She had convinced her mother then and there that this apartment was where she wanted to live, and though the rent was higher than the others they had seen, Suki just knew her mother understood. They had moved in the next week. A few weeks later she saw the man who owned the house for the first time, and she at last finally understood what it meant to fall in love. +++++ It was like a dream, he thought. Sitting here with the woman who lived across that formidable gulf of space and time. With the little girl who used to watch him so secretly from the trees. With the book on the table, with his Falling Leaf casting it's spell once again, he looked at his hands, at this new creation that had just now come into being. "So," he said as he looked at the girl, "you are in Sloan's survey course this term?" "Yessir," Suki said, nodding her head vigorously. "And what have you studied so far?" "Wright's Sturges House, and Fay Jones' Thorncrown Chapel so far. We just started Falling Leaf this week." He nodded his head sympathetically. Poor Sloan, wouldn't he ever change his syllabus? "And what do you think, so far?" "The lineage is direct, isn't it? I mean, the exterior form of Sturges, wedded to Fay's structural..." "Yes," he said. "Direct. Intentionally so. Yet I always felt Wright's Usonian framework was unsuited to Los Angeles. The flat rooflines. The broad overhangs. Too dark inside, too sheltered." Suki nodded her head vigorously. "Yes, that's the genius of Falling Leaf. Your soaring glass vault radically altered the Prairie Style, finally expressed Wright's desire to bring the outside in." He smiled again, looked at the girl over his steepled fingers. "So, how many times have you been inside?" "Just the once, sir." "What?!" cried Amila. "You have been inside when?" He remembered the day, now perhaps more than ten years ago, when Lupita, his housekeeper, had ushered this very same girl into his office, and on that day she had been profoundly shy, and so much younger – so young it had been, he remembered, hard to take her seriously. He had shown the girl around the house for perhaps a half hour, had listened to her questions patiently – yet even then he had been impressed with her knowledge of architecture, and of Wright's early work in particular. He let her look over some drawings of works-in-progress, at the way his drafting table was arranged, and he explained the way he approached a new commission, how a new project took shape in his mind. And he had been surprised even then by her seeking eyes, how she intuitively understood what he was trying to convey to her, how she saw beyond the façade of words into the workings of his mind. She disappeared later that day, but he saw her from time to time over the years. When he went out to get the mail, or when he drove in after visiting a construction site. He remembered her, remembered that day, and he waved at her smile. Now he listened to the girl as she explained what had happened that far away day, saw understanding dawn on the woman's face when the girl told her mother about how the house had spoken to her that very first time she saw it. "That house, you, you're the reason I decided to study architecture, sir." "I see." He looked at her differently now, because the girl seemed to be hesitating on the edge of a vast precipice. Her lower lip was trembling, her face flushed. He turned to face the girl directly then, held her eyes in his. "And what else do you want to say to me now, what other secret would you like to share with your mother." Suki's eyes seemed to blaze with sudden strength. "I fell in love with you that day, Sir. That day in your office. I've never stopped loving you, and I never will." Amila had been about to take a drink of ice water when Suki's torrential revelation shattered the calm inside the restaurant, yet no one seemed to notice when she dropped the glass into her lap. +++++ He got the logs in the huge fireplace going when he got home, then he went to the kitchen, started making another cup of tea, all the while avoiding the darkened window across this gulf of a million tears – and the void of finite time cast a pall on his thoughts. He waited for the water to boil, lost in thoughts of her that slipped away like an errant prayer. He turned, walked into the living room and flipped his old B&O stereo on, then slipped a CD into the player and turned up the volume a bit before going back to watch the kettle. Diana Krall was singing Dancing In The Dark one more time, and as he listened he leaned over, holding on to the edge of the countertop while her words washed over his soul. He thought about the girl's words, about her mother's almost comic reaction. He thought of massive, storm driven waves breaking over a rocky shore, a sailboat driven onto the rocks, his hands shaking in the cold water as he tried to hold onto her hands. She broke free on the next wave, and he watched her screaming, pleading eyes as she slipped from his fingers. He tried to swim after her, but he was no match for the swirling currents. He screamed at God as she moved further away, thrashed at the water as he watched her swirling in the maelstrom, as he listened to her failing pleas. He watched as the next wave took her high above the looming rocks, and she seemed to hesitate there for a moment, lost forever in time, lost like a falling leaf caught in an unsteady current before disappearing into the waiting embrace of the rocks below. +++++ He came in from the store in the middle of the afternoon a few days after that nerve-shattering dinner, and he unloaded the car, put away the food. He placed mounds of candy in a huge wooden bowl by the door, then began carving the pumpkin he had just picked out. His Halloween efforts were always slightly more goofy than ghoulish, and this year's effort was no different. He stood back and took in the effort, groaned when he saw the utter lack of resemblance, then shrugged his shoulders. "Well Frodo, looks like we screwed the pooch, one more time." He placed a candle inside the Jack-O-Lantern and took it out to the entry, placed the poor thing where it would just be visible from the street, then went back through the house and drifted out to the terrace that looked out over the sea. Storms were building again he saw, new storms were coming as autumn winds drove swirling eddies of gold leaves down the hill, down onto the street below, while salmon colored clouds lined the horizon of his dreams. South of Palos Verdes he saw lightning, perhaps beyond Catalina, and he guessed the weather would turn foul in three or so hours, four if the kids out tonight were lucky. He went inside, went to his bedroom and stripped off his clothes. He padded gently to the shower and turned on the water, and when it felt right he stepped in and sat of the rock ledge that formed a seat of sorts, then he let the water beat on his neck for a minute or so before he stood and rinsed off. He couldn't help but founder under the weight of memory, of the Halloweens he'd never known with her, and the precious few he had, then he pulled free of their insistent gravity. He turned off the water and stepped out into the bathroom, wishing memories were as easy to turn away. He looked at his reflection in the mirror through still swirling mists, and he caught himself before he reached out for her one last time, before he fell into the overwhelming gravity of her death. He shaved, brushed his teeth, habits so long endured he no longer questioned their need, then he dressed – and took up his Halloween staff. He had the same CD ready to roll that he played each year, hours of old Halloween favorites like Grieg's In the Hall of the Mountain King and Mussorgsky's Night on Bald Mountain, and he set the speakers in the entry to play them endlessly, and mercifully, far away from the interior of the house. He sat and watched the sun set over Malibu with a tall bottle of spring water by his side, waiting for the doorbell and the endless parade of ghosts and ghouls and goblins that came for a visit each and every year. He was, he understood, grateful for the company, and the memories that came calling in quiet interludes. +++++ The first to come were old friends of sorts, a ten year old brother and sister, identical twins in fact, the only children of a friend who lived down the street. Staff in hand, he opened the door and Saint Saëns' Dance macabre filled the air – just as the twins shouted "Look, Papa! It's Gandalf!" Everyone laughed, and Carpenter filled their bags with mounds of candy and then he watched as they scampered down the walk and onward to their appointed rounds. His friend waved, said "Later!" then disappeared from view just as another group of kids sprinted for his door. He loved Halloween, and Christmas too. He enjoyed the renewed sense of living community that dwelled in children's eyes each autumn, especially during those chilliest evenings amidst the lighted trees of December, because those eyes always took him back to the best memories of his own childish days. Even so, it was the joyful magic in the air that was Halloween he enjoyed most of all, so he laid in enough candy to feed a regiment of cossacks – and there never was a child who left his house disappointed. All the houses in the neighborhood had been egged and wrapped in toilet paper more than once – save his. Perhaps there was wisdom in charity after all, he said within the smile that came. He looked at the sky, then at his watch, a battered old Rolex Submariner she had given him years ago: it was almost nine o'clock, the unofficial time to turn out the lights and pull in the Jack-O-Lantern, then he heard the thunder. Loud and close. He went to the stereo and turned it off, then to the kitchen – where he bagged up the leftover candy, then back out to the entry, to pick up the great glowing pumpkin. And he saw her then, within that golden glow. Walking up to the entry of his house. +++++ "This is stupid! I look stupid," Amila shrieked as she looked at herself in the mirror. "Like a big, fat mouse, all painted gold and black!" Suki stuck her head in the bathroom door and whistled. "No you don't, Mom. You look like a hooker!" "Oh, and this is supposed to make me feel good? A hooker, going out on a night like tonight? To look like a prostitute?" Suki opened the door all the way, revealing her own costume. "Oh, and you must tell me what it is you are supposed to be?!" "Me? I think a hooker that had a close encounter with a chainsaw." "Yes, that would explain all. This is fake blood, yes?" she said as she rubbed her fingers over Suki's t-shirt. "Red paint, I think. I hope." "And you want to go out dressed like this?" "Sure, it'll be fun." "Fun? You think walking around our hills in these shoes will be fun?" Suki laughed nervously, if only because she'd never worn anything like these stilettos in her life. She'd kept her hands out on the walls to brace herself as she practiced walking around the living room, and while she thought she was getting the hang of it, the pain bordered on excruciating. "Only one way to find out, Mom!" They'd gotten a late start. Amila's day had been a long one, and she was already tired when she walked in the door, and to make matters even less interesting, Suki was loaded down with homework and hadn't stopped working on this latest project until well past seven. It was after eight when they shut the door behind them and took off into the night. Amila thought she knew her daughter's ulterior motive: she wanted to get her mother to Carpenter's house so she could apologize, but when the storms moved in they looked around, saw the lightning, saw how far they were from his house, and decided to make a dash for their apartment. They were walking past the Falling Leaf when Suki saw the front door open, and she stopped when he walked out into the light. "It's him," Suki whispered. "Do you still want me to apologize?" Amila stopped as well, and followed her daughter's eyes to the house. "My God. He looks like that wizard. From those movies." He looked, Suki saw, like Gandalf, from The Lord of the Rings. "You're right, mom! Holy shit!" "Don't speak like that around me." "So, do you want me to go talk to him?" Amila looked at her daughter, at her outlandish costume, then she remembered her own. "No. You go home. I must speak to him." "You're sure, Mom?" "Yes. I am sure." The first band of heavy rain hit suddenly. "Now go!" She watched her daughter run up to their door and disappear inside, then she turned towards Carpenter's house. She saw him lifting a huge pumpkin, then saw him stop dead in his tracks as she came into the light. She saw him look at her face, at the round, black nose pasted over her own, at the hideously long mouse-whiskers that sprouted outward across her cheeks, then she saw him look at her fishnet stockings and high heels and she had to smile inside. The rain was falling hard when she got up to him, and yet he simply stood there, looking at her, looking into her eyes. "It's raining," she said after a long wait. He jumped, as if coming out of a trance, and he looked around. "Yes. Would you like to come inside?" "I would, yes." He took her arm and led her up into his house, and from that moment on it was as if she was being led into another world. The entry way, the walk itself, was thick glass, and a deep gray pool lay beneath her feet. She felt as if she was walking on water, yet even so she felt confined. The walls were compressing inward, the ceiling downward, then she came to the door and stepped inside. Falling Leaf The branches of trees. Bare tree limbs. That was her first impression, then as her eyes found their way up towards the glass above she saw lightning flashing through the sky. She felt confused, almost disoriented, and then she felt his hand on her arm. He was steadying her, holding on to her arm to keep her from falling as she took in the geometric canopy above her head. Her eyes dropped to the strong horizontal lines ahead, and as intended she was suddenly grounded to the earth again, and yet he held on to her even so. "Are you alright now?" she heard him ask. "Yes. Thank you." She felt his grip loosen and she turned to him. "Do not let go of me, please. Not yet." "Alright. Would you like to go sit for a while?" "Please. Yes." Keeping her arm, he walked with her into the living room. Redwood wall sconces bathed the brick walls with honey colored light while indirect lighting behind strong redwood bands lent unexpected depth to the room. "I have never felt anything like this room," she said as they walked into the space. "It feels as if the room grew out of the earth!" He smiled as he took her to one of the broad sofas – it too seemed a part of the floor, then she turned and saw the fireplace. The logs burning in the fireplace were five, maybe six feet long, and suddenly the overall impression was that she was somehow in an ancient cave. "Surreal. This is surreal." "Perhaps," he said. "Or perhaps our most ancient ancestors would feel right at home in here." She nodded. "Yes. I see that. From the forest to the cave, nothing artificial." "Yes, well, that is the illusion, but in the end everything you see was manufactured in one way or another. That's simply the nature of our time." "This house. No, I am sorry, but this house is the very antithesis of our time..." "I know." "It must cause you great pain." "No, not really. Once upon a time, perhaps, but not so much these days." She looked at the ceiling, or ceilings. Falling leaves, leaves falling in their myriad angles. She understood now. Yes, this was pure genius, genius such as she had never imagined could exist, and she turned and looked at this man once again – and for the very first time. "You are alone?" she asked. "No wife? No family?" "Alone." "Surely this was not meant to be?" "No. Surely not." "Would you tell me about her?" "Someday, perhaps." She nodded her head. "When you look at me, through the window, what are you thinking?" "I see beauty. Great beauty, and I see strength." "You are blind. This I did not know." "I see," he said, smiling. "Your husband. Where is he?" "Sarajevo." "And?" "And...perhaps one day I will tell you his story." "So. You are alone?" "I have Suki." "Ah." "And I have spoken to her about her childishness. When it comes to men, and love, she has been protected too long from the realities of such things. I make a mistake." "A mistake?" "Yes. She made a fool of me, and herself, with such pointless declarations as you hear the other night. I was embarrassed. For all of us in room." "Really? I was touched. I found the purity of her emotions touching." "So, you would marry my daughter?" He laughed. "Of course not." "No? Tell me why." "Why? Well, because I'm old enough to be her grandfather, perhaps her great grandfather. And marriage is pointless for men so old." "Pointless? Why do you think this is so?" "I can think of only one reason for marriage. Children. To have children." "Oh? And what of love?" "What of it?" "Should two people in love not marry? In the eyes of God? Is that not how it is said? "Close enough. First I think you need to believe in God." "Ah. And you do not?" He looked away. "No. I do not." "You struggle to say this. You struggle with the idea, do you not?" "Maybe I did once. Not any more." "What did He take from you?" He smiled. "Would you like some tea?" "Yes, tea would be nice." "Fine." He walked into the kitchen, began his ritual, looking at the darkened window, thinking of the woman in the window – was now in his house. "Ou sont les neigedens d'antan?" he said at last. "What did you say?" he heard her ask, and startled, he turned around. She was standing right there, just behind him, and he grinned at her little mouse nose and whiskers. "You do not strike me as the mouse type," he said through the sense of wonder he felt when he looked into her eyes. She reached up, felt the little nose. "Oh no! I forget..." "It's kind of cute." "And you? This wizard before me, making tea?" She reached out, ran her fingers lightly across neck. "So, what did you say?" "Hmm? Oh, Ou sont les neigedens d'antan?" "And this means what?" "Literally? 'Where are the snows of yesteryear.' In the present context, why do the joys of this life pass so quickly from our grasp." "Did such joy pass from your grasp?" He turned away from the images of surf-ravaged rocks that came for him, turned to finish making their tea, and it was then he felt her step closer. Her breasts were pressed against his back now, and yet she came closer still. He felt her arms encircling his chest, her fingers almost massaging his chest, and he felt the depth of her breathing through his skin. "What was, we can never regain," he heard her say, and he felt sure she was crying. "I know." "Why do you punish yourself so?" "Perhaps for the same reason you do." He heard her reaction, felt her slide to the floor, her encircling arms yielding to the fall, soon resting around his ankles. He turned, looked at her sprawled on the floor, felt almost powerless to move. "Please. Look at me," he finally said, and she turned her tear-stained face to his. "Give me your hands." She reached up, her hands trembling, and he took them, helped her stand. He held her close, and without thinking he kissed her forehead. "I am so sorry," she began, whispering through her tears. "I do not know why I ask you such things. Why I feel these things." He knew. He knew her loneliness very well. He had recognized it through the pain in her eyes, for almost fifteen years now. Her's was a kindred spirit, and he placed his hand under her chin and brought her lips to his, and then – he kissed her. "I've never kissed a mouse before," he whispered. The she pulled his face to hers, kissed him with such ferocity it startled them both. "You know," he said, "I am far too old for this kind of nonsense." "Are you?" "Yes. Yes I am." "Mr Carpenter, no one is ever too old for this kind of nonsense." She took his hand in hers, brought it to her mouth and kissed his fingers. "I love your eyes," he said softly. "Do you?" "I do." "Show me." "Amila, I'm 75 years old. The last time I had sex was in a dream, and that was probably ten years ago." "Mr Carpenter, I am physician. You think I don't know this? There is a saying I hear often in this country. There is more than one way to skin a cat. You have heard this before, I know. Would you like me to show you how this is done?" "Not if you keep calling me Mr Carpenter." "What should I call you then. Surely not Terrence." "My father used to call me...Spud. Would you?" "Spud? I can do this, but what does this mean?" "Potato." "You are serious? Why did he do this?" "Because I hated potatoes." "Ah. I see. Well, let us go see if I remember how to peel a potato." +++++ It was still pouring down rain when he woke up at four that next morning, but the first thing he noticed was the pain in his nether regions. The skin on his penis was raw and he hurt everywhere, but he'd finally let slip an orgasm that felt like it had been pent up for decades – and one that had made up for years of benign neglect like a fury. Amila, she liked to be called Mimi, and told him so more than once, knew all the right places to hit, but after she'd polished him off she'd stood and made ready to leave, and he'd stopped her. "It's raining hard," he'd said. "I'd rather you didn't leave just now." "Oh? It's only rain. Certainly there's no harm in water." "Okay. I'd simply rather you didn't leave now. Is that clear enough?" She still had on her fishnets and heels, and she smiled when she caught him sneaking little furtive glances at her legs, so she'd told him to sit back, then she'd mounted his face. It hadn't taken nearly as long as she'd expected, and when she was sated she curled up beside him and licked his lips, then fell asleep. Now he sat beside her watching her sleep, wondering what had just happened to his solitary little life. He stumbled out of bed, took a long shower, then went to the kitchen and cleaned up after his earlier aborted effort to make tea, and he made himself a fresh cup. He went to the living room, looked out at the sea, until he saw her reflection in the glass. She came into the room and sat down in a chair near the window where he stood, and he looked at her in the glass for the longest time. "Spud," she said after a few minutes, "I think I am falling in love. Is this alright for you?" He turned, looked at her, at those eyes and her legs, and he felt powerless before her beauty. "What? What did you say?" "You heard me. Can we...can I be a part of your life? Even a little part?" "Mimi, you could never be a little part of anyone's life. No one could ever love you 'just a little' – especially not me." "Could you love me then, my Spud, more than just a little bit?" "I don't know how I can say this without sounding more than just a little bit daft, but I think I already do. I may have, for years, you know." "The window?" He nodded his head. "Then I will pray to Allah, and thank him for this window." She heard her words – but too late, and she thought frantically as she looked at his face for signs of a reaction. "I'm afraind I have a hard time with the very idea of prayer, to anyone's God." "Oh, I'm so sorry, I did not mean to..." She stopped when she saw him now, because he was smiling, walking towards her. It took him a minute, but he got down on the floor and placed his head on her stockinged legs. She felt his kisses on her thighs, and the fire returned. "You said you "were" a physician. Were. And you work in a lab, at UCLA. Are you working as a physician there?" "No, no physician. Not yet, anyway." Without even knowing she was doing so, she ran her fingers through his long hair as she talked, just the way she had when Viktor sat beside her like this. "I had hopes, but I could not afford to not work after we arrived, and my English was not good." "Why did you leave?" "Sarajevo? Viktor, my husband, was killed as we left the hospital. Just after our Suki was born. I think it best to say no more about this, please." "Of course." "We flee...no, fled, first to Austria, then to Germany. München. I meet physician in aid center, physician from here, Los Angeles, and she help me arrange our coming, visa, getting citizenship, the job. All of it." "Lucky." "Yes, lucky. We are happy here, and I love this life, but I am afraid of the things I see today. It is not that we are religious. But we are sometimes very afraid of what we see." "That's how it all started in Sarajevo, wasn't it? What led to ethnic cleansing?" "Yes, of course. Hate is such a simple thing, yet so powerful." "So, you decided not to pursue getting your license to practice here – because of money?" "Yes. Just so." "Do you study for the exams?" "Yes, all the time, but I still do not feel ready." "I see. Listen, I have a few things I have to do this morning, a job I have on Sunday mornings. Would you like to come with me?" "What? You go to job?" "Yes. In fact, I think it's one of the most important things I've ever done. I'd enjoy your company, though you might have to work a little." She regarded him quizzically. "I must shower, and perhaps different clothing would be nice?" "Definitely!" He smiled at her willingness and looked up at her. "I want to leave in an hour. Is that okay?" "Will this be hard work? Outdoors?" "Hard, perhaps. Not outside, though." She helped him stand, held him close with an ear to his chest, listening. When his pulse settled she took his face in her hands and kissed him again. "You are showered already, yes?" "Yes." "Okay, I will hurry." +++++ "Well, that's about it," he said as he loaded one last box in the bed of his pickup truck. "Time to roll." He helped Amila climb into the cab and soon they were on the 405 headed north for I-10. "Where are we going?" she asked as he turned east on -10. "Downtown," was about all he said, and Amila was so unused to traveling around the city in a private car she sat passively in air conditioned bliss and watched the city roll by outside her window. He knew where he was going, and took her along surface streets when they approached downtown and it's compact mash of skyscrapers. Quite purposefully he chose a route that took them past legions of homeless people...literally thousands sleeping in wet cardboard boxes and under blankets of discarded trash bags. "My God," Amila said, "there are so many. I had no idea." "Unless you live around here, very few people see them on a day to day basis. I think there are around thirty thousand in this area alone." He pulled up in front of a homeless mission, this one of many supported by the local Catholic community. "Well, we're here." "Here? Where is here?" "This place. The mission. There are several hundred homeless families here. I buy and prepare breakfast, every Sunday morning." "You are kidding." "No, not kidding. I have for the past seven years, as a matter of fact." "How many people are in here?" "Oh, on average, around four hundred, but lots of 'em are kids." "And that is why you bring all the candy?" "Yup. Every Halloween. If I did that more often the dentists who volunteer at the free clinic would hang me. Oh, by the way, there'll be a handful of nurses and paramedics on hand this morning. There are usually a few new folks around, and more often than not this will be the only medical care these folks have had in a long time." He turned and looked at her, and a sly smile crossed his face. "Feel free to give me a hand, or go help the other 'docs' if you'd rather." Some of the 'forgotten men' and a few of the other early rising volunteers helped unload Carpenter's Ford, then they got to work in the kitchen. Pounds and pounds of bacon, hundreds of eggs, huge sacks of potatoes...he and the small but dedicated group of men and women set about preparing breakfast for almost five hundred starving souls that Sunday morning, while around the city millions set off to church. +++++ "That was almost exhilarating," Amila said as she climbed into the Ford just after noon, "but it was depressing too. You understand?" "I think so. By the time many get to the care they need, it's already too late. Is that about it?" "Yes. Just so. A little girl this morning. Not even five years. I'm pretty sure she has leukemia. I drew blood, one of the nurses said labs can be done, but who will coordinate care for this child?" "I know one of the Fathers, he teaches History over at LMU when he's not here. He helps take on the tough cases. I can talk to him." "You are not a bad man, Mr Carpenter. No, not at all." "Oh well, you know the old saying? From comrades Lennon and McCartney: the love you take is equal to the love you make." "Yes. I know this song. We should make love more, you and I. Is this not a good idea, Spud?" "You better give me a couple of days to get over my first peeling, kiddo." "Yes. We start slow. Soon we will make French fries, yes?" "If you say so, darlin'. Speaking of, you wouldn't be hungry, would you?" "Maybe a little, but I should call Suki and see what she is doing." "Besides studying?" "Yes, just so." She took out an ancient little flip-phone and punched in the number. "She asks what have we been doing?" "Is she hungry?" "She says yes. She says is tired of eating Snickers and thing called gummi bear." "That's the Day After Halloween Diet. Happening all over the country, as we speak." "Hah!" "Ask her to be out front in twenty minutes. I feel like a little In and Out today." "What?!" "You've never been?" "Where?" "In and Out, by the airport." "No, what is this? A brothel?" "Next best thing, darlin', next best thing." After picking up Suki they made their way over to Sepulveda and W 92nd Street, to his favorite In and Out Burger shack. He ordered a sack full of burgers and fries and when they had their drinks they walked over to the little park just under the final approach to LAX's runway 2-4 Right, and he sat down on the grass and watched as a huge jet flared just over head and landed. "Good God! The noise!" Amila said. "Yeah, ain't it grand!" Suki was wide-eyed as another jet roared over... "They're so close!" she squealed while trying to reach up and touch the beast. "Not as close as you think," he said. "Try a burger while they're still hot. They're not bad, for gringo grub." Amila took a bite. "No, not bad. You have tried FatBurger. By the marina?" "Yup. But no airplanes there. I like my burgers soaked in jet fuel. Nice after taste." Amila shook her head, smiled at Suki, then at Carpenter. "Men..." she began, but she paused as a really loud one roared over. "Men and their machines." Carpenter's iPhone chirped, and he answered it. "Oh, hi Bill. What did you find out? Oh? When? Right, I'll tell her. Thanks, Bill. Appreciate it. You too." He rang off, put his phone back in his pocket, then he looked at Amila. "That was a friend of mine, prof over at SC, works in the med school. He's going to work with you a little bit, get you ready for the next set of exams." Amila looked at him, not sure what to think. Did this man simply go around doing things for everyone without ever asking them? "Oh? Why would he do that?" Carpenter shrugged. "Name's Portman. He's a good person to know, assuming you want to practice medicine in LA." "What makes you think I can afford this – Portman's – time?" "What makes you think you can't?" Suki looked at her mother, then at Carpenter. "What's going on, Mom?" "Don't ask me. Ask your architect, here. You know, this man who builds dreams." She looked at her mother, winced when another jet rumbled over, then turned to look at Carpenter. "So? Are you going to tell me what's going on?" He grinned, looked at the next jet lining up for the runway, then motioned Suki to come close and he whispered something in her ear. She turned beet red, nodded her head, then smiled at her mother. She leaned close to this strange man, kissed him on the cheek, then wiped away a tear and walked over to his truck. "What was that all about?" "I asked her if she would like to move into Lupita's old room downstairs. When she's not too busy with her schoolwork, maybe she can help me from time to time. I might learn a thing or two from her, you know?" "I am not sure I understand you. No, I am sure I don't. You are impossible." "I know. Ain't it awful?" "You will steal my daughter? Take her from my home?" "Yes. Yes I will." "And me? What becomes of me?" "There are two more bedrooms upstairs." "You don't want me..." "I didn't say that." "So, you want me to...you want us, to move in with you? Just like that?" "Just like that. You're going to be very busy for several months, and you'll have plenty to worry about besides paying rent and buying food. Besides, I think you like me. Just a little bit, anyway." "If I did not love you so much, I would call you 'asshole'. But it's hopeless now. You are hopeless." A gust of wind passed through the little park, and a passing leaf fell on his head. Amila leaned forward and plucked it from his hair; she regarded the amber in her hand for a moment, then she looked up, saw a tear welling in his eye. Falling Leaf "No, I am wrong. You are not hopeless at all." He shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe I was...yesterday. Today? Well, it seems to me a lot's happened in the past couple of days." "So. You are a romantic. A hopeful romantic, yes? What am I going to do with you?" He smiled at the leaf in her hand, at the smile in her eyes. He smiled at the possibilities life gave us from time to time, at the infinite varieties of loss and love outside each and every window, love often within reach, and sometimes – forever just out of reach. He stood, held out his hand, and she reached up to him. Time. All he could think about was time. There was not a moment to lose. "What are you going to do with me?" he repeated as he looked into her eyes. "I'm not sure that it matters, as long as we're together." She looked at him as he spoke, lost in a thought. "Are you a wizard?" "Me?" He grinned again, then shrugged his shoulders. "Well, you never can tell about these things, I reckon." "I think you must be. There is so much magic around you." "Magic?" he said, then he took her hand in his and kissed it, lost inside a million questions. She held the fallen leaf up to the sky, studied the shape of this day with the sun on her face, and then she saw the structure of her life inside the veiny lattice... And perhaps Suki's life, and Viktor's too. And this man, this magician by her side? Could someone like him ever be bound by something so illusory? "Yes," she said after looking at him for a moment. "Together. All of us, we are bound together. Us, the world we make, the magic we share." Somehow, she could tell he knew exactly what she was thinking, and she wondered what he might see in the structure of this leaf...but then...she already knew the answer to that question. All she had do was look at this man, and his Falling Leaf, and everything became clear again. For whatever reason time had brought them together, and she held the little leaf to her heart. (C)2015 Adrian Leverkühn | ABW Falling Leaves Bob and Sandra White sat quietly in their living room. It was a comfortable place in the house that they could be found when the things of the day were caught up and they wished to only relax until going to bed. Bob would read the paper or a book; Sandra would do needlepoint or continue an unfinished novel, dog-eared somewhere in the middle long ago and then forgotten. The forgotten novels were a good distraction for Mrs. White because they were always there and never ending. One always had to refresh themselves with a book only partially read to continue the story, but in Mrs. White's case, she would read past the marked section and mark the new page before putting it down again to be forgotten. The books were always there. Mr. White on the other hand had his news. He had maintained his subscriptions to the local and state papers for three decades and probably read every one. Bob's newspapers would come year after year until the day his lifeless body lie in his very own bed and the paper is never retrieved from the porch. Only then will the papers cease to appear. Bob and Sandra White's living room was a train station of sorts. They quietly busied themselves while they waited. Death comes like a train in the night and sweeps you away to your final destination. Night after night Bob and Sandra quietly waited. Sometimes, although seldom one would speak to the other. Maybe a question would be asked or new information about the family or current events would be offered. Talking in the White house had become a laborious task. Neither one would ever admit to seeing it quite that way but might reflect on it and wonder when their lives did become so quiet. Mr. White would laugh as he professed proudly that him and the Mrs. knew each other so well that they didn't have to talk any more; they could 'read each other like a book'. Neither of the White's would ever make the connection but Mr. White would never know how right he was. The dog-eared novels that lay in their places and yellowing with age were representatives of the White marriage. What was once new and exciting had been discarded after folding a page corner to remind the reader where to pick back up should he ever choose to. Folding that page might represent the readers' good intentions to continue but just like Mrs. Whites novels, her marriage was littered with folded page corners that she just couldn't seem to get past. It was just too much work. Mrs. White would occasionally bring home a new book to read and toss out an old one. The new book wasn't full of creased reminders. She would even hold her new book differently. As she read, her hands gracefully cradled it until she was finished for the night and was ready to go to bed. She would carefully take the corner of the page in-between her fingers and pause to scold herself for not buying that bookmark that she liked so well before folding the page over and closing the book. Mr. White was a proud man. He might say that unlike his wife's stacks of unread books, he reads the paper from 'front to back every damn day'. 'A mans gotta know what's going on the world he lives in.' he might say as he deposits the paper into his recycling bin. If a person asked him, could he tell what those news papers contained over the past thirty years. 'It's always somebody screwing someone else in one way or another, classifieds are always full of stuff for sale and you can never tell which teams are going to be the on top the way the sports writers are always stirring the pot. Always the same damn thing.' Mr. White sees the paper cover to cover every day but it too is much like his life. It's the same damn thing. 'I wonder what they'll have tomorrow...' He thinks as he rolls it back up. '...maybe something good.' He fails to see the newness among the drudgery because it is easier. If nothing else changes, he doesn't have to either. The mantle clock ticks by the minutes with a soft 'tock...tock...tock' of the swaying pendulum behind its glass cover. The sound is relaxing; it mesmerizes the mind and lets a person forget that each sound of the swaying pendulum actually represents their very life. Train stations have nice clocks. Bob stopped reading his paper one evening at the metro section. Page B-9 to be exact. He lifted his head in thought, not looking at anything in particular and stayed that way for several seconds before placing his reading glasses next to his chair and folding his paper into his lap. "Sandra..." He began in a matter-of-fact voice. "...why don't we ever have sex?" Mrs. White looked up from her book and pulled the glasses from her eyes. She looked squarely at her husband with a blank look on her face. To a person watching, they could see that she was rewinding and playing this question over and over in her mind in an effort to find some solid ground to get her bearings. Mrs. White finally stalled. "What?" She said, changing her expression from one of confusion to determination and challenge. Mr. White repeated the question exactly as she had heard it the first time and the look of confusion tried to overtake her face once again but she was able to overcome it and maintain her composure. Mr. White illuminated his thoughts, allowing his wife to continue to sit quietly. "I don't know that I would need it, but they have drugs now that help when things don't work as well as they used to. I just never really thought about it." "Where in the world did you get such a notion?" Mrs. White said, hoping that a belittling comment would divert him. "I don't see it as a notion dear. It seems to me it's a perfectly normal thing. So why don't we?" Her husband pressed. Mrs. White answered in the same tone as before. "Well Bob, we're not exactly young anymore." She said shaking her head. "We're getting older, we've settled down. That's what people do." The air stood silent for a moment except for the 'tock...tock...tock' over the empty fireplace. Mr. White shook his head in a slow confident style. "I don't think so dear. We are getting older but we're not that old. We've only had sex a few times in the last fifteen or so years. The last time was almost ten years ago. Why is that?" Mrs. White bit at him with her response. "We were busy Bob. We raised two kids and worked. We've had busy lives. We had things to do, remember?" "Sex isn't a vacation that you have to plan and arrange for." Bob retorted. "It's less time than a person spends drinking a cup of coffee in the morning. You've had time to do that seven days a week for as long as I've known you. Schedules and sports and kids never interfered with that." Mrs. White bit back her rising anger. "What are you getting at Bob? Where is this coming from?" "What am I getting at?" Bob repeated back to her. "As I think about it Sandra,; I'm damn well amazed that we have kids at all. It wasn't a matter of time or schedule or anything else. It was the same as the discussion we're having right now. You always had some excuse, some good sounding excuse like a headache or cramps or a hard day or not the right time. Now you have an excuse that will last to the end of our days, we are now too damn old to have sex." Bob began nodding his head slowly and looked straight through his wife deep in thought. "Too damn old." He mumbled to himself before continuing. "You've always done your best to be a hard person hoping that you would be respected more. The problem was that you felt like you had to be that way with everyone including me. I'm beginning to believe what I thought years ago. You have no attraction for me whatsoever. I was never the right guy. Now I can add to being unattractive, I'm also too old now." Bob shook his head slowly with a realization that left him empty and cold." Sandra sat motionless with a cold face that exposed her feelings. Initially she wanted to lash out at him but didn't. She was deflated and too tired in life to strike back. "I have always been attracted to you Bob. I just never cared much for sex, that's all." Bob slowly nodded his head with a far away look in his eyes. "Yep." He said quietly. "I just can't understand why in the hell you stayed with me Sandra. It doesn't make sense. Why didn't you just leave and have the life you wanted?" "I had the life I wanted Bob. Right here with you. Sex was just not something I cared about. Everything else has been perfect." Bob took a deep breath and refocused on Sandra. "It's you. It's been perfect for you. You are content to sit there and watch me die an old man as long as you have the freedom to do as you choose. It's always been that way. Since you care so deeply about me it's hard to imagine why you came up with so many excuses to keep me away from you physically." Bob was shaking his head in disbelief. "All this time you've been lying to me for whatever reason. You are sitting right there now still expecting me to buy into your lies." Bob looked distant again and added. "I hoped that one day you would let me in but you're never going to." "I can't believe this! You bastard! By the way you talk you'd think the world revolves around your dick! Well I'm here to tell you that it's not the case. I was never her for you to use as a whore. I am your wife! I would think that I have some say over what I do and don't do with my body." Sandra was nearly breathless from the oncoming anger when she finished. "I have never done anything to you to deserve this Sandra." Bob said calmly. "And neither have I!" Sandra spat back. Bob composed himself and took the paper from his lap and sat it on the table next to him. He leaned back in his chair and sat silent. His words formed in his mind before he spoke. "I knew a guy once that went to surprise his wife with a gift because she had been feeling bad for a reason he didn't know but he loved and cared for her When he finally located her he found that she was with another man. It was awful. They thought they were alone but her husband actually saw the whole thing. He heard every word. She was begging the guy for it like a hungry animal. Can you believe that a woman would be so cruel and heartless? She would make excuses not to sleep with her husband but then fucks not only that guy but others when she would go on business trips. She slept with so many guys...and did all kinds of things with them. The life of the party she was." Sandra just looked coldly at Bob. He continued. "Yea, that was a pretty awful thing. I would know, I saw it." Bob said it with amazing calm. "I saw you on your knees sucking his dick. I saw you bending over the table so he could fuck you like a dog and I heard you begging him to go harder and harder. I even have glossy 5X8's of you. Envelopes stuffed full of as many pictures as you've had dicks stuffed into you. I was on a first name basis with quite a few private investigators across the country, each one taking pictures of you as soon as you stepped foot into their city." Bob calmly took a breath and shook his head. "Don't care for sex much huh?" Sandra was white as a sheet and couldn't speak. "You were never as tough or as smart as you wanted me to think. I was never as dumb." Sandra stammered for words. "Why didn't you..." "A man doesn't make president at a large bank when he's been married to a whore and divorced in a scandalous affair because his wife was fucking the banks biggest clients now does he?" Bob's eyes narrowed and he became serious. "Your lucky Jeffrey turned out to be my son..." Bob saw her react. "...You were sweating it weren't you? Yea, I knew that too." He said calmly. "They picked up that you told Rodgers you were worried that he may have gotten you pregnant. That bastard cut and ran didn't he? Not much of a man you were fucking. You fucked him though and not your supposed 'perfect man'". "I had a blood test done when Jeffrey was born. I would have put a gun to your head and blown your brains out had he not been mine. Sandra was shaking and starting to cry. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry..." She said over and over trembling more and beginning to cry more. "Now I want to hear the truth Sandra. Do not lie to me." Bob's eyes narrowed in a way that scared her even more. Bob opened the drawer to his side table and took out a manila envelope. He pulled out a stack of pictures that were both color and black and white and tossed them into her lap. Sandra didn't even look at them. She knew what they all showed. "Truth." Bob said coolly. Sandra cried and looked at the pictures. She couldn't look Bob in the eyes. "I want it all the time. I can't get enough. I was seeing Dr. Vullen about it, he was treating me for it. I had to be a good banker's wife. Good banker's wives don't want sex all the time. I couldn't control it. I couldn't let you know what was going on in my head." Sandra was spouting out the words as though they were choking her. "I haven't done it in a long time. I haven't. I stopped. I have wanted to but I didn't." "Do you have any diseases?" Bob asked wryly. "No. I have been checked and rechecked. I never caught anything." Bob went to her and gathered the pictures from her lap and put them away. "You had everything you ever needed right here. I haven't had sex in years" He said standing next to her. "You had all of the sex you needed and wanted and have made me feel bad for wanting any at all." "I'm sorry Bob" She said cowering in her seat. "Aren't we too old now? Haven't I wasted it all?" "Do you still want it? Do you ever want it now?" Bob asked hopefully. Sandra choked back an overload of emotions rising out of her. "I always do Bob, I'm sorry, I still always want it. I'm just old enough and mature enough to deal with it." "For once just tell me what is in your head." Bob said. Sandra bit at her lip nervously as she looked up at him. Bob reached out and stroked her breast through her shirt. "I love you Sandra but I want to know all of you." Sandra dropped her novel onto the floor as she moved forward and pulled at the front of Bob's pants Two weeks later Mrs. White finished one of her books and bought another. She also bought a bookmark to go with it. Mr. White only perused a single paper a day. The Wall Street Journal. Most went into the bin unread. Suddenly life was about more than falling leaves and changing seasons. Mr. and Mrs. White often found themselves leaving their old train station in search of their new adventures together.