The Nothing

The day slips away from the world, and John throws his 87’ Ford in gear at four forty-five in the afternoon. A cooler of bud bottles already open, he hooks a right on Washtenaw from College Place. Passing the Water Tower at Summit on his left, shifting into third with his right. Drinking into between shifts a Bud bottle between his legs. Passing by his future Origine of reference, the Water Tower opens a slice of the setting sun on 9/11. A forward-looking angle of light refracts from the top window. A towering beam of red through violet catching John’s peripheral at his two o’clock. Across the trees beyond Oakwood Avenue and over the open baseball fields behind Rynearson Stadium. Hopping a fence and the athletic facilities between fields. Opening up and spreading like a sunrise into a Universe of infinite light. Venus a star in his mind’s eye, his forever’s time in Scicluna fields of rye. Finding blond, blue, and green and a smile in an empirically beautiful kaleidoscope of kindness. Finding May.