⸎

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Having wandered the tunnels for weeks now in preparation, slowly building my strength and shaking off the atrophy, I’m getting ready to venture out again.

 

Beethoven has been at my heel every hobble-step of the way, so assiduous in his concern. A battery-depleted glow sword makes a surprisingly serviceable cane, flashing in the black like an echo in time.

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When I reach the surface I squint, staring crooked at a lopsided sun blurry through bricolage tracks before calling down to my kindred to join me.      

 

I half-expected to find the whole place run amok with scabbers, waiting for my coronation ascension, but only dead wind whistles back.

 

I wheeze, moaning under a jigsaw configuration of clouds.

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My kindred are slow to come, but when they reach the edge of the light they slink back down into the tunnels entirely.

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            “Come on . . . it’s safe now.”

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A few listless whines and I know something is wrong. It is Beethoven making this call, barring the others outright from crossing into the light.

 

The others trust his decision, and soon they are filing back down

with those big clopping paws of theirs. Even Ives accepts

the wisdom of this verdict without much fuss.

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            Beethoven’s eyes shine at me through the dark as he bows one last time; I bow back to my only friend in the world

before tearing myself from the tunnels.

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With a few parting pants, he joins his brothers

and sister in the long dark, and I - I am

once again alone - and that is that.

 

I draw Clair de Lune for the first time

in a season, trying to will my bones

to toughen as I toss that flimsy

glow sword to the

ground.

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