#744 Any Sign of Light- Bryn Chancellor
Co-workers on a first date on their way to the state fair are sitting by the side of the road watching a huge fire that has tied up traffic. Sam is twenty, Ruby ten years older. They are both broken. He has a bad heart and she bad lungs. They sit their, drink beer, listen to her choice of music and watch the smoke.
In silence there are secrets. He doesn’t talk much, and finds that girls will fill the silence and he can play the part of listener. The tension that silent moments create is filled emotion and desire. She fills her moments with music, he fills his with sex, clearly substituting those for larger needs. This is a little sad, a little meditative.
Notable Passage: “Sam’s eyes were brown, like dirt, or maybe cooked hamburger meat. He blinked, thinking of his face in the mirror in the morning. Sometimes he would stand there and look at himself, trying to see how others see him, until his face became a stranger’s, someone he might vaguely recognize in the grocery store. In the sky, the smoke was as thick as pavement, impenetrable. He wished his eyes were that color.”
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