The Pacific

Overjoyed - 199 Words
Lindsey Thompson

Darkness poured into the streets like water from a flood. I walked silently, soberly forward toward the lamppost up ahead, waiting for a swift breeze to sweep me home. A couple stumbled out of a bar, laughing and tumbling into a cab. She was far from overjoyed, but he didn’t seem to notice anything but her corkscrew smile. I turned my collar up and looked to the west, where the last rays were leaving Seattle and purging the depths of the Pacific. I could see you coming over that horizon, hands in pockets with a smirk to light the town on fire.

I lit a cigarette against my better judgment. Funny, that you quit just in time for me to begin. Balance even across oceans. I felt the nicotine slow my mind, caress my skin. The lights changed, and I crossed the street, heading south, heading back. You met me at the corner near the bar where the couple tumbled and where we met. I heard the yelping calls of drunken teens signaling to their kind, claiming the night as something new, something theirs. You saw my furrowed brow and kissed it, taking my hand and walking me home.