A Short Walk

I take a short walk.

As I do, I see the street then as it is: sloping upward gently, trees lining it. The sky is blue.

Beyond that it bears little obvious comparison to the streets of the Jung, yet my mind makes it so, transporting me back to that green hell planet, that miserable trap of human suffering.

And that impression, subtle as a second, is enough to call to mind Dad standing by the swollen creek, looking down into the water. It’s a story I’ve told before, and I will tell it again, but not now.

It’s as though the necessary depth of the memory isn’t available.

So I turn my head and see the golf course. I realize, then, that I will never play golf with  him again because he will never play golf again. I hate golf, but he loved it, and I loved him. I can remember the last time we played. Maybe I’ve told that one, too. Or maybe not yet, but it’s as with the other. Some other time.

And it’s like this as I crest the hill and smile at the pretty woman, her androgyne companion, and their dog: He will never play golf again. We will never play golf again.

As I turn down the side street, I see houses. I realize these houses, like several I’ve passed already, have been renovated. Renovation isn’t the same as new construction; they’re barely alike at all really, but it is similar enough to remind me that Dad will never build another house. He’ll never fix things around our house. He won’t run the wiring to the shed. None of it. Not ever. There will be no more repeated trips to the hardware store. No more screaming sounds of a circular saw at seven ay-em. No more endless hammering from dawn to dusk and sometimes beyond. No more pushing in on the side of his mouth to chew it as he did geometry in his head. No more taking a swig of caffeine free Diet Pepsi and then literally saying, “Ahhh.” No more tape measures hissing and slapping back home to the stylings of the Eagles. No more asking me to hold things still for an impossibly long time while his eyes stare at one point, then another.

No more anything.