| He is young again, resting after doing his chores
on a hot summer day. Sunlight is beaming into the Technicolor red of an ice
cold bottle of strawberry soda, and beads of condensation gather on the bottle
and catch the light that casts a red shadow in the shape of a star on the
ground. He takes a long slow sip and passes the bottle on. The pop is still
sweet on his tongue, still cold in his chest. The bottle won’t make it back
around to him again, so he savors the flavor. Later that day he will go to a matinee movie and see Dorothy Dandrige for the first time and fall hopelessly in love. On September 8th 1965, the day she dies, he will weep like a child, alone in his room. It will be the first time he realizes how fleetingly precious life is. It will the be the first time of many. She came back a year later, and walked across the sand. |
