high school reunion.

The din, smoke, and draft fail to numb as advertised. When he sees a ghost it scares him, drunk or sober.   Swallowing hard and falling like a full book-sachel into his alotted space, he is absorbed into the sinful mass at the table.  Weeks or months make no difference, their conversation is that of a Latin Mass; rote and performed with the same conviction at every gathering.  The truth of their lives floats about them as immaterial as smoke, ignored and incorporeal, the stinging in his eyes the only indicator of it’s presence at all.  The pieces of his heart regained since the last fruitless wake are chipping away: He sips his beer.  Tales are shared, and the same jokes made as always, comfortable, sanity-loosening repitition  ticks in metronome fashion as he tries to count in his head how many times he’s recounted this very story.

She hates mayonnaise.  She won’t eat chicken salad.  She threw up in the limo.

He throws up a little with it’s telling.  Swallows it in a mass of cold regret drained from a plastic cup.  This, like all evenings it’s kin, ends quickly.  Small comfort, that taste in his mouth will be there tomorrow– it pairs well with the adrenaline residuals tapping at the base of his skull.  It haunts the following days and casts long shadows over him as he lurches his car off the shoulder and tries to gain ground forever lost.

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