Snip

Random but I wrote on the plane. Not sure where it fits into anything. Or if it does. I’m home! Toast has forgiven me. Mostly.

Back to work in the morning once I sleep travel off. I drove into Boston during peak morning rush hour. I drove out of Dallas during evening rush hour. I will take driving in Dallas hands down every time.

Flying home

Wolves, always wolves.” The man stirred restlessly by the window, thin shoulders hitching even closer together if that were possible. “Never the coyote, so wise, wary, and bloody.” 

“It’s the trend.” The big man who sat, his eyes hooded and dark, in the deep armchair was entirely in shadow. The complaining man was limned in moonlight, thin and pale in this as he was in the sun. “They don’t know, only that it’s brave and bold and oh-so clever of them.” There was the movement of a dismissive hand gesture, and a ring on that hand caught the moonbeam enough to track it having been made. 

“And eagles.” The little man gave it up with a ghost of a laugh. “Never vultures, who are nobler than the birds of prey.” He turned and came to sit in the chair facing his friend. 

“Perhaps.” The big man leaned forward, and the moon glimmered on his bald head, silver rather than the port-wine of too much sun and other damage. 

“How long do we wait?” The coyote man drummed his fingers almost silently on the plush of the chair’s arm. 

“All night, if we must.” The man had sunk back into the chair again. “I wait. You, Alexie, can go to bed if you like.” 

“I could not sleep,” the other objected. “Maybe I should prowl…” He interrupted  himself hastily, “silently! Not a noise!” 

“No, if you will not sleep, then stay right there, Alexie, It will not kill you to sit still for once in your life.” 

James Gallsworth watched his old friend settle back deeper into the comfortable chair, and laid a silent bet with himself concerning the continued consciousness of the smaller man. 

James himself knew he could sit there, wide awake, watching and waiting, until dawn and past if necessary, and tonight it was necessary. A child’s life was in danger. The child would have objected strenuously to the label, would have insisted they were no longer a minor. Still, James crossed one ankle over the other, childhood came to an end not at an age, but a choice. 

Tonight would perhaps be that choice. The room was silent, not even the tick of the clock. Alexie was still, and James knew he’d fallen asleep at his watch. The moon had risen fully and cast a lengthening rectangle of white light on the floor of the room, over the rug that lay on it, and through the window which had its curtains fully pulled open, James could see the darkness of trees against the night, their leaves silvered in the light. 

It would be later, he thought, when the shadows were deeper, not now, while it was nearly bright as day out there. Or, perhaps…. 

James coiled his legs up under him and launched himself out of the chair and across the room to the dark doorway. Something had moved, and he’d seen enough to know it was the someone he’d been waiting for.