Although it is only 6:30 P.M. the sky has turned black. Winter has hidden the Miami orange moon. I am lying on my den sofa. My legs are raised, looking like two crumbling mountains. I relax just a speck and they fall kerplop - flat. Like a god, I command them to rise again, sway and stop. Something takes hold of my hands. Something holds my skinny legs steady, as my thighs twitch and my eyes glue themselves to the wide spread of my long fingers resting on them. Unpainted finger nails need the bright red color that I recall so vividly from my sixty year ago memory.
A loud thump hits the wooden floor beneath my bed. Leaning over the side I cannot help but smile when I see an open manicure set replete with red, pink, white, even colorless, nail polish. A card on a square of white typing paper flutters to my hand. Reading aloud the words I see again, 'For those beautiful hands. Love, Joe,' I hold back joyful tears as long as I can.
They soon take control of me, run like a wild stream down my cheeks, drop on my plain, boring, nightgown.
Those memories fade and so do I. I can feel my legs slowly lie down. My head tilts to the right and my eyes close yet I can still see thru my thin eyelids. Sleep comes quickly. Dreams do not. There is nothing more to see, to feel again. One more deep breath escapes my lungs as the past and I dissolve together.
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