Hello Stranger

183. Pain and I are not strangers. We have met. We know each other like three hundred hitters know bees in the bat. Like linebackers know stingers. Like boxers know that only the first one hurts. Like lovers know that it will soon follow the temporary and fleeting sensation of bliss. Like the darkness knows the light. I lie still on my back, a position I have held like a plank for eight months. I fantasize running, leaping, pivoting on a dime in a high-speed, high octane dance with the dark-side of doom. I feel a surge of adrenaline as my physical self reacts to the stimulus I have created and, filling the prescription ordered, dial it back in a segue to a more peaceful and calm setting. I walk on a isolated beach of golden silicone and turquoise amazed that the air temperature perfectly matches the ideal comfort level of my bare skin. The tropical breeze reminds me of how tiny this collection of atoms and carbon truly is. I look at a passing fairy tern floating serenely on an invisible thermal and connect with her humility and presence. We are one. Alive and awake along this path, lost in a paradise of self realization. Needing to prove its existence I reach my arm to touch the bond that connects us. I feel a stronger wind on my face, a warm, gentle, loving touch of life. It is Julie's hand on my cheek I find opening one eye and then the other, slowly, in appreciation of the passing states of consciousness. Does she know where I have been, what I was just experiencing, the beach, the peace, the bird, the serenity, the breeze and our connectivity with all? She must. Certainly she does. It had often been one of the litany of reasons for my deep affection for her, the respect one affords to a superior. You know what I would like to know. A single tear escapes her right duct and, gathering speed, falls from her cheek onto the linen beds-sheet with what sounds to me like a liquid explosion. You have my attention darling one. She moves so close to my face that I can smell her hair. Another tear escapes, undecticed this time, dropping silently as my olfactory radar is overwhelmed and distracted. "TOM is dead." Hello stranger.