I can't remember what time of year it was. I do know that it wasn't cold, and the evening wasn't hot, so that could mean anything between November and March in the deep south.

What I do remember is picking up my best friend from Fort Stewart. He'd just finished his tour in Bosnia, where he had a number of misadventures he wouldn't tell me about until years later. Even then, he discussed the things that happened exactly once. Since that discussion, he's brought up aspects of the conversation here and there. I know he still carries guilt about the men who died at the other end of his sight picture, but he loses less sleep over it as time goes on.

We rolled up to the parade field where they were holding the soldiers in formation. All at once, they were dismissed, and he came running towards us to get in the car. It was backslaps, half-hugs, and laughter the rest of the night.

We ended up going out to a number of college bars that night. We were all on the upper end of college-age at that time, but we didn't stand out in the crowd. It was three of us: me, the triumphant hero on his return, and Brian. Brian was a veteran and a coworker of ours; we all worked at the sheriff's office at the time, and this was a rare night off for me and B.

It was a long walk to the bars from B's place, but it wasn't a bad one. The walk was even shorter after a night of drinking, and we managed to stumble home without incident. If I recall, we decided to strictly stick to beers only that night, so that helped make walking even possible.

Suddenly, Brian and I burst into song with a decidedly off-key rendering of Afroman's "Because I got High," but we somehow managed to recite nearly the whole thing at the top of our lungs. I still smile when I drive by that patch of road where the concert was held on our walk home; it's along railroad tracks that run parallel to low-traffic blacktop. Luckily, there were no homes nearby, but even if there had been, we weren't out too late. Granted, we were too late to serenade the neighborhood, but back then, nobody was around to hear it.

My best friend just laughed and stumbled, staring at us in amazement. He'd never heard the song, and he thought we'd made it up on the spot. The way we were alternating verses, first with me singing one then with B jumping in, it certainly could seem like it was extemporized. We joined each other on the chorus.

By the time we finished, we were home, and it was time for bed, but laughter wasn't left at the door with our shoes. Brian headed up to bed and K and I stayed up a little while longer chatting.

Before he shipped out, I gave him my Timex Indiglo. It was just a little $30 timepiece from Wal-Mart, but Kev never wore a watch. I told him he should probably have one for deployment, so he took it. "Just give it back when you get home."

I was giving him a stupid little goal, something to aim for.

"Thanks for the watch, man. I used it every day." He said, slurring a little, and taking the thing off his wrist, keeping his end of the bargain. I didn't know what to say, so I said nothing, putting it away in my pocket.

I still have that watch. While I don't really wear one anymore, and the one I do wear was a college graduation gift from my mom, I use the one that saw action overseas when I go kayaking.

I heard Afroman come on my radio when I was driving the other day, and it brought me back to that night so many years ago.

My thoughts turn now to Brian, gone now for over three years.

I wish I'd given him a goal, something to aim for, a reason to come home, a bargain to keep.

Instead, all I can give him are fond memories on a page.

I miss your dumb, annoying ass, B. I wish you were still here to irritate us and make us laugh, man.

"My god, what year was that?" She asks the question with a grin I can hear through the phone line.

"Probably 1984. Maybe 1985."

"Wow. That's a long time ago."

I agree, but I don't tell her that I remember the day like it was last week. She moves on to talk about her husband and her son. She's a nurse, he's a union worker in a factory, and retirement is close. The kid is a sophomore in college.

They built a house along the banks of that river, but way downstream from the place we met. Learning from the mistakes of our grandparents, she found a homesite atop a bluff that, barring an incredible catastrophe, will be impossible to flood. She sent me a photograph. It's gorgeous.

The last time I saw her was not long after we graduated. She missed my mother's funeral, having not found out about it in time to attend. That's when she called me, nearly in tears, guilt-ridden about not having been there for me.

We've known each other since 1985, and she was the first friend I made at That River.

I'd been going there since before then, but it was always just me and the grandparents. Maybe a cousin or two from the spot next door, where my grandfather's brother had a place. That uncle died fairly early on in the river years, though, and visits became far less frequent. His widow held on to the place for a while, but she let it go because she rarely went.

I had a box of toys kept under the bed on the porch. That bed still sits on a porch Back Home, and eventually, I'll claim it for my own screened-in sanctuary. From the box of toys, I still have two, and they sit on a shelf in my office. One is a Carter Hall can filled with crayolas. This box kept me company until I made this first friend.

When I was 12 or so, I wanted her to by my actual girlfriend, but she declined. It's probably for the best that she did. We used to visit each other frequently; our houses were only a couple of miles apart after I moved to be near that river, and we'd ride bikes back and forth. I was passing friends with her little brother, but honestly, I always thought he was a bit of a shit. Turns out he didn't improve much into his adulthood.

She was always a solid B student, a solid second-string athlete, but an A-level friend in those formative years of early high school. The friend group she chose was parallel to mine without necessarily forming much of a Venn diagram. Everyone knew each other and got along, but none of our people spent time with one another beyond school hours or extracurriculars.

We stayed in touch throughout high school, though. Chatting, calling, seeing one another sometimes. Things just sort of fell away as things do after graduation. It didn't help us stay in touch when she took those first couple of years of college far more seriously than I did. She was working full shifts and overtime before I could even call myself a junior; of course, she didn't have to work full time at night to then go to classes during the day. I use that as an excuse, really. I mean, it's true, I did clock in from 7pm to 7am more often than not to then arrive on campus for 0800 classes, but I skipped an awful lot in favor of sleep, too. Truth is, I skipped an awful lot even when I wasn't tired. But I digress.

We chatted for nearly two hours as I drove back country roads. Surprisingly, cell signal held out.

She told me about people we know, people we knew, and people we wished we didn't. I laughed a lot, and she asked me how I was doing since the funeral.

I thought about that day we met. It was a day like any other, but here we are, ripples in a pond forty years later. Friends once, and friends still. On that day, so far away but still so close, caterpillars had formed swarms. They were writhing piles on tree trunks, and should have been gross, but weren't. Each was a beautiful blue and green, and tickled young hands when scooped from their hardwood nests. She screamed and laughed, and I chased her as boys do.

"I've been fine," I lied.

As boys do.

It's hotter today than it was back then, but back then was warmer in ways that now never is.

I can picture with chrystal clarity every aspect of one of those days. The floating dock, its treated pine sun-baked and toasty on bare feet. The blue foam floats peeking through slats, stainless steel cleats with green jonboat tied alongside, gently swaying in the constant current. Rustoleum-red steel diamondplate and angle-iron stairs, welded by a man named Willie just upstream.

Often, my grandmother would sit on those stairs, a pack of Mores and a Tervis filled with iced Nestea by her side. She was my lifeguard, and there she'd sit, sipping, sweating, watching, vigilant. Cigarette smoke would help keep away the gnats, but I'd see her gently wave them away in between my jumps off of that floating dock.

I'd angle up and over the jonboat, clearing it in a shallow dive into warm waters that looked like that iced tea in her insulated cup.

When I inherited my grandfather's singlewide, I didn't keep any of those cups. Only now have I thought about them, and it pains me to not have one sitting in my keepsake cupboard. I have her old coffee cups and a replica of her stained-glass Coca-cola drinking glass that she used before getting the Tervis tumblers for Christmas one year. I believe those came from Anita, downstream. Her house has long been sold, but it looks the same, even if it looks much smaller today than it was then.

I'd plunge into those healing waters, that miracle mile of flowing wonder that fills my heart on these summer days so many years later. I learned to swim in an old concrete pool in a trailer park. The floor of the pool and the blacktop of the lanes would conspire to leave my feet a chewed, shredded mess, and the cooler sands of the riverbed were a balm for the soul. Summertimes were spent split between that river and the pool, and sunburns were a way of life.

The pool has been filled and forgotten, and I don't know anyone at the river anymore.

It's hotter today than it was back then, and memories of the warmth of a woman shepherding her lamb makes me mourn for my own cold, empty flock.

I'm surprised there isn't a scar on my inner ankle.

Summertime reminds me of better days spent broiling in the south's heat and humidity, riding bitch on a Honda Big Red that belonged to my best friend. Before his mom remarried, he'd ride back roads from his house to mine, tearing ass down sandy washboard. We'd tussle in my backyard above-ground pool, playing some bastardized version of basketball using an innertube and soccer ball. I've no idea where I got a soccer ball, but at least it was put to good use. The water temperatures were roughly the same as bathwater, but it provided a welcome change of pace to video games or rented VHS movies.

He'd often stay the night, not wanting to ride at night because of deer.

When he was 14 or so, his mom started letting him drive an old brown Toyota station wagon. Sometimes, my mother would let me ride back with him to his house.

I didn't spend the night over at his place much. I can't really say why, other than I had better stuff.

But he did have a sister, and later, I learned how much better her stuff was than mine.

That came long after he moved to town and we moved apart.

He's now a doctor, and his sister isn't the only one with better stuff than me.

That three wheeler, the Honda Big Red? Turns out, if you sit just so and your legs position the wrong way, the engine would burn the fuck out of your ankles.

I'm surprised there isn't a scar, beyond the one left when absent friends leave wounds that sometimes don't heal.

"Fuck sake, you're contaminating the scene."

The old man doesn't turn his head towards the uniform who chided him. He calmly puffs his Winston, squints into the rising sun, and silently counts to ten.

"Hey. Detective," the cop continues, "If you're gonna smoke, do it on the other side of the yellow tape."

He made it to five before his temper flared along with the cherry on the end of his Winston. Without moving anything other than his arm, he flicks the half-smoked cigarette at the mouthy sergeant's chest.

"Hey! FUCK!"

"It's my scene, shitstain. Go play in traffic."

A younger detective arrives carrying two to-go cups of coffee. He swiftly steps between the two men. "Hey, hey, easy, sarge. Here. Brought you a fivebucks. Hops you like cream and sugar."

Brushing ash off his uniform shirt, the sergeant grudgingly takes the offered cup. Grumbling, he walks to his cruiser parked at the end of the alley and climbs in.

"Chrissakes, kid. That was my coffee."

"Yeah, well. You shoulda thought of that before you tried to pick a fight with the night shift lead. He's been on since midnight and this was a shit detail."

"Fucker had the stones to tell me I'm contaminating the scene."

The handsome younger, larger man raises an eyebrow.

"Fuck. Not you, too."

"I mean, cmon man. Can't you stop smoking for an hour?"

"Why? I already know what happened and who did it."

"How the hell can you say that? You just got here."

"I've been here about ten minutes."

White jumpsuited technicians walk past the two detectives, carrying large kits that look like extremely oversized tackleboxes.

"So you've solved it, have you?"

The old man winks, sniffs, and reaches into his pocket for a new smoke.

"Not another one. Just wait until we get back to the car, wouldya?"

Grizzled, grumpy, and missing his coffee, the lead detective sniffs the white paper like it's a handrolled Cuban.

"I can't believe you gave that dick my coffee. I gave you a twenty, and don't think I aint noticed you kept the change."

"Yeah, I did, because fuck you. You're an old prick this morning."

"I'm an old dick every morning, kid."

"You don't lie."

"Shit. I lie like a dog, buddy." He laughs at the joke that only he gets, and his teeth seem just a little too sharp in the dawn's light.

"So you don't know whodunnit?" The new detective glances over at the uncovered body of a twenty-something woman in the alley. Non-valuable insides of her purse lie strewn on the blacktop along parts and pieces of her that never should have been outside. He shudders in the heat that has slowly risen along with the sun.

Black flies swarm in contrast with white Tyvek-clad techs. They photograph, catalog, scrape, and collect. "Oh, guys, ignore the butt still smoldering there where Sergeant Fucknuts was standing."

The junior partner waits patiently, sipping his latte.

"You're fuckin with me, aren't you, kid? I can smell that brew. Goddamn."

"Yep. You should apologize to the sarge when we leave."

"You know I'm gonna make you take me to a Starbie's drive through, right?"

"It's your money, boss."

Sighing, a man too old to fight but too stubborn to be beaten turns to leave.

"Whoa, boss, where you goin?"

"We're done here, kid. Let's go get the bastard who did this."

"How do you know who it is?"

"Because I've arrested the motherfucker before." The old detective reaches for his lighter, inhales sweet relief from questions he doesn't want to answer, and heads back to the car.

Some things are possible to explain, but impossible to believe.

"You cry in your sleep."

"Bullshit, no way."

She stops looking at her phone and turns her face towards his. He has a disbelieving half-smile on his face, his own phone drooping towards his lap.

"Not every time, but earlier today, when you napped? Yeah. And Friday night. No shit." She goes back to scrolling. "You want to talk about it?"

"How can I talk about something that I've no idea I'm doing?"

She shrugs, the topic closed for her. "I thought you should know, in case, you know, anyone ever notices."

He's reminded of the dream he had when he dozed off mid-afternoon. He's stricken with an urge to call his mother's sister.

Scrolling through his phone again, he shifts over to his contact list.

His family occupies about a third of the people saved.

Of those, there are only two left who can ever answer a phone call again.

She isn't one of them.

The rain has blackened all the tree trunks, but a white face is painted on a young oak.

I almost missed it staring back at me from the wood line. Two eyes, an exaggerated nose, an idiot's toothy grin, they all follow me as I turn against the wind. I cup the Winston, and calm sanity warms my throat as I squint against wisps of rolled North Carolina gold.

It isn't really a face, I reckon. It's lichen, or moss, or some other forest growth that's had its way with the bark of some wild tree.

I lean against the wet railing of my deck. The air is thick, but cool. Soon, the sun will turn wet grass into the floor of a sauna, but for now, everything is perfectly comfortable, maybe even a little chilled.

Maybe it's just the face dropping my temperature a little.

I refuse to make eye contact. It's silly, I know, because it isn't really a face and there are no eyes. I can't shake my odd feeling about it, though. It reminds me of one of those moths that intentionally draws the eye away from important bits.

So where should I be looking, if the face is a decoy?

I chuckle, shaking my head. This place is playing tricks on me.

I drape one leg over the banister and straddle it. I don't have any patio furniture yet. It's pretty low on the priority list, since I'm still living out of cardboard boxes in the new house.

I'll go poke around the tree line when I finish this Winston.

What's the worst that could happen?

"Don't."

"I just--" She reaches toward him, trying to rest a hand on his shoulder. He flinches, shrinking into himself.

"Don't." He repeats the word in a defeated whisper, staring up into a corner of the room. The ceiling fan slowly cuts through the air above, and a mesmerizing shadow flows behind the blades.

The silence stretches until he makes an idle observation. "It's been years since that thing worked. I had a replacement new in the box, but it sat in the garage for the last near decade. I never got around to installing it."

She tries on a smile, seeing if it fits. It's a squeeze, but she manages to shimmy into one. He hears the strain in her voice as she attempts to broadcast calm. "Looks like it's fine."

He turns his gaze her way. "The day it started working was the first day you did this."

She knows what he means by this. He shivers, but the room is comfortable.

Words stop flowing and the quiet is a drought.

A minute, an hour, a year seem to pass. There's a slight jingle as one of the brass pull chains does a dance, sometimes hitting one of the lightbulbs on the bottom of the ceiling fan.

Finally, he reaches out and takes one of her hands in both of his. His palms are clammy and cold, but a bead of sweat runs from his temple down to the neatly trimmed beard at his jawline. It almost looks like a tear, but his voice is steady and not thickened by heightened emotion. He sounds eerily calm when he speaks.

"You saw her." It's a statement, not a question.

Unsure if it's rhetorical, since they've discussed this at length, she answers with a yes.

He nods. His gaze returns to the fan blades chasing one another in an endless loop.

"Do you think it's coincidence?"

"What's that?" She asks, not quite following. This is a new conversation, not more retelling or rehashing of what she saw, heard, and communicated.

"The fan. Years it's sat, unused, because only the light worked. Everything was fine, then, poof, it was broken. I figured maybe a wire had wiggled loose or something, since I practically always left the thing running. Years, it sat there, and then the very day you..." his voice dwindles off, and he makes a vague gesture with one of the hands holding hers.

"The day I what? Say it. It's nothing to be afraid of."

"The day you spoke with the dead."

"Yes. The day I spoke to your grandmother."

He shivers, and more sweat beads on his forehead.

"Let's pretend for a minute that what you're saying is true."

"It is."

"Yes, you're sure of it, but I'm still skeptical it was her."

She scoffs. He sees her lean back a little, taking in the sight of him. She removes her hand from his, and wipes several droplets of sweat from his forehead. She shows him the moisture on her fingers before flicking it away. "It's 71 degrees in here but you're sweating like it's 95. I've watched you shiver at the same time."

"Maybe I'm getting sick."

"Maybe you're terrified."

His answer is a gunshot, harsh, sudden, almost echoing in the room he uses as an office. "You're goddamned right I'm scared." It's nearly a shout, but not quite. She hears the new thinness of his voice in the outburst, but not nearly as much as he feels it. The hollowness in his chest lends a shallowness to his voice that speaks truly of the abject terror within him.

"There's no need to be afraid. I was the one communing, I was the one open, not you."

"So you've said."

"Yes, so what's wrong?"

"Did you ever stop to think that if we're both standing on your porch, and you turn on the light at night, everyone is caught in the glow? The bugs don't care who owns the property, they just fly towards the light. We both get bitten, because we're both there. We were both here."

She pauses, furrows her brow. "I'm not sure that's how this works."

"I'm now sure how this works at all."

"Fear of the unknown is normal, I get it."

"Did you get other voices? Did you get cold? Did you get weighed down?"

She turns to look at him, seriousness washing across her features. He continues.

"Yeah. So, while you're telepathically chatting it up with grammie or whatever, I'm feeling something all over me. Pressing down on my shoulders. On my chest. It's heavy, it's cold, it's suffocating."

Seriousness becomes worry, but she tries not to show it.

She fails.

"Yeah. Exactly. I see that look. Now imagine there I am, trying to put on a happy face for you while you're divining or whatever. But I'm having an entire fucking conversation in my head."

"What was said?"

"Let me in. Over and over and over and over and over."

"What did you say?"

"I said fuck off, fuck you, no."

She laughs. It's involuntary, sudden, and entirely heartfelt. "Really?"

He isn't offended, and even manages to crack a smile. "Yeah. That was a quote."

"Anything else?"

"Yeah, I said you're not welcome here and not to bother me again. I told it I was protected and that I walked in the light."

"I didn't know you were a religious man."

"I guess we never really know how we feel about things until we are certain about some other things. I mean, I'm not headed to church anytime soon, but yeah. I guess I got a little religion in me."

"So what happened next?"

"Lightness. Brightness. Weightless. My shoulders perked up, my chest loosened, I felt like I could practically float away."

"I think that was your guardian spirit reassuring you."

"So you think this shit was real? It wasn't some sort of irrational response to a set of implausible things? It wasn't all in my head?"

"Well, technically it was all in your head, but I think it's more accurate to say it was all in your spirit." It's her turn to take one of his hands into both of hers. She tries to be reassuring, confident, a rock.

He smiles as much as his anxiety will allow.

Silence returns, but it's comfortable.

Finally, he speaks again. "If it's all the same to you, I think I'll not be on your porch when the light is on. Let's not try to talk to any more of my people, if you don't mind. I think it's best if we let those who have gone stay on their way. Leave them gone, not forgotten, but most definitely not here."

She nods, and they enjoy each other's quiet company until it's time for bed. While he doesn't want to be a part of her metaphysical porch light being on, he leaves all the lights in the house on this particular night.

Neither of them notice that the still-turning ceiling fan's dancing shadows stopped moving when they left the room.

"It's not a uniquely human condition."

Two men sit on the same side of a booth in a busy pub. If anyone cared, some would wonder if they were lovers.

The man who speaks wears no parka, despite freezing weather. He's in an immaculate bespoke suit. It almost swallows light, so dark is the black on black. He is regally pale in contrast, as if the warmth of the sun is a tale whispered by fairies.

His companion, leaning as far onto the wall as he can, is ruddy with drink. Even so, he is aware, sharp, focused.

Afraid.

"Come again?" he stammers.

The elegant man smiles like a rattlesnake.

"Hope. Hope is not a uniquely human condition."

"How so?"

"Take dogs, for example. You think it's love in their eyes when they stare at the dinner table? No. It's optimism. Begging for whatever scraps master will throw them."

"I see."

"Do you see you're the dog?"

"Who is the master?"

"Whom do you serve?"

"...I work at Sainsbury's, mate."

The man in the suit laughs, and the temperature in the pub drops. Winter's chill settles into the warm public house.

"Did you study Latin in school?"

"I remember a class, but nothing stuck."

The pale man calls for another round.

"Dum spiro spero." Two pints of Kronenbourg land on the table and the server quickly disappears. He's careful not to touch the man on the outside of the booth's seat, but he can't say why. "While I breathe, I hope."

"I like that."

"Breathing, or hoping?"

"Both."

"Abandon one, and you'll abandon the other."

The fearful man doesn't know what to say, so he drinks.

"Do you know why I order ale when I take these little walks topside?"

"Topside?"

"Among you mud-fucking monkeys. His favorite pets. His dogs. Only, your dogs are actually dogs, so I think you have the better of it."

"Mate, I'm just trying to have a pint. Never owned a dog, nor fucked a monkey."

The pale man laughs again; mugs on the table frost over.

"I like you, Oliver."

"Ollie. Dad was Oliver."

"Oh, I know him."

"Knew him?"

"Know."

"He was a right cunt."

"Is."

"What're you on about, anyway?"

The suited man swirls a delicate index finger in his pint. "I order ale because He made wine." Bright yellow lager turns into black stout.

The drunk doesn't believe his eyes, so he shuts them.

"Spirans erit cupidum memoria, Ollie."

"Cupid's memory?"

"What would you give to keep breathing? To prevent breath from being a fond memory?"

For the first time, Ollie looks into his guest's eyes. He sees a beautiful creature who looks like a man, but doesn't know beauty. True fear is lead inside him; even beatings taken as a child from Oliver the elder didn't weigh like this moment.

"Mate," he whispers, voice tight and chest hollow, "not much. To you? Nothing."

"Do you know who I am?"

"I can guess your name."

The devil laughs and everyone shivers.

My first kiss had an identical twin sister. In a weird little twisted triangle, I actually started with a crush on the one who didn't kiss me, but ended pretty tangled up in the other one.

It ended with me settling in with her best friend.

Twisted little triangle, indeed.

From somewhere inside the fiery wreckage of that fiasco with the twins, I plucked some wisdom. My own little souvenirs from my visit to what certainly must have been adjacent to a circle of hell. Firstly, I learned that a dude named George was an asshole. He was pretty keyed up to throw down, but I laughed at him and turned my back. Turns out he had a thing for the girl who kissed me. Sorry, George. I never forced her to hands-free transfer to me her Mystery Mix Now & Later in the backseat.

Second, I learned that braces aren't awesome. Later, I learned that braces really suck for a different kind of kissing, if you catch what I'm throwin.

Third, I found that love finds us, we don't find it.

Love has found me a few other times throughout my life, and sometimes it was good. Other times, it was good for a while. On occasion, it was bad, but even before it went ugly, it was beautiful.

Those twins remind me that too much of a good thing is a bad thing. Two girls, identical in every physical way, but so very different. Two girls is probably one too many; life aint everything Penthouse Forum promised it would be.

One sister was kind and gentle, the other was all edges and angles.

When the edgy one kissed me, it cut.

Decades later, when I see her picture from time to time, I smile.

I hardly even notice the taste of a little blood.