monday morning
Mood:  mischievious

My finger traces in the dust across the wardrobe mirror and an old man stares back at me. He wasn’t there yesterday this pot bellied, saggy-eyed specimen, gently dragging his thinning hair forward to cover his vanity. I gaze in amazement at this stranger and scan in vain for the handsome teenager I expected, but he’s been gone for well over thirty years now.  I peer more closely.  The wind howls, a distant church bell tolls, a lone tumbleweed rolls down the deserted street and an old gunslinger stares back to meet my gaze. We’re locked in a showdown. A gun crazy trigger finger twitches…

 

.‘Dad?’ It’s nine-year-old Eleanor bringing the marshal back from Dodge City.

“What Love?”

 “How come we don’t fall off  - If the earths spinning like you said it was?”

“Because of gravity”

“What’s gravity?”

“ Go down and get some breakfast.”

“You come too”

I pull in my stomach and puff out a sagging chest but soon everything takes the lazy road south again.