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Persistence of Dreams

Excerpt
Samhain Publishing, Ltd
Fall/Winter 2008

Drip. Drip.  Drip-drip-drip. 

Charles looked up from his notes and glared at the kitchen faucet.  If it would find a steady rhythm and stick with it, he could ignore it.  It was the sudden riffs that kept snagging his attention.

He looked back at the papers littering the tabletop--a list he was preparing for the insurance company of everything he'd owned at the time of the fire.  He was finding it surprisingly difficult to complete, in spite of his ability to remember details.

Items kept floating into his mind, trailing regrets that distracted him.  Like the T-shirts from his Ironman competitions, all in pretty ratty shape, but they were what he wore when he ran, as a reminder of what he was capable of when he put his mind to it.  He hadn't competed for five years, and these days, he'd have a hard time finishing even a half Ironman.

He also missed the small clay bowl with a partridge carved into its smooth side by an Indian girl he'd never met.  He'd kept it by his bed to hold the small stones he picked up each time he managed to get out of the city to ride or run in the mountains.  It was a way of keeping track, he supposed.  The pebbles were nothing special, simply ordinary stones he'd found on the trails.

Sometimes he cupped the bowl in his hands, feeling the smoothness the girl had worked into the clay, and if it had been a particularly difficult week, he would pour the stones into his hand, and remember the pull of muscle and sinew, the labor of lungs and heart they represented. 

There had been no stones added since he met Kathy. 

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