Company

A twelve year old sat writing what looked like poetry on the lawn chair next to me by the lake. I sat smoking bio cigarettes I made myself inhale because the very small beer – a boc – I drank just before was so poorly served smoking, or doing anything destructive I could lay my hands on, was just about the only thing I could do, now that God had again intervened to help me (the bar was closed, Monday evenings the owner'd explained as he locked up, the bar is closed).

You write, I asked the young man. Yes, he said, I'm working on a report, I'm a scout, and we have to report on each of the last three days. But one day I'd like to be a writer.

Then he turned to a younger boy, and he said, you see, if I had color pencils now I'd draw that – he pointed to the sun, which had just set beyond the hill opposite the lake, reflecting off clouds, as if by telling his friend he could do something for him.

Silence set in and I decided I did not need to finish the cigarette. Anger was again receding.

Use words, I suggested. Not a bad idea, he interjected.

- in a way that will make a reader, I continued – understand, he completed my sentence.

- see.

Good to know I'm not alone, I thought, later.