Look Alive

"Really it all started when he kissed me."

My champagne bubbles ripped apart like machine gun fire. The farm lands far below were scattered with little lights. Hundreds of quiet, sleepy lives. A peaceful silence. Not like this. The quiet in the airship was suddenly suffocating. Indominable. My eyes stared longingly away from her, but I could still picture her; the black of her hair shining and perfect beneath the soft golden glow of the zeppelin's signature 12-volt mini-bulbs.

"Blake... please, can you look at me?"

But I couldn't. Not yet anyway. In my mind I felt my shoes stretching. Aging. Pulling apart at the laces as my ankles swelled. I felt the soles harden beneath my aching, tired toes. In my mind I marveled at the hideous, egregious, unwanted transfiguration. My father's shoes. My mother's voice - pulled in a sick recording from the child in me still listening with his ear pressed against the thin drywall. Nausea twisted my stomach.

Then the warmth of her skin slid into my hand. My limp, cold, limb. Slowly, I turned to it. Her fingernails were painted. Green. Like a pine tree. I thought of the front desk lady. I passed her every day. Her fingernails weren't like this. They were drab. Some cheap, matte maroon each and every day of the week - now only highlighted by the poisonous gloss that now curled against my palm.

"Blake, really, I don't know how much longer we can go without talking about it."

Years. I thought. Decades. A lifetime.

"Miss, can I offer you a refill?"

"No, thank you."

"Sir?"

He was eager. Young. Skin like dark-velour. I gave him a quick smile and a shake of my head. All that effort. All that volition for just a sad, passing smile. I took my hand from its oppressor, and gently lifted the fizzing numbing agent to my lips. Champagne to pain.

"Look alive!" My father had hollered - straightening his ballcap. That summer was dusty. So dusty that even the rich folks had stopped washing their cars. I didn't mind that. My old leather mitt had a smell that the dust enhanced. I sat there in that memory looking down at it. Like I floated above it. I saw the diamond and where my dad chewed his tobacco against the outfield fence. I heard the crack of the bat and the easy out fielded at second base.

"Blake?"

Batter up. "Alright B, look alive!"

"Blake, please, look at me."

There's the pitch, the swing, and the pop-fly arcing toward me in slow motion. "B!"

The rest of it melted away at that point. The dust, grass, bleachers, all of it. It was just the ball, my dad, and me. I saw the bravest version of myself. I saw how fast I flew across the white. I saw my dad's cap fell as he raised his eyes to the sun - I saw the fierceness of his character soften. All the pain and anger and broken dreams fall away into hope. Worry. Then...

Pride. I saw my dad. I saw his smile and heard the victory that exploded from him. That was our moment.

"Blake, I can't fix this if we can't talk."

Look alive.

"Chicago." I turned to her. "I will be disembarking at Chicago." Beautiful confusion stared back at me. But I looked back at my shoes. My shoes. "I understand you wish to work through this mistake. But I cannot. We cannot." I drained my champagne and set the glass gently upon the mahogany tray. "This is, unfortunately, the end."