silent lucidity

And, so, in the quiet of that post-storm pre-dawn spring morning, hours before midnight blue would fade to pearl gray and eventually become another glorious Texas day, we stood, barely inches apart yet somehow separated by a distance wider than any ocean, deeper than any Alaskan crevasse. He, coffee cup in left hand, taking another drag from that first cigarette, talking at me, never quite meeting my eyes. I think he would have a thousand-yard stare in an 8x8 room. “Are you happy?” I asked. Answered only by the faint crash of thunder off to the west. Eventually he flicked the barely-glowing spent butt into the street, and said, “I’m getting there.” Not sufficient for my needs. But all there was. All there could be. And in that moment of silent lucidity, it was enough.