I wouldn’t put it that way….
Well, I tried at least. Don’ get up, he said as he stood. He drew once more on his cigarette, exhaled seven perfect rings into the air and dropped the butt-end into ice-melt from his finished drink. He set down the glass and, touching two fingers to his forehead, turned, raised my sash up higher, reached his muscular left leg over the windowsill and climbed through. He hit the ground running.
I watched him jog down to the creek, across my bridge and up the long driveway. When he was just a smudge on the scenery, I swiveled around to my screen and deleted every word. I’d have to write fast now to make deadline.
It was still smoky in the room, so I stood before starting over and went to the window just in time for an unseasonably warm breeze to waft through.
A ragged red flame appeared among the branches of my magnolia so close at hand, then shape-shifted into the clean lines of a well-groomed cardinal. It lofted its head and rendered three ascending trills. Somewhere a turtledove sent three haunting coos across the land. And from the creek, spring peepers began to sing.
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