Time machine

Some days I wake up still feeling the soft papery crepe of his skin, stretched against hollow wood, against my lips. I re-live the echoing hollowness in my soul. I can hear the soft weeping, drilling it in into me that he is no longer there.

And those days I still have a lump in my throat. The tears I held back then still live on inside me.

In interviews people always seem to say that if they had a time machine they would travel back in time to meet Gandhi and Frank Sinatra and FDR and Ben Franklin.

Screw that.

I know whom I'd want to meet up with if I had a time machine. We'd sit in the old leather sofa and have some tea. He'd make me some toast to go with it. I'd kiss him on his cheek and tell him about my life. I'd ask him a thousand questions about his life that I'd never even thought of before. We'd play a game of rummy and read books in silence together. He'd place his hand on my head in passing affection.

Gandhi and Sinatra and FDR and Ben Franklin would wait for another day.