UNTITLED ART by Jim Zola
NO ONE DREAMS OF IDAHO by Donald Ryan
He was taking photo after photo of the supposedly haunted Bridgewood house, looking for faces in the reflections. If he found one, she didn’t want to see it.
“Doesn’t seem that eerie in the daylight.”
He turned his camera towards her, not clicking the digital shutter, watching her framed as if further away.
“The story goes Bridgewood slaughtered the doctor who pronounced his daughter dead.”
“Wouldn’t you?”
“We had sons.”
“Lord, give me the strength.”
She walked over to him. He closed the camera. She wrapped herself through his arm.
“There, there’s a face!”
“Stop it.”
The sunlight, dancing with the breeze, grooved to the trees, masquerading shadowed branches along the tattered wood paneling. A blue rain delicately accompanied the rays. He joggled free to explore, try and peek into the walled-in courtyard. She let him go. The rain never bothered her much.
He came back around the corner with that look of childlike wonder, that one where his smile meets his eyes. He had watched the dingy curtain through the second story window ripple behind the thick, blown glass, and although excited to tell her he refrained, not wanting to interrupt her gaze towards the mountains.
“Did you still want to go to the cemetery?”
“It far?”
“Right down the way.”
“Might as well while we’re here.”
The air conditioning prickled crisp against their damp skin. Her hair hung matted to her cheeks, even wet not long enough to cover the pleasant curl of her lips. He turned down the A/C.
“Where to?”
“Down there.”
She rummaged through the center console, looking for a stowaway stack of napkins, but found a CD case she assumed belonged to their eldest from back when he far too frequently borrowed their car. He looked at what she was studying. She popped it from its jewel case and slid it into the player. An enthusiastic, mechanical whirl welcomed the disc, delighted after so many travels left dormant.
“What’s a Zaba?”
“Oh, you know, anything that isn’t.”
A smooth psychedelic, electronic rhythm and blues undulated through the car like a tide pool’s steady pulse for the soulful voice to wade in. He looked at her. She was looking straight ahead. He turned up the volume when he noticed her fingers keeping beat against her knee. Propped upon the gas pedal, his toes kept time in his loafer.
They parked aside the knee-high fence of ornate, iron spears just high enough to keep the faded graves and ghosts from escaping. The drizzle wasn’t letting up. He leaned in towards her on the sinuous flow of the melody and kissed her cheek, delicately, with the earnestness found on the outer rim of the lips. Her face warmed. He squeezed her thigh.
“Let’s play in the rain.”
They bypassed the entrance by stepping over the low bars and joined the tufts of unkempt grass and stones, none of which minded the weather. She reached for his hand, he interlocked his fingers around hers. The granite of many graves had worn smooth, like even time forgot who was buried underneath. They respectfully zigzagged around the grounds, as unknowing as the stones, until they reached the fence the furthest from the car. She crouched and rubbed her hand across the slick rock grayed with rain, outlining the shallow markings with her fingertips.
“This one has our name on it.”
Distant thunder hummed an echoing canon.
“Can you make out what’s underneath?”
“The end is not the end?”
The rain had stopped in time for dinner, although a dampness hung heavy in the air. The sidewalks remained wet underneath the reverberating humidity. Puddles lined the street gutters. She wore a black dress, bought special for the occasion, which held to her figure tighter than anything worn back home. Her black pumps and the soaked city beneath them shimmered softly in the streetlamps. He wore his usual dark slacks, this time adding a jacket. They had no reservations, free to wander hand in hand.
“I feel like I’ve dreamt us here before.”
“No one dreams of Idaho.”
“I think it’s the smell after the rain.”
“And what were we doing? Here? In your dream?”
“We were young and everlasting.”
“As will we always be, my love.”
“And dancing.”
They finished crossing the street, but he stopped and faced her under the blinking signal.
“Then may I have this dance?”
“There’s no music.”
“There’s always music.”
They held onto each other, their heads tilted together. A madrigal of traffic crooned from the grooves of streets. A crescendo of laughter rose to the pitch of the city alive at night. The sky dropped an octave from blue to purple, harmonizing with the pinks and golds, while the breeze picked up the arrangement, bringing in the rain for an encore. But they could not hear a sound, swaying to the rhythms of each other, their song for all eternity.
Donald Ryan writes. Hobart, Cleaver, Fiction Southeast, Back Patio, Silent Auctions, and elsewhere. @dryanswords on Twitter.
Jim Zola is a poet and photographer living in North Carolina. His latest books include Monday After the End of the World (available on Amazon), and Erasing Cabeza de Vaca (available for pre-order from Main Street Rag Publishing Company)