Basso Profundo

Hutch sits in his armchair, head tilted back against the rest, staring up at the moonshadows lacing the ceiling. In a way, they remind him of dancers on moving walkways—twirling frenetically when the wind soughs through them, frighteningly still when it does not.

The rattle and boom of far off thunder provides the background music and he lets it run through him, striking a basso profundo note in his soul. A can of Coors, the eighth of the night, is propped crookedly at the fork of his legs, just another drunk leaning against a lamppost. With a sigh, he brings it to his lips and drains it dry, knowing that, like the seven before it, it’s fallen down on the job.

Used to be he drank to forget. Now he drinks to remember.

To remember what it was like to enjoy helping the people he was getting paid to protect. To remember almost leaping from his bed at sunrise instead of pouring out like a man twice his age and half his intellect. To remember doing both with a tornado at his side bearing the form and face of the ghost that now haunts darkened corners and can only be glimpsed out of the corner of his eye.

To remember light and love and laughter, touch and taste and heat, and what living felt like, once upon a time.

The crunch of aluminum is loud in the room. Louder still is the clatter when his toss misses everything but the floor. He picks up another can and opens it, wondering if this will be the one to open Pandora’s Box.

But he doubts it.