falls kyla the cat never came back 011214 ... luck is green nor landed right side up when it lept to kill the bird. blue::falls 011214 ... ovenbird When we met you were already being disassembled by a rare neuromuscular disease. “When you see me next I’ll be doing my best Professor X impression,” you said one of the last times we were together. So when I run into you in the lobby of a generic hotel in a city without a name I’m surprised to find you walking. It’s been a quarter of a century since I saw you last and after I hug you I ask the question that I’ve been carrying every day of those twenty five years: why did our friendship dissolve? You explain that it ended the day I let you fall. The echo of a shadow of a memory plays out like an ancient film reel: (You and I are walking and you are leaning on me for support. A crack in the sidewalk catches the toe of my shoe and my grip on your arm loosens, causing a chain reaction of imbalance, which leads you to fall. The bruises no one can see are the deepest.) “I couldn’t get over the shame of that day,” you tell me. “And, to be honest, I was angry with you for faltering.” We both cry. I wonder how we ever allowed a thing like that to break what we had built. We leave the hotel lobby and walk the busy downtown streets. You can’t stay upright on your own. I use all my strength to support your weight as you take one heavy step after another. And then it happens again, the thing that ended us. When we come around a corner we both go down without explanation. You hit the concrete first, and I fall awkwardly on one of your legs, breaking it with an audible snap. You scream. You tell me that you can feel your tibia pressing against muscle and tissue, the sharp ends threatening to break through your skin. I feel an icy rush of panic sweep through my body. How could I have let this happen again? I meant to be reliable. I meant to be unshakeable. A stranger approaches as you lay on the filthy sidewalk. “I got it all on video,” she says and hands me her phone. The replay shows a man with a pistol in the upper left corner of the screen. He presses his body to the ground like a soldier in the trenches and shoots you in the back of your heel as we pass. “You were shot!” I exclaim and show you the video. “That’s why we fell!” When we take off your sock the bullet wound is clear. It has opened a long dark tunnel that extends deep into the recesses of your foot and perhaps opens into another dimension, but I don’t have time to think about that. Your leg is bloody but you manage to stand. You don’t forgive me and I don’t expect to see you again, but I find, in the aftermath, that I can forgive myself. None of it was my fault, it turns out. I was steadfast and devoted and true but life sent a gunman to wound you in a way that would not allow you to accept the gift of my heart. I pack up what’s left of my love and take it home. I don’t know if anyone will ever want it, but I keep it in a jar (the glass only slightly smudged with blood and tears), just in case. 251019 what's it to you? who go blather from