flash fiction
what have you got to lose?
I awake to find Lena no longer in bed beside me. I search for her everywhere, bathroom, kitchen, living and dining rooms. Finally, I slip on my coat and boots and go outside.
It’s still raining. Waters flood the riverbanks and surge toward our front door. Slogging through the mud, I head toward the small boat-shed where we store our kayaks and canoes. I see a lantern glimmer within.
Opening the boat-shed door, I find Lena crouching inside one canoe. Barefoot, shivering in her nightgown.
The canoe, secure in its rack, is where we keep our cache of postcards, photos, letters, tape cassettes, and old phonograph albums, both LP’s and 45’s. They’re mostly Lena’s from before we were married, she childless and long divorced and I an aging bachelor.
