Uniform and flat, the sky is an empty planetarium screen, primer gray and vinyl smooth. Someone forgot to roll the film – the one where the wisps of clouds mix and drift and starlings streak at improbable angles. It’s as if we’re in a made-up town waiting for someone to yell action.

A soft rain mutes the morning. No warbles or tweets, no traffic, just patters and burbles as if the gutters were talkative rainforest brooks. I can’t write today’s date without saying it in my head – where the two numbers hang slow and heavy. I wonder if it’s quiet and raining in Shanksville.

The marching band warms up at seven-fifteen. This is the first home football game of the year. The morning air is crisp and the sky is a swirl of gray-white wispy clouds. This is fall in a university town. I hear the horns. I hear the drums. Mostly, I hear the drums.

Night lifts. The trees and roof-lines are shrouded in fog. The world feels far through this cotton glass. The lattice pattern on the black, faux wrought iron table, shines glazed in dew. Traffic hums but only when I listen. A single chirp counts the slow beat of time – maybe it’s a chickadee. 

Gutted from a dream about a person I once loved, I couldn’t tell if I was hungry or the opposite of hungry. I ate. I wrote. We were trying again with less effort – same conflict. I woke hurt, disappointed. No details, just feelings – slippery like minnows, and me with clumsy hands.

The coffee maker is a heavy breather. It huffs, it percolates. Its black plastic lid hat bubbles and taps before it lets out a final sigh. The dog rests his heavy head on the top of my foot. He’s bored – waiting to be fed. His breath is warm. He sighs too.

Tree black silhouettes haunt the morning fog. Day arrives slowly and I feel too hurried to see – my own fog, my own morning. A plane leaves the small airport just outside of town ripping the air, up and to my right. I don’t play chess, but I know when I’m in zugzwang.