Finding Momentum

He doesn’t find it funny, how it was when he was young and wait­ing for his mother to pick him up from school that every minute she is late grows more cer­tain the pos­si­bil­ity she has died. It is always death, as he would wait out­side and ago­niz­ingly pon­der every sin­gle one of the infi­nite pos­si­bil­i­ties as to a painful end. It would be in the head­lines: Mother on Road, Hit by Drunk Dri­ver. Mother of Four Dies in House Fire. Mother Tak­ing Stroll, Assaulted By Russ­ian Attack Dogs, Can­not Retrieve Son from School. Then it would be accom­pa­nied by a sigh of relief as he would spot the sil­hou­ette of the mini­van, red, res­cu­ing and approach­ing in the distance.

Die, she nearly did on one night as it was approach­ing six o’clock and the sky, somber orange was threat­en­ing to turn off and all that was left was him run­ning cir­cles around the lone park­ing lot lamp. The mini­van came tear­ing into the lot, three hours too late and a breath­less, blush­ing mother kiss­ing him over and over and breath­ing “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry. I for­got, I for­got.” He for­gave her for that.

He doesn’t find it funny how he fears everybody’s about to die and they don’t. He wor­ries for them when they don’t show up to meals, or miss appoint­ments or don’t return his calls. He is half-angry, half-overjoyed when they do. It’s the half-and-half part that gets to him. He doesn’t know what to feel.