Jacob

 Jacob was dreaming about working again. Since his retirement, it seemed to be all that he ever dreamed of. Usually it was factory or construction work, but sometimes it was strange work that made no sense outside of the realm of sleep. Tonight he was running the light show for a Beatles concert from the keyboard of his computer. It was a fun job. Waking up, his first thought was that he’d have to tell Connie about it. Then he realized that she was gone, and a wave of sadness overtook him. At least he’d finally stopped dreaming about hospitals and convalescent homes. He wished that she’d visit him more often in his dreams. Everyone else that had passed on did, on a regular basis. At fifty-six, he knew far too many dead people. Maybe it was the guilt he felt that kept her from showing up too much. He should have been there that night she died. She asked him to stay, but he was so damned tired. He was coming back in the morning, he’d told her. But morning never came for her. The phone was ringing as soon as he’d walked into the house, telling him to come to the hospital. “Is it bad?” he’d asked. “Yes, it’s bad.” And it was. After four years, that last longing look she’d given him as he left haunted him. He arose and switched on the coffeemaker. He always had it ready to go; fumbling around with it in the morning was a pain in the ass. Especially those frequent mornings he woke up at three or four AM.

 He took a handful of pills, lit a cigarette, and sat down at his computer. He wasn’t supposed to be smoking; his lungs were what had forced his early retirement. “Fuck it,” he thought, “everyone has to die of something.” He’d almost died soon after Connie. He remembered the heart attack, lying on the floor with an elephant on his chest. He’d almost let himself go then, but had decided he didn’t want to go that way. He’d wanted to die, but not so painfully. “Chickenshit,” he thought. He’d crawled to the phone and called 911.

 He checked his e-mail to see if any of his work had been accepted anywhere. He’d been writing since her death, and was finally gaining a little recognition. At first he’d written hundreds of poems detailing his sorrow. Finally sick of himself, he’d begun writing short stories, trying to use his imagination for something other than dark and dreary poetry. It seemed to be working, at least a little.

 Celeste came into the room and put her hand on his shoulder. She’d come after his heart attack and never left. Probably the only reason he wasn’t dead now. He told her about his dream, and that he’d had another piece accepted for publication. She was happy for him, and kissed his lips. “A good woman,” he thought, “She deserves more than I can give her.” He knew that he was generally quiet, even sullen. He couldn’t understand why she loved him. For whatever reason, she evidently did. She didn’t have to stay, but she stayed with him anyway. He worried about her health. She was two years older than he was, and had a lot of problems. He couldn’t allow himself to love her the way he’d loved Connie; he couldn’t go through that kind of loss again.  

 The sun rose and shone brightly through the blinds. It was October, and the leaves outside were changing into beautiful colors. He thought about Connie again, and how much she loved autumn. She’d loved the Cubs, too; he was almost glad that she hadn’t been able to see the woeful seasons they’d had since Lou Piniella left. Not that they’d ever had a championship season in her lifetime. He wondered what the mystique of the Cubs was, why they had fans all over the country when they so often sucked. She’d made him a Cubs fan too, though. “Okay,” he told himself, “Let’s go to work.”

 “It was a dark and stormy night,” he wrote, smiling. He still had a limited number of smiles left; he tried to ration them. He didn’t want to run out.