Meeting Place

Tire scraps on the federal roads look like crashlanded crows from the dial-a-view.—Jason Lytle

Akerlund lifted his torso out of bed and into his chair; his ghost legs all cramped, bloodless, and he couldn’t rub the sleep out of his eyes, though he tried with beet red fists. He rolled himself over to his window. It was a large double paned portal with dark brown brows and leaden lashes. Outside it was raining; students were just beginning to get out of their classes on politics and law, and the clouds cast an old-fashioned black and white movie on the quad.

A girl stood by a soggy tree. Akerlund thought he knew her, had slept with her, met her parents. She seemed to be waiting for something, looked now and then at the clocktower, lifted toe then heel in the attendant’s fidget. Her hair was thick, blonde, and hardly touched by the rain, which dotted her blue t-shirt. She looked up at Akerlund’s room, almost made eye contact—he didn’t know her, probably hadn’t slept with her (but now he wanted to), almost certainly hadn’t met her parents—they lived in Chicago; he’d never been. Her face showed her an almost imperturbably patient waiter. Her friend and expectant boyfriend wasn’t coming, or was but wouldn’t arrive until an hour after she gave up.

Akerlund saw him panicked and rushing towards the tree, now sheltering a few squirrels but nothing else. He stood nearly dazed and cast an incredulous stare at the clocktower; it moved a hand and reset his calculations. Now he looked sad. Akerlund felt nothing but watched. Their paths had crossed in space but not time. She may as well have been in Chicago—he’d never been.