Part 2 (1/2)

Old Zeke handed Justin his day's worth of mail and looked longingly at the cool shade under the porch, half hoping, half antic.i.p.ating an invitation to enjoy a cool drink and a few minutes out of the sun. His state-of-the-art mail delivery vehicle, an old green Ford with busted air-conditioning, sometimes elicited sympathy from those along his route, but the ones with beer were the best. However, Justin just looked through his mail and then began watching the sky.

”You ever think about gravity?” Justin asked suddenly.

”No,” admitted Old Zeke, wiping the perspiration from his forehead.

Justin sighed a little.

”You ever fall off a ladder?”

”Well,” considered Zeke. d.a.m.ned if this wasn't a round-about way to offer a fella a drink, but maybe after all this Justin would offer him a beer instead of that watery lemonade he made. ”Yeah.”

”How long did it take you to fall?”

Well h.e.l.l, muttered Old Zeke under his breath. Maybe all those stakes he was driving in had given Justin a touch of the sun. The thought made him consider hauling Justin back to town, although the truck might finish the job the sun had started.

”A second or two,” Zeke replied. But before he could load Justin into the truck, he figured he would have to collect a few things from the house, and maybe from the fridge he'd collect a few drinks...

”That thing up there hasn't fallen a foot in ten minutes or so.”

Maybe Justin had a small bottle of something tucked away under the...

”What thing?”

Justin pointed.

Zeke s.h.i.+elding his eyes with his hands and looked up. ”Oh, that weather balloon?”

Justin's expectant face seemed to droop. ”That what it is?”

”Yep. Looks like it's almost out of helium, the way it's floating so low. Launched 'em myself thirty years ago in the Army.”

”Oh,” muttered Justin ”Be seeing ya, Zeke.” He turned back to the porch.

d.a.m.n, thought Zeke, plodding back to the truck, if I told him it was a flying saucer I might have got a beer after all. Coincidentally, a gust of wind took the balloon higher into the sky.

7. Fallout ”This bud of love, by summer's ripening breath, May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet.”

-- Shakespeare

Alona ran out of the elevator, trying to hide her face in one hand and hold her overstuffed bag in the other. She kept wiping away the tears just to get through the already crowded lobby, where young gossip-mongers waiting vigilantly for fresh news.

The tears had started when Prof. Sigger had somehow sneaked pa.s.sed her as she was searching in her bag for her paper. How anyone that old and lazy could have slipped out without a sound was a mystery to be considered after the wave of rejection and failure had pa.s.sed -- and after she made it to her car. Wiping her face with her sleeve and pretending to look as bored as everyone else, Alona hoped that even if her roommate were around, she would be fooled long enough to prevent her from starting any more rumors. Unfortunately, Alona decided this just after her roommate spotted her across the vestibule, noted the tears and false-face anxiety, and immediately deduced out loud to several of her closest acquaintances that Prof. Sigger had made a move on the all-too-innocent waif. The rumor spread across the hall and up the elevators by the time Alona was weaving through the cars that stalked the parking lot for open stalls. It seemed nearly everyone in the building had heard a whisper by the time Alona reached her father's rusting Gremlin.

She made her way to it without getting hit by the over-anxious drivers, unlocked the driver's side door, threw her bag into the back seat and herself into the driver's. Then she let go and sobbed and sobbed, hoping that if she got a ”C” in Freshman Comp that it wouldn't turn out to be the excuse her parents needed to stop paying her tuition. They wanted Alona to work in the town's newly renovated theater, an investment in which they owned a small percentage.

Alona's sobs lasted for some time, and she knew, just knew, that her water-proof mascara had run, so she opened the glove compartment to find a Kleenex. Out fell a letter.

Her sobbing stopped as she picked it up from the dusty car floor.

”Alona” was written, almost scribbled, on the cover. In Kurt's handwriting. She hadn't seen him in weeks, not since he began playing regularly in the band. She couldn't help picturing him the last time he was in her car, brus.h.i.+ng back his long hair and scratching his hand in that nervous way of his.

”You're breaking up with me?” he asked, staring vaguely at the floor-mat.