Sky Hook

Roger spun Baby around; branches blurring behind her head, fists pumping, laughter spilling from her tiny mouth, as the pair twirled in the center of a circular park.

But the joints in his shoulders started to click and vertigo bloomed in his head, so he stopped spinning Baby and stood there swaying. When his lower back went electric with nerve damage, he lowered Baby to the grass.

She reached up for him immediately but his eyes were squeezed shut. She pouted for a moment, glancing around at her surroundings, and that was when she grabbed the Dead Bird.

Roger blinked in the light and saw his granddaughter with one hand gripping talons and the other squelched into a gaping hole of intestines. When he knelt down to pull Baby up, the bird came with her so he yanked it away and she cried and cried. His mouth was so dry and his nerves were firing so fast they were shaking his bones but he had to focus, this is dangerous, what if Baby ate some of a goddamn carcass?

So Roger was wiping guts from her hand onto his shirt and checking her mouth for pigeon but all the while his skeleton was aching and fireworks were popping behind his eyelids. Then he tipped to one side with a hand on his temples and Baby swung out on a single arm.

"Sir? Sir?" A jogger approached, shouting over Baby's wails. "Are you okay sir?" The jogger flinched, his nose wrinkling at the smell of rot. He looked from the smeared guts on Baby to Roger's lurching figure and his eyes widened.

Roger's blurred vision focused on this young man with long brown hair who looked like Henry.

The guy–Henry, maybe– lifted Baby onto his hip and led Roger to a bench. Roger was muttering now, eyes rolling in his head as sweat poured down his neck. He looked down at his own hands with confusion.

"–Okay sir? I'm going to get you some help." The voice sounded very far away. Roger decided that this man really was Henry.

"–Yes, urgent, with a baby."

Roger wanted Henry to stop talking on the phone and look at him.

"I'm not sure– let me ask. What's your name? Sir? Excuse me?" He leaned down to look into Roger's eyes. "Hey? What's your name?"

Roger laughed faintly. Henry knows his name.

"Sir?" and then back into the phone, "He's kinda out of it."

Why was Henry so confused? Roger tried to explain but then a woman dismounted her bike to join them, scooping up the baby.

It was nice that Henry had a baby now. Roger tried to congratulate him but he was talking to the woman. They were a bit frantic about something and he thought best not to interrupt.

Roger settled into the bench and closed his eyes, smiling at being back with his old friend. It had been sixty years since their last embrace.

When their eighteen-year-old bodies pressed a plaid quilt into clovers. When they laid under the sky watching balloons shrink into specks then vanish, their picnic blanket surrounded by bushes on all four sides–walls to conceal their affection.

The memory made his body hot and his heart beat fast. Each breath was a gasp. When Roger opened his eyes he was on his back and the sky was pressing down on him.

"–Just collapsed–" Now Henry was kneeling beside him, phone balanced on his shoulder. Roger could tell he was stressed out about something.

Roger remembered how it felt to hold his hand. He wanted to do it again but he really shouldn't interrupt Henry' phone call. His index finger crept toward Henry' pinky and hooked. It was like two pink worms linked together. Roger wondered if such a thing could really happen down in the dirt below. The thought made him smile.

"–Pain? Well, he looks happy, actually–"

Roger pursed his lips. "Kiss me." It had been so long.

But instead, Henry just looked confused, then whispered to the woman, "He thinks I'm his wife," He grasped Roger's hand. "Just stay with me, sir."

Roger shook his head. Henry' touch reached through the fog and steadied his mind.

"Not my wife," Roger spoke with a strong voice now. "My first... my only..."

And the young man understood. In a fluid swoop, he leaned down and kissed the papery old forehead of the man in his lap.

"Henry?" Roger whispered.

"Yes?" The young man whispered, allowing Henry to occupy his form.

"I wish we..." Roger said. "If only we..."

"It's okay," he said. "I'm finally here." Some moments passed until Roger spoke next.

"Imagine if you yanked the string and the sky fell down as a great blue tarp."

The jogger paused. "What string?" He asked.

"Up there. That balloon."

"Ah yes, I see it," said the jogger as he looked up at the empty sky.