Wreck-collect

Kenneth sat quietly on his hardwood deck and took in the beautiful,
crisp spring smells. Dusk was his favorite time of day, and he
performed his typical daily ritual of enjoying the nearly disappeared
sun by doing some reading and sipping a homemade smoothie.
But it wasn't the taste of kelp and apples that lingered on his lips.


A passage in his book had triggered something far sweeter, that he
had not thought on for many years. Touching on it had brought the
reading to a pause, lifted him erect in the chair, and now he sat gazing
doe-eyed and transfixed out onto the horizon.


Kenneth had never told anyone about the experience that filled him
with such warmth. To do so would have seemed trite, forced. It
wasn't that he felt ashamed, necessarily. It's just that the privacy
of such a thing was part of the wonderment, and to share it would
expose it to the mundaneness of this bleak world.


Besides, all memory is best savored from a distance. Rewatching
old favorite movies and attending high school reunions had been the
death of more than a few sacredly held beliefs. He didn't want a
revisiting to destroy this precious memory.


He found himself in a very contemplative mood as a result of his
memory stroll, which was a rather unorthodox mindset for this
accomplished and driven man. At 45, he had done pretty much
everything imaginable, but you wouldn't know it to look at him.
Average looks, unassuming, not significant according to the social
registry or the financial big whigs, he still was able to carry his own.


Although a loner in the truest sense of the word, he was affable
with all he met, bringing a smile and a flutter to the most stone-faced
of women and even a few men. He was not a party person, but he had
no judgment of others' vices. He had never been heard to utter a
single political or religious view in anyone's company. He was pretty
much a ghost of a man, never needing attention or causing controversy.
There had been enough of that as a kid.


And contentment had been his. Just as he had no real need for people--he
was alone but not lonely--he had no real need for any thing, either. He
was well off from decades of frugal spending and good investments,
and was comfortable in his modest surroundings. But tonight, for the
first time in so long, something was triggered in him that was a foreign
concept; longing.


He could remember vividly what it had felt like to be the object of
someone's desire; to know that their deeds and wishes were
centered around you. The power that it had given him, and the
utterly delicious awakening of enticing someone who was 'above'
you in every other way. It had been a drug that nearly devoured
him, but ultimately, it was precious experience.


That first night, all those years ago, staying in the hotel room...

(to be continued..)