Separation Anxiety

She dreams he is coming home. A flicker of light upon a spine, he is floating toward her over food courts and luggage carousels, through time zones pocked with stoplights and the bulge of alternate lives. They never travel together, in case one doesn't make it back. Like the royals, they say. They argue "heir" and "spare" loudly enough to wake the neighbors. On the other hand, they flirt with the idea of suicide pacts, but in whispers, and only at dusk just before the streetlights come on.

The woman gets out of bed now, still dreaming, and stands in front of the refrigerator on one foot. She does not move, but waits there with nerves vibrating like colors on a map, one stumble away from whitewashed walls and worst case scenarios, disasters involving dynamite and ski-masks.

Upstairs in their bed, her sleeping man looks deeper into his mind's eye, searching out his oncoming train. The tracks beneath it are unmoving and soundless. The man stirs. The train fulfills its destiny.