Signal Fires

by Dani Shapiro

The stars, rather than appearing distant and implacable, seemed to be signal fires in the dark, mysterious fellow travelers lighting a path; one hundred thousand million luminous presences beckoning from worlds away. See us. We are here. We have always been here. We will always be here.

Who knows about the impact of any action, any decision or omission, however seemingly random or small?

he refuses to spend whatever time he has left consumed by a desire for recompense.

He once heard it said it’s possible to have bonds with people, even complete strangers, that are soul-to-soul.

“You’re only as sick as your secrets,”

One lesson among many during the pandemic is that plans are mere fantasies. Plans are fungible. We make plans and God laughs.

It’s possible to grow up in the wrong house, on the wrong street, in the wrong town, in the wrong part of the country. It’s possible to go to the wrong school. To have the wrong dad. To be pushed to do the wrong things. But it is also possible to survive all these psychic indignities if you have one, maybe two people who recognize you for who you are. His mom saw him. By seeing him, she saved him. And on one winter night half his life ago, an old doctor slung his arm around him and swayed back and forth as if he and Waldo were both hearing the same barely audible music.

“If only time could be seen whole, then you could see the past remaining intact, instead of vanishing in the rearview mirror.”