Interference

by Brad Parks

Had I known about the phone call I would receive at 11:09 a.m., I would have wrapped myself around Matt so tight he never could have left the bed that morning.

But that’s the thing about those 11:09 a.m. phone calls that capsize your existence: life’s biggest waves clobber you when you’re not looking.

Fact was, you needed sunshine and clouds to make a rainbow.

‘When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras’? Well, in this case, we’ve looked for all the horses. So we’re left with zebras.”

And yet there I was in the dark of night. Thinking about dice. Hoping God rolled them in my favor.

Few people realize how much we use our hearing to locate ourselves in space.

We all have our illusions in this world, and we cling to them. We think we’re standing on a broad, sturdy cruise ship of an existence when really we’re floating in a life raft. We construct webs of safety for our families and ignore the hungry spider in the corner. We convince ourselves that the terrible things we read about will always happen to someone else.

“Always told you I’d take a bullet for you.”