Foxtrot Tango

“Foxtrot charlie, that’s a two-man tango, over.”
Funny where la la land can send you. I find that I come alive at night.
Oh I’ve been a Blackhawk pilot, saved schools in Afghanistan, and hunted alligator south of Savannah.
My eyes drift.
Oh wow. I never thought about that first place victory on Long Beach. Mr. Muscle ’84! Did you catch my flex on the community calendar?
I don’t think about death. I’ll call submission to the inevitable.
The susurrus of the fan in the corner stirs the goosebumps popping off my fatigued skin.
I never asked for this. Any of it
The irony of the situation is that I’d always said I’d retire to my dream world: reading books on a Dominican beach. Now I generate that evanescent fantasy in brief bursts at night. There’s a pile of literature on the table aside my bed. I haven’t touched one in years.
This morning I’m exploring the French riviera, having escaped Normandy unscathed.
I’m drowning. The water is filling in my lungs. I feel the burn.
“Ok, Mr. Dawson, let’s get you in your wheelchair.”
In comes my guardian angel, Ms. Nancy, and she immediately cleans the accumulated pool of saliva at my lips and on the pillow:
maybe tonight a sauna in the Alps will suffice. I’m off-duty.