Patience

by Michael Brooks

He strummed his fingers on the worn steering wheel, noting how each impact traversed the faded vinyl down to the steering column, through the ignition, terminating in a pleasant clink as the keys momentarily asserted their space before crashing back into line. She was always making him wait. The new radio, a lemon, sat dormant in the dash beneath the analog clock which decreed 8:41 as the end of time, the two hands nearly aligned yet forever distanced. The boy listened to the wind carve across the boxy panels of the car, falling off the hood and scurrying across the dry ground, grabbing leaves and flinging them onto the dusty porch. He checked the rearview mirror, again, anxious to go before her father's tumbledown truck came up the dirt drive. The screen door opened and she stepped into the late summer, her white dress and auburn hair fluttering flirtatiously in the scorched breeze, and the boy smiled, remembering her to be worth the wait.

6S

Michael Brooks lives in Durham, North Carolina, with his wife, dog, and two cats, and enjoys reading books both with and without pictures. He also enjoys taking the other side of the argument, just to make you mad. His blog is called Penis in a Rowboat.