“That sounds nice,” she says.
“It would feel right.”
Breathing.
“What would you do,” I ask, “if I came over there right now? If I knocked on your door? Would you answer it?”
“Of course.”
“Would you let me in?”
“I might.”
“Yes or no.”
“I wouldn’t let you stand outside in the cold,” she says. “I’m not a cruel person.”
“I might just come over right now,” I say. “I just might.”
“Don’t.”
“I’d regret it if I didn’t.”
“Leonard.”
“Yes.”
“Let me come over there,” she says. “I’ll come over there. I’ll come to you. That’d be better.”
“Will you?”
“I called,” she says.
“Will you let me hold you?”
“I want to be held,” she says. “But if I knock on your door, will you answer?”
“Yes.”
“Will you let me in?”
“Yes.”
“Can I cry on you?”
“You can cry with me.”
She says my name and hangs up; and I look at the door to my apartment knowing she won’t come over, she won’t knock, and I won’t let her in.
About the Author…
Michael Hemmingson writes books in every possible genre he can: literary, western, SF, horror, noir, autobiography, erotica, narrative journalism, gonzo journalism, cultural anthropology, critical theory, critifiction, ethnography, and many other modes of academia including post-postmodern and post-colonial treatises. And private eye yarns. And film and TV studies. And smut. He also writes plays and screenplays. He has two independent feature films out: The Watermelon (LightSong Films) and Stations (Hemlene Entertainment). He has produced, directed, and written plays in San Diego and Los Angeles for the Fritz Theater and The Alien Stage Project. He lives in southern California, where the dead and the unborn visit him nightly as his two cats (Worf and Poe) observe with indifferent, feline curiosity.