Floating Off
Shane Stricker A brother tells his sister the motel where he stayed the night before, downtown, small town, Sikeston, Missouri, lifted off the ground, three inches, no more, he says. His fingers are this far apart. For almost a full minute, he adds. It had to have been after three but before four because at four oh four, he says, kiss your hand and press it to the air because palindromes are the most sacred. He’d just finished telling her about the gun shot when he switched to the motel floating. I didn’t see the bullet go through the wall, he says, but I saw the remnants. His sister shakes her head. Finally, she thinks. Finally, something happens to this man that makes me feel sympathy. And he milks it, explodes it, makes it something else, makes it dirty. That’s what it is right then to her. Dirty. Talking about floating. Right there in front of her when all she wants to do is take him up and hug him for almost catching a bullet in his motel bed and he takes that want away from her. At one time she would have thought to tell a breaking person that at least things couldn’t get broken any further. She shakes her head at her own foolishness. Isn’t it big enough already? she says. And he says, I didn’t see the first hole until the second. He ticks out his fingers. One. Two. His name ought to be Come and Go, she thinks, because he comes, and he goes. He comes and he steals. He steals and he goes. And he goes and he does. And he does and he comes and he’s almost a shadow of who he once was to her when he returns.