Michael E Emmering

Clouds of Words Michael E Emmering

Inside the house, he runs his hand over the sleek glass of the jump-pod. This is the vessel that he is supposed to spend the next forty-five years inside. An engineered unconsciousness over a period of time, allowing a person to sleep for years. His tears land with little patters on the glass door of the pod. He waits outside, running his hands through his hair, praying, waiting, and registering pain. After a year, they watch the ball drop on TV. And he cries at home, watching the tears streak down the sides of the glass. He does not tell her that she will never be able to fly again. She runs to the jump-pod inside the house, and before he can stop her, she is inside, and threatening him. So he tells her that commitment is love, and love is pain, and risk, and strength, and growth, and sacrifice, and living for another.