Sue heard it in his voice, a quiver full of arrows, a high stakes game, a little old cloud in the sky. She saw it in his eyes, the fading light, the tunnel in the mountain, the grazing deer, the bellowing train, the seated man. They stood there in the rain. She said little if anything at all. The rain poured, the yard a deluge, a vestibule, a shower. A renewal? A sad scene? A redemption? Or maybe just two people standing in the rain. But why? Why isn’t there. Frozen in time in the gaze. He flinched first, and she punched him in the chest laughed out loud and ran onto the screened porch. She lit up a smoke giggling to herself. Man, she got me good. The wheels of the distant highway cry out in the evening light. Sun setting summer night. Cicadas in full chorus. The still of the heat, an air as thick as cream. Deep summer night.

A needle point on a razors edge, a giving in to the fate of all, the call for remuneration, the man fighting the man. She thought she understood, but he did  not.