By Linda K. Allison
Bill can’t sleep.
That’s unusual. Bill’s a talented sleeper. Brilliant really. I don’t believe I’ve ever known a more capable sleeper. Bill can sleep for hours upon hours. If sleeping were an Olympic event, Bill would consistently earn high nines. So, to wake and find Bill sitting on the side of the bed, telling me he can’t sleep… well, that just doesn’t happen.
“I’m going to have a smoke,” he says, getting up and starting for the door. I follow him out into the warm midnight air, and we sit on the patio by the pool and talk. I know it’s the sale of his business that’s keeping Bill up. I try to imagine what it must be like to sell a business. Never easy, I suppose. But especially if you’ve owned the business for forty years. And it’s a business you started from nothing in the garage behind your small house. Working at your fledgling enterprise after you’d finished your day job and put the kiddos to bed. Cutting pieces of sheet metal from second-hand machinery late into the night.
Now, many years later, it has become so much more. The American dream realized in millions of pieces of sheared metal. And selling it has become a big deal, really, a very big deal. So many people involved, all those studied professionals who make their living advising people who are selling a business. So many people’s welfare to consider, employees who’ve been with you for so long. So very many conference calls to parse out every detail.
Bill is a worrier. We sit by the dark, still pool, talking through each of the worries keeping Bill up, dismantling them, one by one. We watch bright flashes of lightning in the sky and count for thunder. A storm is coming, but it’s still a long way from us.
I walk inside for a bottle of water, and when I return, Bill is gone.
“Where are you?” I call into the darkness.
“Here.” I look in the direction of his voice. Squinting into the moonlit night, I can barely make him out in the deep end of the pool, his head just above the water. “I’m a floating head,” he says. “C’mon.”
I don’t usually like getting in the pool this late at night without turning the lights on. I think it has something to do with the advice we were given about clearing the filters: Never pull out the filter without first looking in case a snake is in there.
But it’s a bright night, especially so for as late as it is, and Bill is already in the pool, having made his way safely to the deep end without a snake encounter. So, I strip, gingerly navigating the steps at the shallow end, and slowly make my way in his direction.
“Get over here. Don’t be a flirt,” he says.
At the deep end, I place my hands on his shoulders. We bounce, buoyant in the pool. I circle my legs around his waist; we twirl like dancers. Pulling away, he does his dead man imitation, floating face down. Bill can hold his breath for a long time. Especially for a guy who smokes. As he raises his dripping head and begins to glide back in my direction, a large sheet of lighting blankets the sky.
“Maybe we’ll get killed by a stroke of lighting,” he says, looking up.
Earlier this evening, we’d been talking about the best ways to go. There had been something on TV about nuclear explosions. “That wouldn’t be a bad way,” Bill had said. “Poof, you’re gone.”
“Or in a plane that crashes into the side of a mountain,” I’d offered, recalling a recent event in the news. “By the time you realize what’s about to happen, it’s all over.”
We’re like two aging athletes, Bill and I, wondering whether we should call it quits now while we’re still at the top of our game. The future can look scary; in a weak moment, we envision our future selves riding the slow decline we’ve both witnessed ringside. But don’t get the wrong idea. Together, we’ll concoct our exciting and death-defying Act Two.
But until we get to that, maybe we’ll just swim.
After forty years in finance, Linda K. Allison is enjoying a second life as a writer, photographer, and explorer. Her work has appeared in Bright Flash Literary Review, 2023 Utah’s Best Poetry and Prose Anthology, Dark Winter Lit, and others. Her photography has appeared or is forthcoming in Burningword Literary Journal, Persimmon Tree, and The Sunlight Press. Linda lives in The Woodlands Texas with the love of her life.
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