Final Call

A beam of sunlight, that's all it took. One moment he was part of a stream of people — comings, goings, meetings, partings.

The next, the flow split as it encountered him, reformed once it had passed him by.

And there she was. Hair so dark it shone, blinding him with that sunbeam.

And borne by that ray of light, memories streamed back. The whisper-light touch of that hair. The endless depths of the dark eyes beneath. The passionate caresses of her lips.

The flood moved smoothly around the fixed point he had become — afloat in time and possibility.

The sun moved and the beam winked out. His name echoed as gate attendants tried to marshal tardy travelers.

He hesitated, possibility trickling through his fingers like water. No longer shining, the dark hair seemed ordinary, no longer capable of summoning the past.

He almost looked again, but there were those promises of which the poet speaks.

He made his way to the gate, his boarding pass a talisman against memory.

Hearing a name from her past, the woman stopped, and turned...