my trip to Rachel's

my trip to Rachel's

fiction
edward w Pritchard

A trip for me began with a stop at the Mennonite Charity thrift shop for a used suitcase. Four dollars for a distressed leather brown case and two dollars for two sweaters and a pair of pants to put in the stylish suitcase. Style is more than a man"s clothes, it is something intangible, a man's sensibility en total as he walks in to see an old lover with a nearly new sweater and trouthers carrying a second sweater for later in a one of a kind battered about brown valise.

Should one kiss the hand of a former lover on sight or wait till dinner on one's knees begging for a second chance? To Rachel I fly, by train actually, in response to her letter; Rachel must see me, she doesn't say she still loves me but she needs me, a new start. Opportunity lives anew.

Life is a fascade. I polished the valise with special saddle soap until it gleams in the moonlight, I will carry it as I wait for the train. I think I will be reading the Bible when Rachel meets me at the station. Yes the Bible, now, Issiah or St Matthew?

Will the Moon be in a full sky there at the platform when Rachel and I reacquaint? Some things in the affairs of Love must be left to chance.  Perhaps there will be a hall of mirrors there at the station and a huge chiming brass clock high over the ancient train station in Danbury, Virginia when Rachel meets me at the station.

It's been years since I beheld Rachel's smile and a decade since I heard her laugh.

Beethoven or Chopin at Dinner? Piano or violin?