The morning after

Last nights hike started eerily enough with brilliant yellow clouds hanging saucerlike over the sandstone canyon.

A strong wind blew but the clouds didn't move, the only change a brightening then darkening of hues as the sun moved farther down the sky.

I hiked a mud slick path, slowly working my way up a sidewall and at the crest pausing to look straight down at a swollen river 100 feet below. The wind moaned an odd sound and I abruptly started back down the cliff. The recent snow melt had turned the trail to gumbo and in the waning light I saw a lone footprint sunk deeply in the mud. Two shells lay lightly in the tread.

I looked to the river but it was at least fifty feet below. I looked up the cliff and it was smooth - no evidence of other embedded shells. The edge of the footprint was still crumbling and there were no other prints on the narrow trail.

Warily I looked around, then touched the shells to be sure I wasn't imagining things. They were real and I had no explanation.

I hurried down the trail to the river and as I expected the stepping stones were well below the surface of the snowmelt swollen waters. I quickly removed my boots and hiking socks and pulled on a pair of old heavy woolen socks. The water coursed through the wool as I waded and the cold felt good, then painful, and then I was across. On the far side I hurriedly dried my feet, stuffed them back in my boots, and headed up the far cliff.

I stopped at a cantilever of rock jutted far above the tree tops. I flung a handful of sand into the wind and prayed for the quick joining of earth with air, wished on a star, then hurried to my car and drove to my house.

I arrived late in the hopes of an uneventful escape to sleep, but the door opened to an angry wife, and it was only after an eternity that I was allowed release. At the edge of slumber I prayed one last time that my wishes might come true...

Birds outside the window woke me to a bright sunny morn, and I was immediately aware that something was different. The breathing - her breathing was different. I turned and found her there, eyes slowly opening and a smile forming.

"TB!" I stammered "Where... What... Where is...". My little boy slammed through the door and popped into the bed. "Hi Mommy, wanna snuggle". He curled into TB and I shook my head, trying to clear it.

TB reached out and her touch coursed electricity through me - how I'd dreamed of this moment, but I didn't understand what was happening and it robbed me of my joy. She pulled me closer.

My little boy lifted his head and with his wide grin said "Hi Daddy. It's your wish".

Again confusion reigned "My wish buddy? How do you know about my wish? Which wish?..."

His grin widened and he rolled himself into me "You know daddy... The wish that you could tell an April Fools story on your blog..."

















(Sorry, I promise this will be the only fiction of this ilk for a year - I couldn't resist. All the hiking details are true - MW)