“There is no trap so deadly as the trap you set for yourself.” —Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye
Cloud Seven
Looking back, it seemed like a good idea at the time. Looking back, he could always blame it on her, the pierced, tattooed, i-Poded brunette, Prada sunglasses black areolas around her eyes, cell phone/camera lanyarded around her neck, swinging like a pendulum out of Poe, digital organizer cradled in one hand, a double-tall, no-doubt nonfat, caramel-laced coffee monstrosity in the other, as well as a leash looped around her right wrist trailing back to the trendy, midget dog du jour, she of the thrift store chic and Neiman Marcus makeover who walked right into him on Pine Street without looking up, and then blamed the ensuing materialistic, caramel-laced mess on him, supplying the Damascus moment so necessary to those waiting to see the light. Looking back, he could comfort himself with the ridiculous notion that no matter what decision he made it was always the wrong decision, but in the history of wrong decisions this one ranked right up there with invading Stalingrad in the winter. Looking back, somewhere, in the fog and mist of memory, lay the answer, the WHY. He needed to know the WHY. Why had he walked away from his comfortable life, why had he embarked on this particular course, why had he convinced himself he could easily adapt to a new and different environment, far away from family, friends, and personal history? Looking back–he couldn’t stop looking back, especially into the swirling Seattle fog and mist and rain of that last particularly nasty Pacific Northwest winter. Could a simple crushed heart among the Cascades really be the root cause of all of this?
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