Memory
Anonymous
8/11/2021
As she entered, I turned down the only light. She shrugged off her dress and said softly, “a waterbed, really?” I turned my head away from her silhouetted form and said to my girlfriend, “she is everything you described - thanks for inviting her.”
“When Connie heard you were from California, a medical student and had a waterbed, I couldn’t keep her away.” As if some foreign film had come magically to life, we gathered as one on the warm undulating surface.
Ivan Doig came to mind because he had so elegantly stated, “childhood is the one story that stands by itself in every soul.” But perhaps more to the point would be, “the spaces between the stars are where the work of the universe is done.” Then again, I thought of Herman Wouk who seemed to capture the moment saying, “the only imaginative fiction being written today is income tax returns.”
So, when I woke up, alone, on my king-size waterbed after a short night’s sleep which had followed a terrible day in the operating room it occurred to me that no matter how wonderful the dream, another day of training was minutes away.
Like death and taxes, it was inevitable. Going out the front door in predawn darkness, the stars were still out there shining brightly, oblivious to the struggles on earth, doing the work of the universe.