Image via Wikipedia
Last night I left my bed in search of Hemingway’s ghost. Terra cotta dreams in a murky bar filled with dark-faces, and bourbon red as blood.
In a flash I was in an unfamiliar place; terra cotta building, red clay tile roof, and warm. Warm enough for the loose-fitting button-down and khaki shorts I adorned, and I was much older, gray hair and beard. I was in search of something, a book; the title lost in time, but the author beloved.
Smoke filled the air, barely masking the scent of stale beer. A pale face lit the way to the bar, and I approached confidently. It was understood: The table of unshaven, dark-faces knew how to get what I desired, and would require payment before divulging their secret. I procured a bottle of over-priced bourbon from pale-face, and without hesitation began graciously over-pouring glasses for the dark-faces at whose table I was suddenly sitting.
My attention was locked on the bourbon, pouring un-naturally red into a finger-smeared glass. The flow was sloppy and seemingly without end. Dark-faces began to laugh, deep and guttoral as I become acutely aware of a white light encroaching on the bar-haze.
She appeared as a pale glow, naked and luminescent through the smoke filled air, nearly angelic. Suddenly, I felt ashamed of my haggard face and white beard. To share the same air with such youthful beauty! My eyes were fixed upon her smooth, glowing youth when the scene suddenly shifted to a shabby loft, but the beauty remained, and with her, the book!
She silently slept, all youth and beauty, upon the bed. I sat at a table, old and gray, staring at the book. The book! Answer to the question! Treasure of the quest! I had found Hemingway’s ghost.
Reasonably Mad 