The hardest thing about the life of a storyteller is deciding where to open and how to close a story that has no distinct beginning or ending.
This story is one of those.
It would be easier if the earth were flat and we could let things fall off the edges, but in fact, the messages we cork and toss seem to wind their way around and back to us, even when our toes find new shores.
Life is like clouds following the curves of the earth, draping around her in infinite layers that meet and separate. Dissolve and appear.
The day we met, Hunter had fruit cocktail dripping to his elbows and a jovial cackle I could hear from the sidewalk.
When I walked in and sat on the sofa to his left, he got quiet, slyly gazing at me side-eye style and slowly seeking out mandarin orange slices and avoiding the pears and pineapple with a puppet-like right arm sidled with very little precision or finesse. His hand would bounce off the tray, back up, around, to the side, he’d shake his head left and right like NO NO NO and laugh like the little devil was evading him and the struggle was the MOST hilarious moment of his life.
But he did it. At seven or eight years old, the kid knew what he liked, and its name was orange.
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