What Mark Might Have Seen

The day had been hot, but the night was now cool. The others had already gone to bed. We were the last ones up -- except for the kids, who sat talking in secret murmurs in the dim light of the side room.

We let them be, turned out the front light, went out the front door, and went into our tent.

The night was now cool, and the day had been hot, so as we opened up our sleeping bags, I unzipped the screens so we could feel the breeze blowing off the lake. I crawled back from unzipping the big screen in the front, and I climbed over Trudy in my birthday suit (anticipating the breeze as I was).

And at that moment, at just the moment when I was perched over Trudy with one arm this way and the other arm that, with one leg this way and the other leg that, at just that moment the light in the cottage came on like a spot. Our tent was ablaze with both screens wide open.

And at just that moment, as I was hovering there in my feel-the-breeze nothingness, fully illuminated by the front room light, at just that moment, Mark came walking around the corner. He walked by our tent just outside the screen on his way to somewhere, I don't know where.

What he saw as he rounded the corner will always be his secret. The next morning he never said a thing. What he might have seen will always be mine, except that now I've told you.

So now you're sworn to secrecy.

---
Gowen, MI. Summer 2003

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