UP LATE

He was lying awake in his old boyhood bedroom at the old house at some indeterminate hour, fragmented light from car headlights dancing on the ceiling. He was feeling existence, really feeling it as a presence for the first time. Loomis knew that it would end, that he was as aware now as he ever would be. He wanted to wake everyone up and talk to them. He put his hand up to his face and felt it, to confirm his existence. He listened to his breathing and the beat of his heart and it all seemed miraculous, that he was he and that he understood that he was perceiving the fact that he was perceiving. It was a miracle. But did anyone else realize this, and how would he find the words to tell them, and would they do anything but mock him for trying to tell them? He didn’t know. So he just lay there in the dark, breathing. Hearing cars go past in the night. Knowing that this was an important moment in his life that came on him unawares. He hoped that he would remember it. He lay there and breathed, watching the refracted car headlights slide across the ceiling of his bedroom, knowing that this room, and boyhood, would pass forever. So in that moment, he held them close. Lying awake. Breathing. And knowing it.