Drifting Into Autumn

It’s taken care of. A friend of ours who owns property by the Ohio river has agreed to make use of her pontoon boat, to take my ashes, to scatter them. I have been working toward this, making plans, arranging for loose connections to connect; it’s what I want and imagined. Now we are drifting over an Autumnal morning mist, the craft, a handful of mourners, the low throb of a 90 horse power outboard motor. I like the thought of 90 horses under my cardboard urn. I like the way even Autumn can be arranged with a little forward planning. I envision the water churning, horses plowing a way through the still stream, the craft rocking gently, a limousine full of spectral wide-eyed children, some of them sketching elaborate blueprints of the day after, some plotting navigational calibrations regarding, spread, speed and eventual dissolution of burnt atoms into the smaze of recycled fish food. We are all sanguine, buoyant with hope and wonder. I would pat myself on the back if I could. My wife kisses my dark container, everything is going just as it should, I have taken great care developing this scene. My widow has not had breakfast yet and the air is a little chilly. ‘Now’, I declare, ‘better here than elsewhere don’t let the plot drift away’. The mist is lifting, soon the world will reveal itself to be just shorelines between one dream and another. I need to be away, vainglorious schedules must be met, the script notarized.