P'cola

Finally, I was devoid of words and my mouth was dry. I spent time with friends, becoming ever more aware of the slight stutter I was developing from long hours of solitude, the yearn for composure turning my clipped sentences against me as they struggled to communicate the ribbons of topics in my brain that I selected on account of their normalcy.

Pensacola was warm. The sun stood devoutly above the fast moving fogs that treadmilled along the bayous. I had never been in this region of the country before. Sophia's house was small and comfortably filled with plants, seashells, flags, stickers, books, rugs, curtains of all colors, glowing aquatic tanks, and a small cat named Squawk or Square or Sqoccam's Razor. The sandwich shop was located in the Sacred Heart's old Hospital, caddy corner to the gelato shop, both of which seemed plucked out of a small Italian town, both of which Sophia worked for. The building was immense and smelled like the underground art room of my elementary school; windows green, little planes of glass glimmering in the February sunlight. The beach was perfect, the water just cold enough to cool us down; the bright white of the sand positioned to warm us up again. 

I thought of very many things as we drove through Spanish moss and tree tunnels, all of them being rooted in the past, of things come and gone. With winter came remembering and spring could not come soon enough.