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Light at the window. Getting earlier, day by day. What is it? April. Need to be getting, every day. Can't fix my mind if it don't fix the body too. Not ready to get up. Need to though. Pillow sure feels good. Turn it over. Cool, soft, stay a while. No dammit! Slide over. Bed really low, one leg drops to floor. Reach over, catch myself. Other leg, on my knees. Kinda. "Morning." Jessica been waiting, there or nearby. Heard him. Didn't ever wake him, just let him go with his own timing. Look up. "Going to try some pushups?" He was lying face down, arms under his chest. Jessica was wearing a - what color is that? Jade? Jade's not a color. It's a rock. They call some shade of green jade. Because most of it's green I guess. Women's clothes. Paint. Furniture. Why'm I thinking about what color jade is? Someone... Switches. Rows of them in racks. Labels. AT&T. Ritter. Suddenlink. What are those? Local-1. Local-2. In the main data center in... Paragould. Where's that? Someone holding a cable. Looking at the switches. Someone there. Who? "No, number three". Who's that? On the phone. "OK, try it now." Waiting for something. "Hang on." Sits down at a table. Couple of workstations on it. Typing. Picks up phone, looking at the screen. "Got it? Great." We're in the data center. Troubleshooting a network problem. Something not working. Something got unplugged, plugged in the wrong place. Rows and rows of ports on the boxes, cables in most of them. Something got disconnected. Or wrong-connected. Mind a network, infinitely more complex. And fragile, easily damaged. No one there to holler at have them check something. All on my own. How'm I gonna put all the wires back in place? So she's wearing a jade robe. Satin. Jessica likes satin. Or maybe it's silk. Dunno what satin's made of. It's smooth and shiny, Jessica looks good in it. In anything. Kneeling beside him now. "OK?" Am I? Don't feel bad. Had an extra drink before bed. Maybe why I didn't want to get up. "Yeah. Think I fell out of bed." "I thought you might be trying to do your morning pushups. Before... you used to do a hundred, first thing every morning. Slide out bed, onto the floor. Always woke me up if I wasn't already awake." What? "It's why you built the bed that way." "We... slept together?" He rolled over on his side. A little dampness under the eyes. She wiped it away. "We stayed over at each others' places a lot. I spent some weekends out at the farm. And at my place or yours in town." It was probably hurting her more than him, he thought. He didn't remember what he, what they, had lost. She remembered it all. "You might as well give it a try," she said. His arms were folded across his chest. He tried to raise his body, straighten his arms. Palms against the floor. Arms bent at elbow. Now push. He got his chest a couple of inches off the floor, fell back. Try again. Push. Up. Down. "A hundred?" "Most days you did it again in the afternoon, if you had time. It'll take a while. The weights will put some strength in you arms. You were in a hospital bed for almost a year. It'll take a while." One more push. One more drop. He grabbed the edge of the bedframe, worked his way up to his knees. Jessica moved the walker over. Up, on his feet. |
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