Other Worlds

Constantine, sleepless at the Milvian Bridge, steps out for air to inspect the stars. He sees a miracle in the sky, one flaming star with six points.

Stacey, with her glorious strawberry-blonde crown and a different therapist, chooses not to hang herself, or does it later and her roommate cuts her down in time. She pulls herself together, with help, and fulfills her promise as a writer. Or I accept her invitation to dinner with her friends, and somehow change her life, and mine.

Judy G., turning down my invitation for a weekend alone at my place in the woods -- what was I thinking? she never liked me that way -- suggests (as she did) that I ask Monica instead. And I do. And then what? All those dreams fulfilled, perhaps, and maybe some of hers. She doesn't meet Martha, or after we have parted, or we stay together and my two failed marriages evaporate as in a dream, undreamt.

Or they turn to three.

The software startup convinces me to come in one more time, and offers me a job, stock, options, the wealth of the Indies, and reasonable working hours. I take it. The company succeeds with my help, and my options are worth a fortune. Kate gets half in the divorce, which still has no reason not to happen.

So I bind others to my dreaming will.

Until 2003, David M. Harris had never lived more than fifty miles from New York City. Since then he has moved to Tennessee, acquired a daughter and a classic MG, and gotten serious about poetry. His work has appeared in Pirene's Fountain (and in First Water, the Best of Pirene's Fountain anthology), Gargoyle, The Labletter, The Pedestal, and other places. His first collection of poetry, The Review Mirror, was published by Unsolicited Press in 2013.