This Could Or Could Not Be True

She was cold in her tent, a high school letterman being the only protection from the winter winds sans a thin t shirt and a pair of jeans. The thought crossed her mind that she should get rid of the jacket, after all she had graduated years ago, but she wouldn’t, not ever. However, she didn’t know that yet, and eventually left her nylon encampment to join her friends by the fire. They talked mindlessly of the chance of encountering a bear while sipping cold beer and spent the night dreaming of the future.

He was tired. Rent was due and he didn’t know what the hell he was doing living in a caboose thirteen hours away from home. He heated up a can of food and sat at what vaguely represented a dining table. After eating, he walked towards his bed, pausing to look at the rat snake that lived in the hole in the wall, who was currently fat with a mouse. His mind raced with the chores that he had to do for the next day. First on his list was to fix the hole in the roof, that flooded this place of his every time it rained.

They met amidst a sea of flames and stars. “Tell me your name,” she whispered, afraid to break the magic.

“I’ll tell you my middle name today and my ready one tomorrow, only if you’ll do the same,” he replied.

“Leroy.”

“Elizabeth, but I don’t want you to call me that.”

The forest was full of souls and his makeshift stage held a man who thought he was the next Bob Dylan. It wasn’t dancing music, but they danced, twirling under the clear Milky Way. After their feet became weary they retreated to the campfire and smoked and laughed the night away.

“Tell me. Your name,” she said.

“You first.”

“Ann.”

“Dan. Our name’s are the same, so must be our destiny.”

She didn’t want to love a wild man. Her family was wild enough, but here she was. He hated the South, he hated the way mean thoughts existed behind a veil of syrup. But they were in love nonetheless and God’s celestial bodies witnessed a marriage that no court official could ever sign.

At some point he moved from the caboose and she moved from her infested apartment and they lived together in a quaint brick house on Knottingham Dr. He worked for the City and her for the Feds and it was hard and they were poor. She was transferred to Atlanta, a city promising more opportunity and he quit his job to work for himself. She moved to a little town near where she grew up in an even littler house. They were over, she thought, and it was time to focus on her career. Before she knew it, they shared the same bed once again and he resolved to commute to work in the hot sun.

She was a tax collector, he a handyman and they were still in love.