Paths of Desire

By Dominique Browning

" Leonard and I were walking through the yard early one morning at the beginning of winter, reviewing the possibilities ahead one last time before the cold settled in seriously. His crew had delivered enough firewood to see me trough the Ice Age. I was (of course) adding to our book-length list of what would go where, haggling over what to keep, what to transplant. We had started laying out the outlines of the new beds with colorful cords I had bought at the hardware store. With every walk-through, the shapes of the beds changed, but I knew I had the Winter of Last Dayreams ahead of me to mull it all over. Leonard was fun to talk to. He was entering a boyish middle-age; he was overstressed; and, as he constantly told me, the demands of the business were taking a toll on his wife, and on his heart. (Why do men worry so about their hearts? They all do, even twelve-year-old men -- their hearts and their knees.)"