The Phone Call

The Phone Call

Tomorrow it will have been exactly one year

since Laino passed on.

She and I always used to make a trip

across town twice a month

to the Native American smoke shop to buy cigarettes.

It was always an errand we made together

and we always had a lot of fun on the ride.

Over the years I came to enjoy it very much

as it was time we could spend together,

make a lot of jokes about all kinds of ridiculous stuff

and generally have a very good time.

Now that Laino is gone, I still make

the trip twice a month and I always think of her

on the way remembering

all the good times passed that we had together.

My memories of our smoke shop trip's

are so vivid it always seems like she's still there

in the car beside me talking to me

eyes sparkling with a happy smile.

Yesterday, I ran the errand thinking

of Laino all the while.

When I got home, I walked into the house

and put the bag of cigarettes on the kitchen table.

I fished my phone out of my pocket, still thinking

of Laino and the errand I'd just got back from.

I looked down at the phone suddenly astounded

because apparently the coins in my pocket had pushed

the phone touchscreen in such a way that

Lainos name and phone number were up on the display

as though she had just made a call to me from the Summerlands

to say with a smile “Hi baby! Here I am! :).”

I sat at down at the table, still looking at the phone screen

and thought of some lyrics in that song

from the seventies by Kansas, 'Miracles out of Nowhere,'

--- “It's so simple right before your eyes
If you'll look through this disguise
It's always here, it's always there
It's just love and miracles out of nowhere.”

Dewey Dirks