Bunker

The curve of his cheekbone I've brushed to put him to sleep since I first held him. Over the years it's given us both comfort. His eyes don't close now. Eyes moist, full of withheld tears. I rub his cheekbone bringing down a tear. He looks at me. He looks to me. I could look away and easily explain it. There's the window to block up again and there's piles of brick to move. But I won't. I owe him my eyes. I owe him food, but there is none. I owe him water, but there is none. I have only my eyes, and my meager touch on his cheek.

Once I offered more. Once my hands worked for our food. My imagination, and his built dragon saddles and fireproof bridles. Once our shovels and seeds helped Mother Nature in the Spring. Once my feet carried us both through the green forests where we would set up a tent and tell ghost stories. Once because I was Dad, I was Godlike. Naturally, the world was safe then, with plenty for everyone-- because I was a grownup and he looked up to me.

The bombs came. I so dearly wanted to be Godlike. In the silence you can hear that everyone here wishes to be Godlike. These days; you can hear it; you can breath it from everyone.

Maybe, we are. Maybe, these days, God only has eyes like mine.

"Dad", he says, "tell me one of your great stories."

I think of many stories - the final days of Tom's family in "The Grapes of Wrath", the people of the South during Sherman's March to Sea. I can't face him with those stories now. My mind wanders and I think of stories I've told others about him. Once, I was leaving him for the summer. I came to say goodbye. I was late; I needed to go. But he told me about everything in the room; things I had told him about many times. I had to go. After a hug too tight for words, I left. A couple days later I realized the moral of his story; he'd talk about anything just to spend more time with me.

Here, in the shelter, was everything; except food ,water, and any probability of tomorrow. I do have– more time with my son, and anything I want to think about.

I began: "Once upon a tim,e in a bombed out basement, a boy and his father decided to change the world. No one remembers how they came to think of it. Some people believe that they both just thought of it like you think of rolling over in bed when the sun hits you. The man and his son each pulled a brick out of the mud. They pressed the brick to their hearts, held hands and remembered their good thoughts before the war. They thought about all the people who had done them favors. They thought about every favor they had given. Dad remembered how he felt when his son was born. 'There are no Marxist, no communist, no Republicans, no janitors, no Democrats in the nursery. There is only: the blessed, holy miracle of LIFE”. Then they took their bricks and rubbed them together. As the brick dust settled into the mud it was magically sucked down, down. Far down, into the earth of the peaceful times before the ages. It fell onto a great lake. When the bricks had crumbled to their dusty palms and they held hands once again. The lake rained. The rain rose upward, going from the deep reaches of the earth, up through the all the mud floors of all the bomb shelters of all the land. The rain made everyone throughout the world feel like just the man and his boy. Tthere was no more war, and there was food and water for everyone”

Silence settled. Time slowed under its weight. He turned from me.

His index finger dug a line into the dirt wall of the basement. It was a simple line. It was pleasant; watching him.

"Dad, my being here is hard on you isn't it?"

I brushed his cheek. "You are a miracle that's been handed to me; I feel obligated to be worthy of it."

"What does that mean, dad?"

"Come outside with me. I want to show you things that I've already showed you a million times."

"Dad, can we take the dragon saddle and the fireproof bridle too?"

“Yes .and today, we'll ride that rascally old dragon."