Start of a Short Story

This is the start of a short story.

I’m not going to sit here and say that I, Katie Turner Starr Khoury Keifer, would have done it differently. The world doesn’t work that way. You close your eyes asleep and when the dream erupts, are you telling me that you have control over that dream? If you do, just stop right now. Because when we say we wish it were all a dream we mean we might wake up and find that world gone. No one dreams pleasant dreams, no one I know. Maybe I only know myself, maybe every dream I’ve ever had has been a nightmare.

I wish Nairobi was a dream, that Matt in Nairobi was a dream. Not Matt was a dream, no, I love Matt. At times, I think he was the only one I really loved, certainly the only one I ever wanted to have children with. Him and I. To build that, in a little rolling shrieking bundle of joy, that would have made my life. It didn’t. So I wish Matt in Nairobi was a dream, because, if it was, everything would be different.

Matt wanted to go, he begged at his office to go. Kenya is civilized for Africa. It was going to hurt like hell to let him go. Three months, and maybe three more! We hadn’t even been married that long! My husband, my baby husband, off to do his part to change the world. We were raised to do good, in that old-fashioned Midwestern way, Matt and I, and that was part of the attraction, the trust, the us. That’s what had brought us to Washington, and that’s what took Matt to Nairobi.

When it happens, it’s like a car accident. This can’t really be happening AND WHY IS IT TAKING SO LONG TO HAPPEN? A phone call. Turn on the TV. Why hasn’t he called? Where was he when the bomb went off? He wasn’t there, I know he wasn’t there, but he could have been there, so I don’t know he wasn’t there but I don’t know that he’s dead, I know he isn’t dead, have I ever been wrong before I have been wrong before but I’ve been right before too, right about Matt, about us, of course he hasn’t called, it’s chaos and since when did the phones ever work there (ha ha) and that was before but look at all the smoke and fire and glass except they would say if a westerner was dead – it’s not fair that’s just how it is unless he was right there when it went off and that’s where he’s supposed to be oh my god help!

That was the worst day of my life. What can your mom say, or Matt’s boss Larry? No one knows anything beyond their thoughts and prayers and silly little hopes, you know. When the phone rang I knew it was him. I didn’t stop crying, but you can’t tell tears just by looking at them.

He was two blocks away when it went off. Just dumb luck – like the night back in school when we both needed to read the same reserve book. Was it fate? Of course, the world that is is, and we just swim in it, facing the current, presenting the illusion of the fight, because when you turn your back that’s when you get swept away, lose your bearings, slam into the concrete wall.