Linger Awhile

3 Irving Goodman

2 January 2004. Finding and losing! I found Justine in the lonely night-time hours when I watched westerns and drank myself to sleep. Men quick to anger, loyal unto death, fast on the draw. Horses beautiful and innocent. Women to inspire a good man and madden a bad one. Mountains and plains and rivers, canyons, arroyos, gulches and draws. Mists of morning and moons over the desert. Justine flickering in my sodden half-dreams and my forlorn hopes.

Having found her, was I now to lose her to Istvan Fallok? Was this ordained, written in the Big Book of Absurdity? I had turned to Fallok to make Justine real for me and now I knew in my heart that he was out to take her from me. The way he leered when she swung into the saddle, Oh God. Has he brought her into our reality or has he gone into hers? Wherever they are, I’ll find them and take her away from him, that bastard. Him and his high-tech treachery. Don’t go with him, Justine, I saw you first.