Free Deep River Burning by Donelle Dreese

instinctively went for the window to climb down the drain pipe.
    “No, Josh. I can walk you downstairs. Aunt Rosemary won’t care that you are here. She might wonder how you got in, but she won’t care that you are here.”
    “Where’s the fun in that? Besides, I made a grand entrance and for the sake of maintaining balance, I need to make a grand exit.”
    “You’re going to hurt yourself again.”
    “That’s too bad because going out the front door would entirely ruin the sense of adventure that got me up here. Someday I’ll be old and the thought of climbing a drain pipe will be out of the question. So, I might as well act reckless and silly now.”
    “It is truly a gift how you can be so adult one moment and a playful child the next,” she said, laughing as quietly as possible.
    “Who knows? As long as I’m not stricken with arthritis, maybe I’ll be climbing up drain pipes when I’m fifty years old if it makes you smile. You will never get rid of me, Denver. I’m like mold. I will keep growing on you until you realize that Joshua Bleu is the only cheese for you.”
    “Who is Joshua Bleu? Do you want a rope or something?”
    “All I want is a safe walk home without a mine emission blowing up my shorts.”
    “Goodnight, Josh.” She laughed and watched him descend quickly down the side of the house and run like a fugitive with his small flashlight waving back at her like a lighthouse from a distant wave on a tremulous sea. She looked up at the sky, and even though there were so many stars, the loneliness was as unbearable and unfathomable as the vast distance of the solar system that glistened its way through time.
    The truth was, she didn’t want to be alive. Not when the beauty had become so painful. She felt raw and exposed. She felt that everything around her was too big, too close, too loud, too chaotic, and too sharp. She heard the voice of reason speaking to her of suffering and strength and moving on. She wanted to fly. She wanted to fly far away. When she was a little girl, she had dreams of flying that relaxed her body so entirely she thought that the sensation must have been what it felt like to be on some sort of drug, the kind that makes every cell and neuron feel sweet and buzzing with warmth. In her dream, the air was always warm. The wind was always soft, and she was lighter and stronger than she had ever thought possible.
    That night after Josh left, she went to bed and closed her eyes and thought of flying. She imagined a downy white glow around her that lifted her up and took her away. She felt the wave of comfort and swirling sleepiness pass over her like a warm sea current. But she didn’t dream of flying. Instead she dreamed of terror. She dreamed that she was lying there, that night, in her bed, with the white light around her, but it didn’t protect her and lift her to a softer world. It swung her over her bed violently, as if to mock her like some out-of-body experience of horror. She felt the weight of her body increase its velocity as she swung so quickly she couldn’t focus on the room around her.
    She woke up terrified like so many nights when she tried desperately to sleep, to have just a few moments of peace. She told herself over and over that it was only a nightmare even though she had woken up dizzy and nauseous from the swinging. She ran to the window to see if Josh was still there, but she knew he wasn’t. She had seen him run away like a white sail torn from the mast blowing out to sea. She gripped the windowsill and looked up at the intolerable sky where at each moment, particles collided to create another universe that went deeper into the unknown. There must have been thousands of them by now, and there was she, feeling overwhelmed in a cosmos that seemed to only acknowledge her with a blank stare.

Chapter 9
    Rosemary
    Denver peered into the guest bedroom where Aunt Rosemary was staying for her extended visit. The room smelled good to her, like dried flowers