Gray

We filled the five chairs surrounding my black patio table and the black night filled the emptiness between the pauses of our words. I dealt the white cards. We peered into our hands, fanned like the rays of the sun that fell below the horizon over an hour ago. I set the black cards in the center of the patio table. We weren’t silent when we played. I was relieved that no one seemed to mind there were more shadows than there were bodies. There was an undertone of discomfort but it was silent against the threatening sharp of our laughter.

The cards traveled around the patio table in revolutions. White-winged things hovered brief and flitted back into shadows that weren’t their own. My company shivered shock-waves so I brought them blankets. The black blankets cloaked them from the cold coat of night and the game continued.

The cards made their round to me. I collected from my company until I held four foreign fanned white cards in my hands and read them aloud. We laughed. The last card left:

“A disappointing birthday party,” I read. We paused and looked at each other. We looked at the shadows. The uncomfort grew a little braver but we noticed so we laughed again. The night progressed in an atmosphere of genuity. The blatant card addressed the unspoken--carved a way to make it untrue. The cards made their last revolution.

My company arrived with gaps between each threshold crossing and left as a flock. The cars started and the white beams cut through the air, backed down the driveway, and parted onto their separate maze of roads. I watched them go. When the last one had left, I returned to my patio table. Black blankets left draped over the chairs--still holding the form of the body they had cloaked. Now there were only shadows. I brought the blankets and the gifts over the threshold of my bedroom. I reread the cards.