A Lighthouse

There is an electrical current thrumming; somehow imperceptible to everyone who isn’t us. This seems impossible, because to me it’s an airhorn. A thunderclap. A tornado.

Your fingertips are working to unlock something and are taking their sweet time. The smiles never waver. If anything, they become more genuine than they already are. There’s full-throated laughter and the budding of an inside joke just for us that somehow feels more special than it probably is. Achieving any sort of connection these days feels impossible: a real case of Zeno’s arrow never actually hitting its mark.

But this is different. This must be how someone lost in a desert feels when the mirage is actually a pool of water. It’s tangible; it shimmers, even in this darkened bar. A firework. A signal flare. A lighthouse. You are playing with matches and I have a paper body but you’re looking at me as though I’m made of silk or marble.

It’s all forward movement and sugar cubes. Gilded, breathless instruction and scavenger hunts. Glass and brick and leather. Tonight, everyone gets what they want.

Stacey Harris is a mom. A wife. A copywriter. A potty mouth. A horse girl. A native Chicagoan who currently lives in North Carolina while wishing she was in New Orleans.