Through the Bay’s Lace Curtains

Vincent Barry

Once when we had a wake, a viewing if you prefer, the casket sat solemnly just beneath the bay window of the brownstone’s uppermost floor, where of late we played carefree. And when they lifted me — to kiss the waxy forehead above bone-rimmed sockets so as, dontcha see, “not ter be missin’ so much” — ’s when I beheld a shadow pulsing on the hopscotch squares on the walk below. And now I see they were right: I don’t remember whose square-domed brow I kissed. But the palpitant shadow I glimpsed through the bay’s lace curtains—that I can’t forget.

© Vincent Barry

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A retired professor of philosophy, Vincent Barry has published stories in numerous journals in the U.S. and abroad. For some of Barry’s other stories, see: Writing Tomorrow Magazine, The Write Room, Blue Lake Review, Crack the Spine, Pure Slush, The Vignette Review,The Tower Journal, Friday Flash Fiction, Fewer Than 500, Apocrypha and Abstractions, Midway Journal, Literally Stories,Corvus Review, The Saint Ann’s Review, Mulberry Fork Review, and Bull.