It’s Always Five O’Clock

Every night at five, I purge emails and voicemails from my father. Fling open fridge doors. Bottles clink. Orange juice and water stare. Turn back, they shriek, turn back, but the bottles hiss with reverie. Corks pop, dark red liquid whooshes. The evening sky is a deep purple; for a moment I can think of myself as someone else. Hemingway, an aristocrat in old Russia, looking down upon the world, instead of being looked down on himself. A man with something to celebrate instead of fatherly criticisms, credit card bills swelling because of stupid dinners at French restaurants, where my vocabulary was shit and khakis weren’t replete with enough panache according to maîtres d’. Meanwhile, stories and youthful ideas are left blinking on computer screens, while the sky turns from purple to indigo and then coal black, stories waiting, not judging, but blinking, as if shedding electronic tears.