Dead Echo

  *

  Tomas Lorca stared up into the night sky that stretched out over the fence in his backyard. The moon was a high yellow far off in the vacuum above the ragged line of trees which led back to the woods, and farther still, to the winding creek which cut past the broken bridge over on the other side. He was completely nude, tumescent. He’d been stroking himself for the past thirty minutes, running over the dream as it’d come to him last night. Imagining the fruition of its promise. Because the time was now. Everything he’d felt coming together for the past forever was finally, now, curling up and around him to bring whatever it had to offer home.

  He grinned frightfully in the darkness and squeezed harder, his other hand drifting down to his balls. He spread his legs and leaned back in the chair, never taking his eyes off the fathomless depths of the sky above him. There was a saying about the stars being in line. Well, now was the time; if ever there would be, it was now. He knew he’d go to her tomorrow. He wasn’t quite sure what he’d say, but guessed it’d be something in the neighborhood of the church brochures. Something provided. This was not simply a thing, a decision, of his choice. He knew the undercurrents of the world, had felt them, been a part of them, many times in the past, and this was how every revelation always rode in.

  Just not this hard. Not this direct.

  He urgently cupped his balls in his hand, the other working hard up and down. He could feel the pressure building, that dangerous, ancient animal from the past, and his eyes rolled back to whites. His heels dug into the patio tiles, his buttocks flexed. With a final upward thrust he shot hot spray across his chest, speckling his chin. He continued pumping it out until closure, and then looked, weary-eyed, into the future he saw spiraling down toward him.