“one thousand stars i’ve wished upon

then dreamt  ‘til morning’s nigh

midst conquered fears and fleeting truths

they glint upon mine eye”

   Miss Barkley wrote the verse in flawless cursive on the black board and then in her breathless voice read it aloud to the class. At least 15 year old Lloyd thought it sounded breathless. It was the poetry of that guy who never used punctuation and wrote without any capital letters. If Lloyd was going to grow up to be a writer he wanted to be like that guy. You could screw up writing and just say people didn’t get it. That would sure make it easier. She asked the students to take five minutes to write out what they thought the stanza meant.

   Lloyd thought about it. Nothing happened. In the back row, leaning back and to the right with his head cocked into the aisle all he could think about was Miss Barkley’s knee, exposed in all its glory as she crouched next to Ernie’s desk in the front row, helping him. Lloyd’s thoughts drifted away from poetry to a realm of imagination better suited to his inclinations.

   “Lloyd” she said. “Lloyd, pay attention please and write your thoughts down to share with the class.”

   Lloyd couldn’t write those thoughts down. He had gone nearly catatonic, dreaming and struggling to catch a glimpse of more than Miss Barkley’s knee. He glanced up from her knee and their eyes met. There was barely a minute left for the class to jot down their impressions.

   “Lloyd, since it appears you have already finished  I would like you to stand now and get ready to be the first to tell us what you think”

   Lloyd was mortified. He was the guy who was known to give anybody he decided to a nick-name that would stick. The kid with buck teeth and thick glasses became Guido. It didn’t make any sense. His name was Harry but Guido stuck with all the other kids. The kid with the bad sinuses who snorted loudly became Lungy. A teacher called him Lungy one time in class and nobody saw him for days afterwards. Lloyd’s friends depended on Lloyd to come up with the nicknames but they wouldn’t let him get away with this. The pant tent Lloyd had developed while dreaming of Miss Barkley was fair game. He imagined being called Pogostick or Big Top the rest of his high school years.

   “Miss Barkely, I have a hard time with poetry. I can’t think of anything right now.” Lloyd pleaded.

   “ I believe you are having a hard time in poetry.” she quipped  “I think you should change your focus.” She rose slowly, dropping the knee closest to the floor ever so slightly, looked over her glasses and winked at Lloyd.

   Lloyd couldn’t believe it. She knew what he was thinking and said something clever about it. But that meant she wasn’t thinking about poetry either. She was thinking about what he was thinking about. Lloyd’s imagination soared.

   Quickly he copied the verse she had put on the black board. He put it on a piece of lined notebook paper and neatly folded it, stuffing it then into his wallet.  “Wow” he thought. “Some things are so different than what you think .”

Nine- hundred -ninety -seven. Wish.

Nine –hundred- ninety- eight. Wish.

Nine –hundred- ninety -nine. Wish.

One thousand. Wish.

   “There” Lloyd thought as he changed his focus. All around the Milky Way, East, West, South and North the skies beckoned . He used the flashlight that helped him find the water’s edge to read the verse one last time then neatly folded the notebook paper and put it back in his wallet.

Forty nine years had passed and he still carried it. “That’s all of them. A thousand stars I’ve counted these last few nights and made a wish for each. I hope the last one isn’t squandered. There’s nobody to tell that my last wish is that nobody ever oils the hinge to stop the squeak. Whoever he was, the old carpenter knew what he was doing. That door is meant to squeak and slam. That’s why the top hinge is mortised deeper into the jamb. Slightly out of plumb to make the screen door pull closed. Squeeeeeeeeeeeak,slam. Squeeeeeeeeeak,slam. Thousands of times every summer to let the store clerk at this high desert lake know someone is coming or going. It had been like that since 1947 when it was built. It would be wrong to fix it. It was supposed to squeak and slam. Some things are so different than what you think.”

   Lloyd walked back up to the cabin, got out his lap top, pulled up the Word Doc and put it into the body of the e-mail. He sent it to himself and blind copied it to his five best friends and his Realtor. He hoped the Realtor didn’t blame himself. Lloyd should have taken his advice sooner and got ahead of the plummet. Too late now. Lloyd read the message once more. He wanted to make sure it wasn’t misconstrued but  just in case he hadn’t said it correctly it was all in lower case:

“ dearest friends,

worry not for me or my journey.  by the time you read this i will have left this earthly plane to wander among the stars.  i apologize if this hurts you. life has not been all i imagined it could be.  i knew very young that would be true. some things are so different than what you think.”

   Lloyd moved the cursor to ‘Send” and left clicked. He hoped his friends would understand that he was just trying to be efficient and less gruesome. He did not want them to have to pass around some bed stand note and ask each other what it meant, like they were still teenagers trying to figure out poetry.

   He got the six shot small caliber revolver out, put five bullets in it, spun the chamber and put it in his coat pocket. “Five ought to do it” he thought.”My luck hasn’t been that great lately”.

   He walked down to the water’s edge. The stars had gone and dawn was rising. He sat down and put the barrel under his chin tilting it backwards just like he had found instructions for on the internet. He remembered what he had read and it gave him some solace. “The small caliber bullet might not ever exit, just carom around until his brain was soupy and come to rest.” He thought, “ That will be better for the person that finds me.  It’s amazing what you can find on the internet.”

Lloyd anticipated the question.

   The owl asked, “Who?....who?” Dawn was breaking in bright crimson over the lake’s edge. The brilliance was astounding.

   Lloyd smiled and answered in his head “Who Mr. Owl ? Why me of course. Nobody else can take the blame or credit for this.”

The pine duff was beginning to warm and the sweet smell of the pitch was first opening up. “It’s going to be a scorcher again” Lloyd hoped. The hammer of the revolver moved with lightning speed towards one of the six chambers filled with five bullets. The sharp crack of the dawn sun shone from just behind the pines at the far side of the lake.

   Some things are so different than what you think.