Member-only story
Short fiction: “I Have Lifted Up Mine Eyes to the Mountains”
I soaked in the tub for a while after returning to my room at the Old Saloon Hotel, with that conversation in the rowboat still reverberating endlessly in my mind. At the same time, many disparate memories wouldn’t stop billowing to the surface like clouds of cream in a cup of coffee — memories of that distant summer, and of so many times in years to come when I had lost sleep over a certain girl.
Growing tired of such thoughts, I tried to focus my attention elsewhere. I closed my eyes and listened to the raucous group singalong of Put Me Off At Buffalo around an upright tack piano in the barroom directly below my suite. I would have loved to join them, but I am of my own time, not theirs, so it was for the common good that I simply kept to myself. (Hypocrite that I am, I nevertheless had every intention of joining the germanic chorus of soldiers at the Prussian Occupation Tavern the following night at the weekly “open stage” event that locals were forced to attend and participate in.)
I unwrapped the bar of soap I had bought earlier and proceeded to clean this long day’s events from my body.
I lay in bed and tried to get into a sleeping frame of mind despite the large foaming cloud of soap bubbles that had overtaken the bathroom and was now oozing out the doorway and onto the carpet. From…
