Our beds would be better for this you say, and somehow I’m not quite sure. Behind closed doors and eyes in darkness, you and I mould and move and laugh and settle, soften and mould again and breathe in ways we don’t, can’t, outside of warm, careful shadows. I fear that if we rise, even our shadows will be lost to us.

Do you regret me? Are you embarrassed? I wouldn’t be embarrassed to be snuck around, whispered for, smiled softly at in early and late morning, wouldn’t mind, except for loss of close breath and warm skin, to be gently touched awake to blushing eyes and ears and cheekbones, and told to get a room other than the one we all share, and teased in good and fond and jealous fun while we stretch our sore and stiff limbs from having wrapped around each other like clean cloths over wounds left to heal in darkness.

It’s different when your breathing slows and we stop biting our tongues and start being quiet; when I stop fighting tears and start to mourn in stilling, peaceful silence. It hurts to mourn your loss when I think of you, aches to lose you to something greater than me because it means I’m not enough.

For some slow moments we breath softly together, in unison, together, on purpose, by chance, though our hearts never quite make it. And when you hold me against that rough couch, worn sweater, soft jeans, strong arms, it’s almost as if we can forget the Body and Blood pulsing between us -- Catholic guilt of another sort -- and just be You and just be Me, sleeping, together, and not pretending we aren’t hurting, and not pretending we can’t feel this is precious, and not pretending we don’t already know this is all you think He’ll ever let us have.

Julie Depner is a freshman at Gonzaga who is addicted to smoothies, singing and sunlight. At the moment, she is attempting to procrastinate going back to the real world for a few more years, and simultaneously researching a way to try to make a palm tree grow in Spokane that doesn't involve vast amounts of money, time or effort.

The sunsets in Eastern Washington are unlike any other. The scientist, I suppose, would tell me that what I’m experiencing is a reaction to the longer (or shorter, I can never remember which) wavelengths in the light, caused by the large concentrations of particulates in the air. I suppose that there’s a reason that I’m not a scientist, then. I would just say that the sunsets are breathtaking. I know that the dust in the air makes it that way, but that doesn’t make it any more or less beautiful.

I lie back against the hillside and let the early summer breeze blow over me. It pushes me gently into the sparse grass and rich, soft, tan dust. Say what one will about dust, it’s wonderfully soft. The sun has sunk below the horizon, and the sky and the clouds to the west are a vivid salmon color as if someone had just gutted the sky and was getting ready to filet it. One doesn’t so much see a sunset in these parts as live in it. I take in the wonderful pinks and reds of the sunset and marvel at how well the khaki-colored landscape picks it up, turning the ground a myriad of oranges and pinks and reds. I spy something slinking across the sage-covered slope below me and smirk. This is probably the only time and place in the world where a person can see a pink coyote.

The breeze picks up, as I’ve noticed it often does right as the sun’s going down. It’s warm and steady and carries with it the smells of dust and sagebrush. I smile into it and close my eyes momentarily as it washes over me. I take a deep breath from the bottom of my lungs and open my eyes again. The colors have changed subtly. The sunset spreads farther into the sky now, almost halfway across it, and the colors are becoming deeper. Pinks fade into reds fade into burgundy fade into purples. I can’t help but be overwhelmed by it. In it I feel the Muse of Homer, the Natural Law of Aquinas, the I Am of Descartes, and the drugs of Burroughs. It makes me wish that I were a capital-P-Poet instead of just a dabbler in verse. I was cursed with far too organized a mind for poetry, I’m afraid.

I glance away from the sunset and, once again, my eye is caught by my friend, the pink coyote. He’s sitting a few dozen feet away watching me intently. He looks like he’s decided I’m not prey material, nor threat material (just lying here, as I am), so he’s content to sit and try and puzzle me out. He strikes me as the intelligent type, so I don’t suspect it’ll take him long to figure out everything about me. After all, the problem is simple to him. The human condition boils down simply enough for a coyote. It doesn’t extend much farther than: “Can I eat it? If not, then can it eat me?” Really, once he’s got those two things figured out, anything else he learns is bonus. I stare back at him and a few seconds pass between us. Then he gets up and pads off, his head bobbing gently as he goes, as if he’s nodding to me on his way to somewhere else. “Hey kid, you’re alright. Nice to meet ya.” I nod back at him as he slinks around the side of the hill, looking for something that fits into the “can be eaten” portion of his paradigm.

The show is almost over now. The orchestra of colors has decrescendoed into muted wine-colored streaks that trail up the sky on the stomachs of clouds to blend into the darkening purple of a desert night. Above me stars are starting to show. On any other night I might be inclined to stay awhile and be a spectator to the cosmos (it’s the greatest show in the Universe, playing every night, all year round), but I have other places to be. I stand up and dust myself off as best I can before wending my way down the hill to my car. It almost feels wrong to drive away from such a scene, but the alternative is too long a walk for my civilization-softened body. I slide into the driver’s seat and give one last look out the window at the western sky. The show is over and the artist gone home. Another show tomorrow, same time, same place.

Flames tickled the end of Ollie’s Camel Lite, and he inhaled deeply, replacing life-giving oxygen with grimy smoke. Returning his lighter to the breast pocket of his gray corduroy jacket, he took up the grande white chocolate mocha that he had set on the ground next to him and alternated sips of caffeine and drags of nicotine.

Ollie’s grandmother was set to arrive in exactly one hour. She did not know that he smoked, and she didn’t much care for coffee, so Ollie, who was addicted to both severely, was attempting to get as much in as he could. She was to arrive in the afternoon, stay two nights, three days, enjoying the company of her grandson and the sights of New York, and then jet off to visit her other grandchildren around the nation.

Ollie reached the bottom of his coffee and tossed the cup casually into a bin on the sidewalk. He sauntered down the street, finishing one Camel and starting up another, contemplating what on earth he was going to do or even talk about with his wrinkly old grandmother for almost three whole days. He hadn’t even seen her in about six years, so why should she be so interested to come see him now?

After finishing cigarette number three, Ollie returned to his house, a rented apartment above “La Boheme” café and bar, and made his last little adjustments to the place. The smell of cigarette smoke was still noticeable, but she was old, he figured, and probably wouldn’t notice it.

Ollie hopped a cab to the airport and met his grandmother right at the security checkpoint. She was last in the group from her plane, which was not a surprise; Ollie remembered that years ago when she would come to visit his family when he was young, she and Grandpa were always the last off because they insisted on sitting in the very back.

She hobbled down the terminal like an unbalanced washing machine, dressed in colors more garish than the billboards on Broadway. Each step, while firm and deliberate, tottered slightly to her right side, where she used a stout oak cane to help her along. She looked into Ollie’s eyes and gave him a hearty hug, one much more powerful than it looked like her little arms would be able to muster. They said their hellos and traveled to the baggage claim. His grandmother had a soft, level voice that could put him to sleep in a moment, not because what she was saying was necessarily dull, simply because it was the same voice he had fallen asleep to countless times in his childhood.

They took a cab back to Ollie’s place, during which Grandma proceeded to tell him about practically every physical ailment she had experienced over the past ten years, from broken bones to incontinence. Ollie was totally nonplussed. He tried mentioning some words of consolation, but it didn’t sound quite right.

They climbed the stairs to his apartment, slowly for Grandma’s sake, and entered in with Grandma exclaiming, almost instantly, “Where’s that smoke coming from? Is something burning?”

Ollie avoided the question by telling her that the place had ventilation problems, so sometimes the smoke from the café and bar below would waft upwards. Grandma seemed mostly content with the answer, though she continued to criticize him for the gray-drab color scheme of his furnishings.

They talked for a while over crackers and ginger ale. Ollie told her about his current job waiting tables at the café downstairs, but how he spent most of his time writing plays, and that he had one almost done, except for a very difficult ending which he had yet to write. It was about two star-crossed lovers who, for circumstances beyond their control, couldn’t ever see each other. He was becoming more connected in town, he told her, and knew a few people that would be able to show his work right to the people at the top, as soon as he was done. He just couldn’t get that ending, he told her. He tried writing a happily-ever-after ending, he tried having them break up, he tried having them fall in love with other people, but it just didn’t ever sound right. Grandma seemed interested, but only responded with, “Well, that sounds nice.”

Ollie suggested they see the town a little, and Grandma was ready to go. It was the first time she had been to New York, she told him, and she wanted to see it all. They left his apartment and walked, slowly, to central park, to Broadway, to the Empire State Building, and all the other highlights of the city, hopping cabs when Grandma wasn’t feeling up to the walk. He suggested they eat dinner at a quaint little Moroccan place he knew of, which Grandma didn’t exactly jump at. They went, and Ollie enjoyed a vegetarian chickpea soup. Grandma had a hamburger.

Afterwards, Grandma suggested that they catch a show. Ollie told her that he wished she had told him earlier, as he might have been able to get them tickets, but then remembered a friend who owed him a favor who might be able to help them out. His friend had access to tickets for two that night to either Rent or Cats. Much to Ollie’s relief, Grandma chose Cats, even though she had seen the traveling production three times already. She had heard such bad things about Rent, she told him, and she didn’t want to pay to see garbage like that. She enjoyed Cats very much. Ollie missed most of it, as he snuck away every 40 minutes or so to smoke.

They returned home and Grandma slept in Ollie’s bed, while he slept on the couch. He expected to sleep until around ten, which was his norm on a Saturday, but found that it became somewhat impossible to sleep as Grandma got up to begin making her tea and fruit at 7:30. When Ollie asked her why she was up so early, she told him that she’d been up since six and he realized that she was showered, dressed, and ready for the day already.

They left to spend the day exploring more of the city’s highlights, and while time seemed to move excruciatingly slowly for Ollie, his grandmother seemed to be enjoying herself, as evidenced by the oohs and ahs she made at every attraction, and especially the cries of “how beautiful” or “how amazing” every time they passed a nice garden or park.

Five o’clock rolled around, and Grandma was ready to eat, which she started reminding Ollie about constantly starting at 4:30. He suggested a trendy bistro that he knew of, but Grandma said that some friends had suggested a place that she thought she could find. They walked a slow eight blocks in one direction until Grandma asked Ollie if they were near 38th street, which he told her was in the opposite direction. Grandma didn’t seem to mind and happily turned around to backtrack, but Ollie’s patience was wearing thin.

They finally arrived, 30 minutes later although the restaurant was a mere five minutes from where they started, at a place called Furr’s, a buffet style quasi-cafeteria where the median age was closer to 200 than 20. Ollie felt a shudder run through his body as he entered the door, caused, he decided, by the distinct smell of mothballs and medical equipment in the room.

Grandma couldn’t have been more pleased, he thought, at finding her destination, and got in line for the buffet. She happily chose macaroni and cheese to accompany her Salisbury steak and jell-o, while Ollie was so anxious to get through the line that he almost bludgeoned the old man ahead of him in line with his flimsy plastic tray.

They sat in the main dining room facing each other, the gray walls closing in on him as if they were actually moving. Ollie was painfully aware of every asthmatic cough from every wrinkled gray-hair in the place; he felt the pop of every pill bottle cap as they were taken, with a full glass of water, after each geriatric’s meal, and he could feel himself absorbing their old person stench just by sitting there. It was like eating in an old folks’ hospital home, he thought, except worse, because they all pretended that nothing was different from the trendy Moroccan place they had eaten in last night. When he couldn’t raise his fork to his mouth because of his shaking hands, he excused himself to use the bathroom, which was really a run straight for the front door.

He had been stealing moments away from his grandmother all day to catch some smoke breaks. He needed this one more than ever. When he got a few feet away from the door, he pulled out his Camels and lighter. He had trouble lighting himself up, he was shaking so hard. A deep inhalation calmed him down.

Smoking, he decided, was the best thing he ever did for himself. He finished his first cigarette and lit another, inhaling deeply and puffing slowly, watching each cloud dissipate into the atmosphere as if it were his very life itself fading into the breeze. He smiled with the knowledge that he would never end up at Furr’s while he contemplated the smoldering end of his cigarette, slowly simmering with burning desire into delicate lifelessness. He felt each inhalation seep into his lungs, his bloodstream, down to his toes, and he watched intently every fleeting wisp and twirl of grey shadow emanating from his fingertips.

He came back to the table to find that Grandma was on her second helping of steak, pooled in a grey-brown sauce that made Ollie question the culinary integrity of the establishment. He asked her what possessed her to come visit him after years of not seeing each other. She told him that she found out from her doctor that she had cancer, was dying, and would not have much time left.

Ollie felt a pang in his chest that he normally associated with cravings, and realized that it was really just life, punching him in the throat. He felt the need to run away and take another cigarette and realized that he didn’t even want one. He wanted to say something consoling, but stopped himself, for fear of sounding cliché.

The next morning Grandma woke him promptly at seven. They had to be ready to go to church at eight, she told him. Ollie groaned and told his grandmother that he was not religious, that he didn’t believe in God, and that he had stopped going to church when he left home. She frowned, seemed very concerned, and said that he would go with her anyway. He did.

By the time church was over, it was time to get back to the airport and see Grandma off. They hopped a cab, and as he helped her unload her luggage, Grandma told him that she was so happy to be able to catch up with him this weekend.

“You know I might not be around too much longer, and you know I love you,” she told him, hugging him. Ollie found the whole gesture particularly overdone. He called to mind a thousand sappy movies and plays with exactly the same scene.

“Have a safe trip, Grandma,” he told her, handing the Skycap her bags.

“And you be safe, too. Keep working on that play, I think it will be really good,” she said.

“The ending is all I need now,” Ollie told her, thinking about it again.

“Why don’t you just write that one of them dies?” she asked.

“Grandma, that is so used up. I can’t think of a more clichéd ending!” he said, slightly offended, but mostly just painfully aware of the sappy world of clichés that his grandmother lived in.

“Well, I think it might be touching,” she said, kissing his forehead. “I love you, dear.”

“I love you too, Grandma,” Ollie told her, and meant it a little more than he thought he did.

She flew away, and Ollie returned home by way of a bright yellow taxi. He got home, lit a cigarette, and sat in front of the computer screen. Reluctantly, he wrote his grandmother’s ending to his play, where one of the lovers died. He wrote a heart-wrenching death scene and a tearful funeral, and he wrote the remaining lover to abandon himself to life, to live as his dearly departed would have lived. He hated it, but he couldn’t deny that it sounded right.

When it was produced later that year, a critic from the New York Times said, “never has the city seen a work where the dead feel like living and the living feel like dying.” It was enormously successful.

Robert Cowen is a third-year music education, music literature, and philosophy student at Gonzaga University. He composes works of short fiction, as well as newspaper opinions, academic essays and musical works in his limited free time. He is somewhat pretentious. He is a horrible poet.