The Fluttering

Joshua Roland, 56, married, two children, boys, John and James, sat at the kitchen table, his elbows resting heavily on the laminate wooden surface, fingers steepled in front of his pursed lips in deep concentration. The sounds of his lifetime’s goal now almost completely silent. The sounds of their soon-to-be-abandoned home in Pittsburgh were interrupted only by the occasional clank of metal pans being washed by his wife, Eleanor, in the sink and the rhythmic tick of the wall clock above the stove. His eyes scanned the open newspaper pages from front to back, but his mind was elsewhere, lost in the labyrinth of thoughts about their impending move to the uncharted lands of the mid-west. The air held the all too familiar scent of Arvacaba coffee and the promise of a decision hastily made. Read more