The Sundial

I lost my sundial in the summertime. From off a balcony. In Los Angeles. Quite fitting, perhaps, for someone born in winter. In a log cabin. In North Dakota. It was a family heirloom, the only one I was handed down when the wills were read. Out of a possible ten heirlooms, I was given the one. To treasure. For always. And I lost it.

Although, I guess it isn’t quite lost. I know exactly where it is. Or where it was. When it landed. I studied its path when it tumbled through the sky like a fallen angel, shattering on impact with the concrete below. And I cried, but not for the poor, disregarded sundial. I cried for my lost childhood and the boy who died so that I could live. As my inheritance was floating through the air, time stopped. For a few seconds. For an eternity.

I had it facing north. Or as north as my flagging sense of direction led me to believe. The shadows off the finial were as long as a blade of grass, even though no grass was anywhere near it. I watched it, as I always did on Sundays at that time, and I thought of my brother, who too was lost. In the jungle. In Mozambique. And I wondered if he died, would I get the other heirlooms he had been bequeathed? The pearl-handled knife. The jade necklace.

Then the sundial was gone. One moment it was facing north, the next it was rolling south. I stretched languidly toward it as it rolled away from my grasp, but I was too late. I was always too late. To accept. To give. To love. It too eluded my clutching hands and began its final journey.

I lost my sundial in the summertime. From a balcony. In Los Angeles. Quite fitting, really.

Sam