Undertow

by Richard Wirick

Gillian was relieved when his friends Matt and Sally invited him to dinner the following night. They would have Maddie come, a Swedish girl they had just met at a Mabou Mimes production in SoHo. Matt joked to Gill that there had been enough lag time after his break-up with Michelle, and though Gill faked a laugh, he indeed found himself reassured, calmed, grateful for the presence of friends who could be counted on to fill an anxious emptiness with an invitation from out of nowhere.

He lay the receiver down with reverence, remembering writer's lines about the kindness of strangers, the safety one found in the harbor of their hands (Melville, or Auden's ode to him.)

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