Tears, Fears and Missiles

There are not many things that can make her cry, but the sky might. Just the way clouds form, the colors they take on, will occasionally bring some long-buried memory to the tear ducts in the corners of her eyes. The tears bring a sobbing reflex and soon, she is sitting alone in her beach house on a twenty-dollar Wal-Mart lounge chair, feeling the breeze dry the salt on her cheeks, blowing her nose, shaking her head and wondering what memory, when she turned the corner toward her house on her evening walk, glancing up and seeing the clouds churning, first black, then pink, then the color of scalded corn chowder, blasted out of its comfortable bunker where it had been safely stored, for a split second and reduced her to that tight-throated episode of self-pity or fear

Even after the lid was closed on it for less than a minute, she had no recollection of the color of that missile.