found

.

I found him near the river wringing out his blue towel. He must have dropped it. Not aware that someone was watching, he seemed at peace in that moment. There wasn't a single wrinkle on the water that day. No one would know he went to sleep with ghosts at night and woke up with damp, wrinkled skin every morning.

He flung the wet towel across his shoulder and stared up at the sky, as blue as any sky I'd ever seen. I wanted to move closer. I wanted to hold him near, to love him close. But I couldn't. So I remained standing there, staring at his pack-horse shoulders, the wheat coloured hair caught in the nape of his neck, watching him watch the sky.

.