In Between Star Runs

Have you heard the one where I went on a three-minute date with a time-traveling princess from the Old West?
Brittan makes for a good story.
She arrived forty years too early.
My coffee was still hot, as was she.
Her hand-carved ivory cameo brooch winked and whistled at me.
I was delighted.
This beauty, though, was less than thrilled.
She expected a much younger man.
I was already child-like with my gray hairs and white whiskers.
Our minds tried to meld, but my hands could not grasp the reality she was offering.
In the blink of an eye, she vanished, and I became older than my many years.
I wish she’d left my dog behind.
Loneliness does not suit me in any world, off-or-on.