Moonlight

Puzzle 134

A pencil was stuck in the gray plastic cup that held the toothbrushes.

In the bottom cupboard, under the pipe, was a tattered and slightly water-damaged book of maze puzzles with a hyperbolic name.

World’s Most Mind-Bending Mazes or something like that. He couldn’t remember, the book was folded over to page 134.

The second toothbrush had gotten used once, by a woman he met at Calliope Groceries and More during a blackout caused by a training accident at the Air Force base.

The More in Groceries and More seemed to be greeting cards.

 Dan Veranna couldn’t remember ever buying a greeting card as an adult.

He used the pencil almost every time he took a dump, making a new line on the mega maze that was on page 134.

He had celebrated finishing the mega maze on page 133 by finishing the wine that the woman left at his house. 

The wine wasn’t very good, it had been in his crisper for months with a cork jammed in it, dry and brittle.

Coast Guard lights out on the bay competed with TV news lights and washed out the moonlight that rippled across the lazily waving water.

Last time someone had drowned in the bay, their bereaved date told the news reporter the moonlight was so romantic rippling across the water they figured a quick swim would be beautiful.

The moonlight always hits the water, dummy, that’s the way it works. 

Dan made a vertical line in puzzle 134.

He never erased when he made an errant line. That made the mazes more challenging.

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