"What do you think Dad's going to say to Mom to calm her down?" Simon asked Lucy as she sipped a milk Chug.  "Do you think he's going to tell her that he's ready to be a minister again?"

Lucy set the Chug down and looked at Simon as if he were stupid.  "Does a guy who wants to go back to ministering carry a bottle of wine up to his wife?"

Simon shook his head, strewing sloppy bangs all across his forehead.  "Well what then?"

Lucy's scowling pencil brows betrayed her total lack of interest in the conversation.  She impatiently tapped the countertop and asked, "Simon, why do you even care?"

"Because, I might need to know these kinds of things, like what to say after a pointless argument and all that.  You know, in case Cecilia wants to argue for no reason or something, like you and Kevin do all the time."

Lucy rolled her eyes.  Figuring that the blunt truth ought to shut him up, she blurted, "Dad and Mom are going to have sex, OK, Simon?  Make-up sex, which, from everything I've heard, is better than plain old ordinary everyday sex.  Although I wouldn't know, of course."

Repulsion passed over Simon's face.  "Ew.  They still do that?"

"Duh."

"I thought they stopped after Mom went through, you know, the Change?"

"I don't think so, Simon.  They're still married."

"But Dad just had surgery.  Won't that be bad for his heart?"

"He had the surgery a long time ago, Simon.  I think he's OK again now.  I also think you shouldn't be so concerned about Mom and Dad's sex life.  It's kinda creepy."

Simon looked a bit queasy.  "You're right.  Talking about this is making me feel ill.  I'm going upstairs to lie down."  He gingerly placed a hand across his stomach and stood up to leave.

"Yeah, I'm sure it was the conversation that made you feel ill and not the dozen brownies you ate," Lucy chided him as he walked upstairs from the kitchen.

As he reached the top of the stairs, his stomach gave an audible rumble.  "Ugh.  Maybe I did eat too many brownies," he muttered aloud to himself as he stumbled toward his room.

"Woof!" Happy responded from atop his bed.

"Move over girl.  I need to lie down."  Simon plopped down on his bed, displacing Happy onto the floor from her comfortable resting position.  After both a whimper and a brief, sad glance failed to elicit a response from her owner, she walked out of the room with her head down and her tail between her legs.

"Look, Sam!  It's Happy!" David's shrill voice blasted Simon's ears from the hallway.

"Let's play horsey with Happy," Sam suggested in his much quieter voice.

"No, guys!  No playing horsey with Happy!  She doesn't like it." Simon passively commanded from his bed.

The giggles and barking that reached his ears from the hall informed Simon that the twins had ignored his command.

"Oh, whatever," Simon muttered, getting up to close his bedroom door and block out the noise.  He dropped back onto the bed and remembered how pleasant it had felt earlier in the morning, under the covers, snug and warm, everything quiet and peaceful.  Maybe now his stomach would settle back down, with the re-introduction of a little tranquility and comfort into his day.

He lifted his right foot and placed it under the top edge of his blanket, followed by his left foot.  Then he slowly slid his slight frame under the covers and wrapped himself up into a cozy ball.

Peach rays of sunlight slanted through his venetian blinds and hit his rump, warming it more than the rest of his body.  Simon noticed the temperature difference and chuckled to himself, "Hmm, I've got a hot ass."

"You sure do," arose an unexpected voice from his open closet door.

Startled, Simon raised up in his cocoon of blankets.  He relaxed, though, when he saw who was speaking to him.  "Oh, it's just you.  Wait a minute, what the hell are you doing in my room?  How did you get in here?"

Morris smiled his usual, sly smile.  "Never mind all that.  Let's talk more about your hot ass."

"Dude, shut up.  The sun was hitting it and I was half-asleep and thinking out loud."

"You think about your hot ass when you're half-asleep and dreaming?  What a coincidence, so do I."

"That's funny, man.  Really."

"I'm a funny guy."  Morris leaned against Simon's desk and pushed his trademark golden locks back from his mischievous face.  "So, what's been going on here since I left for college?  Anything interesting?" 

"Man, if you only knew.  For starters, Lucy got engaged to Kevin.  Mary moved to Fort Lauderdale with a man twice her age, but they broke up.  Dad had another heart attack, but he's OK now.  Robbie seems to have vanished off the face of the earth.  Oh, yeah, and I've got a girlfriend."

Morris's head snapped back in surprise.  "You?  A girlfriend?"

Simon angrily furrowed his ample brow.  "Yeah, man.  What's so hard to believe about that?"

With a chuckle and a wave of his hand across his lips to hide the emerging smirk, Morris lied, "Nothing."

Righteously indignant, Simon half-yelled, "Oh, I get it.  You still think of me as 'Virgin Camden', right?"

Morris folded his arms and looked pensively at Simon for a moment.  "No, it's not that, exactly."

"Well what, then?"

"It's nothing, really."

"WHAT?" Simon demanded, infuriated.

"I just…well, I always thought you were…you know."

"No, I don't know.  What did you think I was?"

"Gay."

"What?"

"I thought you were gay."

"You…you did?  But…but, why?" Simon stammered.

"I don't know.  I guess because you weren't like any other guy I had ever hung out with before."

"Oh.  You mean I wasn't a dumb misogynistic jock?"

"Fair enough.  But also, like, sometimes when you looked at me, it seemed pretty intense."

"Excuse me?"

"Yeah.  And then you have to admit, the way we used to always get into little pointless arguments and shit?  It was almost like flirting, wouldn't you say?"

Simon began to see some disturbing parallels between his relationship to Morris, Lucy's to Kevin, and his mother's to his father.  He pulled the covers further up over himself and recoiled a bit.  "You're not making any sense at all, dude.

"I'm making perfect sense, Simon.  You're just too blind to see it."

Simon frowned.  "All I see, dude, is that you were hiding in my closet, and then you came out and started talking about my ass, and now you're suggesting things that weren't really true.  I don't get it."

"No, you sure don't, do you?  At least, not from that skanky girl of yours.  What's her name?"

"Hey, she's not a skank.  And her name is Cecilia."

"Heh, Cecilia.  Like that Simon and Garfunkel song.  'Simon and'…hey, wait a sec.  Her last name's not Garfunkel by any chance, is it?"

"No, you idiot."

"Oh, damn, that would have been a funny coincidence, wouldn't it?"  He turned around, reached behind him, and picked up something he had found earlier in the closet.  "Hey, you play the guitar?"

Simon shook his head, trying to shift mental gears along with Morris's abrupt subject change.  "Yeah.  You knew that."

"I did?  Oh.  Anyway, I have a proposal for you."  He gently strummed the guitar as he sauntered toward the bed.  "Simon?"

"Yes," Simon asked, looking at his friend with twinkling, nervous eyes.

"Let me be your Garfunkel," Morris fell across Simon's bed, collapsing in a fit of unbridled, silly laughter.

"Dude, seriously, what the fuck is wrong with you?" Simon asked as he jumped out of bed to avoid getting slammed into.

Morris abruptly stopped laughing and looked at Simon very seriously.  "Nothing's wrong with me.  It's you who has the problem.  And I think you know it, too."

Simon crossed his arms sternly.  "I really don't think so, dude.  Seriously.  In fact, I think you ought to leave now."

"Oh yeah?" Morris stood up and puffed up his chest.  "You wanna fight?"

"No!  Get the fuck out."

"No, seriously, Camden.  You wanna go?  Let's go.  Right now."  Morris balled up his fists and lifted them like a prizefighter.

"This is utterly fucking ridiculous.  Are you on drugs, man?"

Morris smiled and relaxed.  "Me?  You ought to check out those bloodshot peepers in the mirror, bro."

"What?"  Simon wandered over to his mirror to inspect his eyes, and that's when he noticed the damnedest thing.

There were tropical fish swimming in the mirror.

Brilliant blue and yellow and orange and black and white fish.

Swimming.

In the fucking mirror.

"Morris?"

"Yes?"

"Do you see the fish?"

"The ones in your mirror?"

"Yeah."

"No."

Simon spun around, perplexed.  "Wait a second.  If you didn't see them, then how did you know they were in the mirror?"

Morris grinned reluctantly, as if he had tried but failed to hold something inside.  "Alright, alright, I was just messing with you, man.  Of course I see the fish.  In fact, I see everything you see."  He paused, then dramatically repeated, "Everything."

Simon gulped.  "What are you talking about, Morris?  Seriously, man.  What the fuck is going on here?  I'm starting to freak out."

"No, no!  Don't do that, kid.  That's the last thing you need to do right now.  Just lie down and ride the wave."

"Ride the wave?"

"Yeah.  Echo much, Camden?"

"But I don't understand…"

"You will, in time.  But first, you have to take a journey with me."

"A journey where?"

"Lie down and I'll show you."

Simon stared at him from across the room, not sure anymore whether he could trust his eyes.  Was this really Morris, or just another fish in the mirror?

"Simon, it's OK.  I'm not going to hurt you.  Just lie down."

Slowly, Simon crossed the room to his bed and descended once again onto its fluffy, comforting surface.

Morris, standing next to him, took the boy's hand gently and asked, "Are you ready to fly?"

Timidly, Simon nodded.

"Well then.  Let's go."