Fourier Transform of a table 1. They are pint-sized and abounding in spirit, the girl and the boy, who now launch themselves in a leap across the room of her parent’s home and into the wooden chairs at the inherited table they’re just this year tall enough to sit at. Their parents know it’s normal for such young bonds to form and to break, certainly with expectation of the latter but they’ll never say that aloud; let childhood love run its course, for run fast and free it does. 2. “Charlie,” her mother inquires, “OJ for you?” He sits a moment and ponders, everyone wonders at the inside of a child’s mind, longing for it without even a semblance of surreptitiousness. “No, not today!” he chirps like a bird, very much so still under wings in the nest. “And for you, Annabel, love?” “I want oranjuse, mommy!”— Annabel, too, a birdsong. Back around they come for lunch, a day of preschool done, the afternoon open as a sky waiting for clouds to float in. “Annabel, sweetheart,” catching her half a bite into a turkey sandwich with mayonnaise she’ll need a napkin for, “What should we play this afternoon?” Charlie answers; Annabel lets him. “Tag.” “You’re it!” Sweat dried then baths taken, they’re back now, dinner served, a pot pie and potatoes, glass of milk for the bones to stay strong. “Let’s watch a movie!” they – somehow – say in unison, a monovice, they speak as one. “Upstairs or downstairs?” “I want to sleep on the couch!” “But we fell asleep there last time!” “So what?” “But you snore!” 3. Far in years and wisened in spirit as they come, the old man and the old woman slowly walk to the table for a simple breakfast of coffee and a newspaper. They’ve seen many things; the paper brings back memories, doesn’t make new ones. “Should we walk or should we drive?” Annabel looks down, noting sunshine that warms the back of her left hand. “Let’s walk.” He nods. “I’ve found over the years that sun helps with funerals.” She nods. For lunch, still a sandwich. For all that’s changed, she still needs a napkin for the mayonnaise. They’re both reflecting; they just watched a friend descend into the box and ascend the stairs. Charlie speaks. “What will you miss most?” “We won’t miss anything; that’s almost the worst part.” “Or the best part.” Dinner is steak. Red, rare, with rosemary. Fragrant. They have memories from that smell. They’re lost there, and don’t mind it. “You know what I’ll miss?” “Hmm?” “I’ll miss going to bed with you.” “Well then I guess we’ll just go to sleep together and then we’ll never miss a thing.” A pause, feeling gravity. “Where do you want to sleep?” A pause, a quick and light leap. “Somewhere over there.” “Where?” “There—,” a nod,“your arms.” 4. The little house straddles a line of longitude, a narrow kitchen the stage for many scenes of a play that still runs every day with the same cast and an audience of two. Generation and generation again the table sits like a canvas, each morning the sun paints a bright rectangle onto its eastern edge, yellow fingertips tracing the wooden swirls they could have drawn in sand when they were kids; and each afternoon the sun warms the slate shingles who don’t like to let it go; and each evening it sets and onto the west the sun drizzles its orange and its pink. The sun comes and it goes, and so does the cast, on and on, weary but in some ways more alive, until finally they sleep. And so the sun sets.