Experimental

The house simmered back into a quiet lull after the visit. He went to the kitchen for a quick pour of the dark stuff under the guise of doing some dishes cluttering the sink and she went to the back bedroom to check in on the baby. He stuffed plates and plastic containers and plastic bottles and fake nipples and baby spoons and pots into the dishwasher and slammed the short splash of minty black back when the steps faded the proper distance. They both felt the distance, and his unexpected friend's visit only reminded them of all the years and moments and feelings that eventually led up until the current state of life.
"He looked fit, better...don't you think?" she hollered from the bedroom.
He closed the dishwasher and walked toward her, toward their child. Thoughts erupted behind his quiet demeanor; recollections and examinations of the time shared back in the good ol' days...the old school ways.
Approaching the back of the house he plainly stated, "The past will check in with you, no matter where you are, from time to time."
"And...what does that mean?". She looked up to his face.
Nights of moonlight adventures and revelations and dreams expressed whipped his clarity into a dull fuzz. He looked across the room to their little girl, then to his wife's searching eyes.
"Yeah, he looked better. I wonder if he is though."
"Well, I'm going to bathe her and put her down. I'll see you later?"
He crossed the room and kissed them both, holding his wife's gaze for a thoughtful, shared moment.
"I'll be downstairs."
He turned, heading to the kitchen where he grabbed the green bottle, and moved into the basement with nothing but ghosts left to sip the night away. Vapors-like the shared youthful dreams he and his old friend would conjure-slipped past the edge of his breath and hovered over his quiet spot of personal space, clouding both with sparkling nostalgia, until the green glass no longer contained the blackness.