It was so quiet at night…and dark…wasn’t a star in the sky…just pitch black all ’round…barely see the whiskey bottle in front of us…every once in a while cars would drive down the road with their high beams on…bright lights would shine up on the front porch where we sat…they’d go by…flippin’ cigarettes out windows…watchin’ the color orange bounce on asphault…and I’d turn to you as if to say somethin’…but there was nothin’ to talk ’bout…just an old couple sittin’ out front drinkin’ whiskey…in silence…waitin’ for the other to make the first move…or was it there was nothin’ to say anymore…

You poured another glass of Paddy for yourself…not seein’ that mine was empty…not askin’…I could hear the liquor as it slid down your throat…reached for the bottle and poured myself another…I’d gotten used to doin’ things for myself…wasn’t always that way…you’d make dinner…pick out shows for us to go to…picked up the kid at school after your shift at the plant while I was goin’ in for mine…maybe us not workin’ the same hours had somethin’ to do with it…hadn’t touched each other in years…we just sat in the midnight hours drinkin’…guess that’s what retirement is ’bout…two old souls wantin’ for the end to come soon…there was nothin’ left…

And we polished off the bottle…you grabbed your glass and I grabbed mine…walked down the hallway where you went in your room and I stretched out in the Lazy-boy…not a goodnight kiss nor a nod of the heads…quiet…these nights get shorter…