One lesson I’ve come to appreciate as my blog trudges forward in its young swampy life is that the demands of actual work are demanding. Oh the demands! And then, after dinner and playtime, the clock marks 23 hundred hours, the soft pillows upstairs call out ravenously for my head, and soon I’m asleep. My last thought on these hot nights in the Big Smoke is that The Canon was again neglected.

I hope my dedicated readership did not dampen, that your ceaseless trust in my two-post blog did not sway. Perhaps you are like my cat, who waits patiently for hours at the peak of the staircase. Waiting for food, for movement, for me to let her out, to not be alone, for something. For anything.

Here is my anything on this stifling July afternoon. It occurred while I rode home on a city bus as it crossed a bridge over a wide green ravine. I was among about 60 lives and at least seven languages, and probably a tide of stories about success, failure, lost loves, countries left behind, hope, happiness and worry.

Not that I was paying much attention. I was in the final pages of a short story and as such I experienced there in the bus that unique sensation where satisfaction collides with emptiness. That amazing moment where you finish a piece of writing, the last line read, leaving you in a state of wonderment. That is the best thing about reading, a feeling unlike all others – to end a story you have been reading for days, weeks, months.

This time it was the short story “Above and Below” by Lauren Groffis. Her tale successfully delivered that feeling I’m talking about – perhaps best akin to a long exhale, eyes closed. The story broke one way, without ever explaining why, and steadily instituted a growing sensation of dread in my gut as it went along, before it ended more or less perfectly. On a hopeful note that leaves you wanting more but understanding it is best to have no more.

Some readers might soak up that moment when a fine story ends by lighting a celebratory cigarette. Or taking a sip of scotch. Or just folding it back together, placing it on the table and considering it for a few minutes. In my case, I closed the magazine, shook my head slightly, looked around at my fellow passengers, glanced out the window, and realized too late that it was my stop.

Finishing a story into which you have invested time and devotion is a lonely-yet-spectacular experience. You could describe for someone the story, but it wouldn’t do any justice. Thoughts about what just happened on those final pages are yours alone, simmering inside you alongside the notion that you and the main character are now done and separated. You miss her already and re-read the last line five times.

This is all a thought I’ve thought for a while but never expressed on “paper”. Re-reading it, I’m still uncertain if I actually expressed it. But you know what? Tonight The Canon sits updated. And the cat is asleep.