The morning he died I dreamt of him floating in the sky with a smile on his face. Seventeen years earlier we had fallen in love.

Flying over frozen fields of ice in Iowa, I remembered Buddy Holly crashing yet nothing would have prevented me from taking that ride.

In Egypt, we rode camels past the pyramids. It was a long strange trip before we both gave up drugs and alcohol. At the last concert, in a light with faint shadows and a waft of marijuana, he stood back stage drinking a glass of red wine and smoking a joint.

–Pat Horner

This piece is an excerpt from “Touch of Gray.”

Visit Pat’s website here.

-Pat Horner is a painter/collage artist and writer exhibited and published in the US and abroad. Horner is a member of the Board of Directors of the Woodstock Artists’ Association Museum and a journalist, photographer, coach, teacher, publisher and editor at publications including the “The Woodstock Guide.” She’s currently writing fiction and memoir from Woodstock, NY.