As Sister Winter gently plants her kiss
So nonchalant upon my naked face
My frosted heart retreats inside this space
To long after the right she did dismiss
The sky is dead, life's cycle seems amiss
Wrapped up, look out the window's frosty lace
Shut up inside this somehow sacred place
And wonder how a season such as this
With frozen ground now armed with icy shield
And how closed doors and insulated cracks
Could fragile hope here gently incubate
Do not forget the green it soon will yield
For soon we'll stretch our legs, unfold our backs
Bare heart, you will no longer hibernate
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Friday, January 16, 2009
The Prototype: The Message (very rough draft)
It looks like an ocean, no, an infinite slab of glass. Yes, the smoothest obsidian glass, with little holes where the ocean of pure light that lay behind is able to escape through. The pressure behind is building. Now, all we see is the droplets. Soon, I feel, we will see the ocean. The obsidian gate, no, curtain will disintegrate. The purest ocean of light will stretch forever and ever. That is what it looks like. Hope. That is what it feels like.
Those were just a few of the thoughts going through Pathos’ exceptional mind. He sat there on that hill alone, always alone. His only companions were the sea of tall grass brushing and blowing against him and the clear night sky above him. Nature had always been Pathos’ favorite companion. It was usually his only companion. It was not that Pathos did not want anyone’s company. He just wanted to be in the company of those that understood him, those that cared for him despite his eccentricities. Nature understood. Nature cared. Nature brought with it a sense of peace.
A soft breeze flowed through the air around Pathos. It caused the tall grass to dance and his chestnut hair to skip. It whistled in his ears a tune of utter serenity but also one of dark mysteries. The kind of mysteries that make you wary and exhilarated at the same time. The kind that makes you want to jump to your feet and dance, shout a restless chorus from your mouth, and run, run in any direction with no intent to cease. Pathos would have done just that had he not been captivated with the stillness of the moment. Those were the moments he treasured. Those were the only times he felt at least a little bit of release from the bitterness of life. Pathos was one truly weary of the world. He was a diamond in the rough and was constantly battered and bruised by the harsh environment. He was a sixteen-year-old prodigy in a population of barbarians. In a time when people, in their near-sightedness, refrain from looking and judging beyond the surface, Pathos longed for his heart to be heard.
Pathos dropped his head to his knees, which he held against his chest. Why must I be this way? Why must I be so different? What caused me to be like this? A single, heavy tear rolled silently down his cheek. It was like the warming touch of a good friend when they wrap their arm around you. It brings a subtle, unquestioning comfort, but also proves that something must be wrong. It brings out the pain and dulls it at the same time. One tear is never enough to really comfort, but one tear is enough to cause one to accept that the pain is real. Pathos’ pain was real.
Writing and literature had always been Pathos’ true love. It was that love that, at age five, caused him to choose that name for himself. It seemed fitting to him. It was true, at least to himself. The story of his life had always carried with it a deep pathos, and if anyone cared to read it, they would not be able to help but feel a strong sense of compassion and sorrow. Actually, most people’s stories carried with it the same sort of pathos, but the world tends not to read one’s story. The world tends to focus on only their own story, and sometimes they even feel that their’s is the only story. One of the extraordinary things about Pathos was that he did not dwell on his own story. He knew that there were so many other stories out there to be read. He could look into someone’s eyes and read their story. He could see them and know them at the same time. That was one of the reasons he spent so little time around people. He found that when he was around other people often, he became much more depressed. By reading so many stories and feeling so much emotion for those whom the stories belonged to, he wanted very much to do something for them. The fact that people were so closed to outside help stopped Pathos from being able to do anything for them. This was what caused his depression.
That night, Pathos sat there on the grassy hill underneath the star-filled night sky in contemplation. Something had happened earlier that day that caused him to sit in wonder. It was surprising that a mind so extraordinary as Pathos’ could ever be caused to wonder by anything, but this flummoxed even his mind.
Where did that voice come from? It can’t have been actually born in my own mind. Why would I send a message like that to my own mind? I do not even quite know what the voice in my mind spoke of. “At the point where nothing meets nothing, there you will find something. Come, come to me. I hold a perspective that you have not. Two halves shall become one soul.” That was what the voice spoke to me. If I was not the one sending the message, than why was the voice in my mind my own voice? It sounded just like something I am thinking now, but that thought was out of the blue and in the second person. My mind will not rest until I have discovered the answer to this message. From inquisition through toil does illumination birth.
Pathos slowly arose from his spot on the rolling hill. He savored the beauty of movement. Pathos ran, not hurriedly, but quick and gracefully. He was not rushing. No, Pathos never rushed. He knew too much about life and beauty to ever rush. As he ran over and past the flowing hills that seemed to wave to him as he passed, he thought. Pathos spent every waking moment thinking, contemplating many things of a vast variety. He had come to many conclusions in his young lifetime, but he had come to many more questions than conclusions. He thought a lot about that strange feeling he sometimes had. Every now and then, a feeling would come over him that made him question himself and wonder if there was something more. He wondered if there was something about the universe that was more immaterial than the wind but more powerful than the tempest. More fearsome than fear itself but more beautiful than the purest essence of life. More lovely than love. The more he thought about it, the more he longed for it; the more he longed for it, the hollower he felt. Pathos very much wanted to have faith. He was tired of relying so much on intelligence, but he was given so much intelligence that it hindered his path to faith.
As Pathos ran through a forest of strong oak trees, he decided he would practice having faith. He decided he should start out small and work his way up. Pathos made a firm commitment in his mind and will and heart that he would have faith that he would find the answers to this strange message he received. He would never stop until he found the messenger and the meaning of the message. He would go where nothing meets nothing and find something. That was the essence of faith, wasn’t it? To go where there is nothing and find something? To believe there is something there? Pathos believed.
He kept running and running and running. Pathos was a good runner. He ran often and for very long distances. He had decided quite a while back that he had legs for a reason, and he would use them to their extent. Pathos had never ever ridden in a car or a train or a boat or a plane or any vehicle. He had never had need to travel very long distances. Wherever he truly needed to go, he could get to by natural means.
After Pathos cleared the forest and crested a rather tall hill, he looked out and saw small houses with lights in there windows in the horizon. Before the houses were fields with crops growing and a country lane dividing the fields in half. He went through the options in his mind and decided that the best one would be to travel to the nearest farm house and offer to work the fields the next day in exchange for a meal and a bed to sleep that night. Pathos could easily steal some food without getting caught, but the thought never crossed his mind. Strangely, wrong thoughts never really did cross his mind. Pathos never actually thought, said, or did anything wrong. The option to do wrong never entered his thoughts. Since he never thought wrongly, he never became prideful of his morality. He was never self-righteous, but always righteous. He was quite an exceptional young man.
Pathos did exactly what he planned to do. He jogged down the other side of the hill and down the country path until he reached the first farmhouse. He knocked on the door, and an elderly, jovial man answered. He introduced himself as Hank Wilkinson and gratefully accepted Pathos’ proposition. As Hank led Pathos inside the small cottage, he explained that his wife Molly had just made up a nice big pot of baked beans. They also had an open bedroom since their son Jacob had moved out to search for success in New York. With a smile missing a couple teeth, Hank said to Pathos, “All the success I need is right here, in muh nice, peaceful farm. Nuthin’ but the soft earth, the flyin’, twitterin’ birds, and muh lovely wife. Mmhmm, nah them’s success.”
Pathos ate his fill and lay down on the comfortable mattress in the spare bedroom. As he was contemplating his next move towards the answer to the strange message, a thought popped into his mind.
Hmm, I wonder. Could it be possible? Would he hold the answers? He did make me the way I am, after all. He raised me until I was five, albeit I was in permanent sub-conscious. I suppose I have no other ideas at the moment. Yes, that is what I will do.
Pathos decided he would pay a visit to Dr. Erwin Gallagher.
Those were just a few of the thoughts going through Pathos’ exceptional mind. He sat there on that hill alone, always alone. His only companions were the sea of tall grass brushing and blowing against him and the clear night sky above him. Nature had always been Pathos’ favorite companion. It was usually his only companion. It was not that Pathos did not want anyone’s company. He just wanted to be in the company of those that understood him, those that cared for him despite his eccentricities. Nature understood. Nature cared. Nature brought with it a sense of peace.
A soft breeze flowed through the air around Pathos. It caused the tall grass to dance and his chestnut hair to skip. It whistled in his ears a tune of utter serenity but also one of dark mysteries. The kind of mysteries that make you wary and exhilarated at the same time. The kind that makes you want to jump to your feet and dance, shout a restless chorus from your mouth, and run, run in any direction with no intent to cease. Pathos would have done just that had he not been captivated with the stillness of the moment. Those were the moments he treasured. Those were the only times he felt at least a little bit of release from the bitterness of life. Pathos was one truly weary of the world. He was a diamond in the rough and was constantly battered and bruised by the harsh environment. He was a sixteen-year-old prodigy in a population of barbarians. In a time when people, in their near-sightedness, refrain from looking and judging beyond the surface, Pathos longed for his heart to be heard.
Pathos dropped his head to his knees, which he held against his chest. Why must I be this way? Why must I be so different? What caused me to be like this? A single, heavy tear rolled silently down his cheek. It was like the warming touch of a good friend when they wrap their arm around you. It brings a subtle, unquestioning comfort, but also proves that something must be wrong. It brings out the pain and dulls it at the same time. One tear is never enough to really comfort, but one tear is enough to cause one to accept that the pain is real. Pathos’ pain was real.
Writing and literature had always been Pathos’ true love. It was that love that, at age five, caused him to choose that name for himself. It seemed fitting to him. It was true, at least to himself. The story of his life had always carried with it a deep pathos, and if anyone cared to read it, they would not be able to help but feel a strong sense of compassion and sorrow. Actually, most people’s stories carried with it the same sort of pathos, but the world tends not to read one’s story. The world tends to focus on only their own story, and sometimes they even feel that their’s is the only story. One of the extraordinary things about Pathos was that he did not dwell on his own story. He knew that there were so many other stories out there to be read. He could look into someone’s eyes and read their story. He could see them and know them at the same time. That was one of the reasons he spent so little time around people. He found that when he was around other people often, he became much more depressed. By reading so many stories and feeling so much emotion for those whom the stories belonged to, he wanted very much to do something for them. The fact that people were so closed to outside help stopped Pathos from being able to do anything for them. This was what caused his depression.
That night, Pathos sat there on the grassy hill underneath the star-filled night sky in contemplation. Something had happened earlier that day that caused him to sit in wonder. It was surprising that a mind so extraordinary as Pathos’ could ever be caused to wonder by anything, but this flummoxed even his mind.
Where did that voice come from? It can’t have been actually born in my own mind. Why would I send a message like that to my own mind? I do not even quite know what the voice in my mind spoke of. “At the point where nothing meets nothing, there you will find something. Come, come to me. I hold a perspective that you have not. Two halves shall become one soul.” That was what the voice spoke to me. If I was not the one sending the message, than why was the voice in my mind my own voice? It sounded just like something I am thinking now, but that thought was out of the blue and in the second person. My mind will not rest until I have discovered the answer to this message. From inquisition through toil does illumination birth.
Pathos slowly arose from his spot on the rolling hill. He savored the beauty of movement. Pathos ran, not hurriedly, but quick and gracefully. He was not rushing. No, Pathos never rushed. He knew too much about life and beauty to ever rush. As he ran over and past the flowing hills that seemed to wave to him as he passed, he thought. Pathos spent every waking moment thinking, contemplating many things of a vast variety. He had come to many conclusions in his young lifetime, but he had come to many more questions than conclusions. He thought a lot about that strange feeling he sometimes had. Every now and then, a feeling would come over him that made him question himself and wonder if there was something more. He wondered if there was something about the universe that was more immaterial than the wind but more powerful than the tempest. More fearsome than fear itself but more beautiful than the purest essence of life. More lovely than love. The more he thought about it, the more he longed for it; the more he longed for it, the hollower he felt. Pathos very much wanted to have faith. He was tired of relying so much on intelligence, but he was given so much intelligence that it hindered his path to faith.
As Pathos ran through a forest of strong oak trees, he decided he would practice having faith. He decided he should start out small and work his way up. Pathos made a firm commitment in his mind and will and heart that he would have faith that he would find the answers to this strange message he received. He would never stop until he found the messenger and the meaning of the message. He would go where nothing meets nothing and find something. That was the essence of faith, wasn’t it? To go where there is nothing and find something? To believe there is something there? Pathos believed.
He kept running and running and running. Pathos was a good runner. He ran often and for very long distances. He had decided quite a while back that he had legs for a reason, and he would use them to their extent. Pathos had never ever ridden in a car or a train or a boat or a plane or any vehicle. He had never had need to travel very long distances. Wherever he truly needed to go, he could get to by natural means.
After Pathos cleared the forest and crested a rather tall hill, he looked out and saw small houses with lights in there windows in the horizon. Before the houses were fields with crops growing and a country lane dividing the fields in half. He went through the options in his mind and decided that the best one would be to travel to the nearest farm house and offer to work the fields the next day in exchange for a meal and a bed to sleep that night. Pathos could easily steal some food without getting caught, but the thought never crossed his mind. Strangely, wrong thoughts never really did cross his mind. Pathos never actually thought, said, or did anything wrong. The option to do wrong never entered his thoughts. Since he never thought wrongly, he never became prideful of his morality. He was never self-righteous, but always righteous. He was quite an exceptional young man.
Pathos did exactly what he planned to do. He jogged down the other side of the hill and down the country path until he reached the first farmhouse. He knocked on the door, and an elderly, jovial man answered. He introduced himself as Hank Wilkinson and gratefully accepted Pathos’ proposition. As Hank led Pathos inside the small cottage, he explained that his wife Molly had just made up a nice big pot of baked beans. They also had an open bedroom since their son Jacob had moved out to search for success in New York. With a smile missing a couple teeth, Hank said to Pathos, “All the success I need is right here, in muh nice, peaceful farm. Nuthin’ but the soft earth, the flyin’, twitterin’ birds, and muh lovely wife. Mmhmm, nah them’s success.”
Pathos ate his fill and lay down on the comfortable mattress in the spare bedroom. As he was contemplating his next move towards the answer to the strange message, a thought popped into his mind.
Hmm, I wonder. Could it be possible? Would he hold the answers? He did make me the way I am, after all. He raised me until I was five, albeit I was in permanent sub-conscious. I suppose I have no other ideas at the moment. Yes, that is what I will do.
Pathos decided he would pay a visit to Dr. Erwin Gallagher.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
The Proverbial Killed Cat
(from Dr. Cotton's class)
I'm not proud of this, it's painfully cliche...I don't do short stories well. But here it is anyway.
The wind tossed my hair around as I set my sights on the green newspaper vending machine across the street, across the raging current of traffic dotted with busy yellow taxis that were resolutely migrating their way upstream. I pulled my hat down more snugly onto my head and wrapped my long brown coat a little bit more tightly around my body. Crossing my arms over my torso to protect myself from the cold and the rest of the world, I stepped intentionally onto the crosswalk. Hurrying across the street, I got an eerie feeling from the cars that waited hungrily for the next green light.
Somehow, I survived my pilgrimage to printed news. I fumbled around in my pocket for loose change, enough to buy what would probably be a biased perspective on reality—recycled ideas to match the recycled paper. Despite this, I do what I can to support this industry, I try to make some kind of statement to society that readers are not extinct and there is still a place for words and graphics other than on a screen. I figure that if all else fails, the crossword puzzles are at least worth my time and money. I only left three blank yesterday and I’ve been dying to see the answers.
A penny, a dime, a couple nickels; everything except quarters is equal in value with pocket lint. Finally, I arrived upon a couple of quarters so I popped them into the coin slot and opened up the machine. To my dismay, there was nothing, nothing but the back of the vending machine. I gritted my teeth. They would be out of newspapers, I thought to myself. Just as I was about to close it and walk away, something caught my eye in the back of the newspaper machine. Thinking it might be a crumpled paper, I reached for it and to my surprise pulled out a smallish black book.
That’s odd. I cracked it open and saw handwriting scrawled across its pages with dates at the top left corners. It was a journal.
I’ve always had a problem with nosiness. I’m one of those medicine cabinet kinds of people—I like wearing sunglasses so that I can watch people without being seen watching them, and sometimes when I’m wearing headphones I turn off the music so I can listen to people’s conversations. It’s something I’ve been trying to overcome. Because of this, I didn’t quite know what to do. This would be a golden opportunity to satisfy my urges of curiosity, to read a journal containing a complete stranger’s most private thoughts. It had, in fact, come to me. And yet, how low could I stoop? In junior high, this would be one of the ultimate transgressions any girl could commit against another. I was bigger than this. It was not my business, and I would never overcome this snoopy habit of mine if I didn’t start making choices against it.
To keep myself from trouble I tossed it back inside and closed the machine. Sitting myself at my bus stop nearby, I was quite satisfied with my own willpower. Good job. Well done. I deserved congratulations. It was better just to let things be, to let life progress as it had intended, and to mind my own business. I glanced at my watch. At least 15 more minutes until the bus. That’s okay, you could use some time just to sit and think.
I was sitting and thinking quite nicely, but through a series of unexplainable events, I found myself having scavenged my person for two more quarters, and was now sitting with the book back in my hands again. I couldn’t help myself.
I opened up the book again and began reading. The handwriting seemed to move across the page in a familiar sort of fashion. It gave me a peculiar feeling that I couldn’t put my finger on. The way the “y’s” looped below the lines and the letters slurred together as if the author could not decide on cursive or print seemed almost recognizable.
I read, and as I read my suspicion evolved into shock and bewilderment as events that were detailed were far too similar to my own experiences to be coincidental. Each name that appeared on the page was that of someone I knew. Each place was a place where events of my own life had once taken place.
The pencil lines sparked my curiosity. Pencil was not my usual weapon of choice with which to assault a page. What if… I fumbled around in my coat pockets, my backpack and the pocket of my jeans until my quest was put to a halt by a man’s voice that came from behind.
“Here, I have what you’re looking for.”
I twisted my head around to see a tall, slender man wearing a long black coat. He was all wrapped up in a scarf and hat, and the only features I could make out were dark eyes and ebony skin. He nonchalantly extended his hand to offer me a classic-looking pencil with a bright pink eraser on the end. Because of the confusion that already surrounded my situation I asked no questions as I took the pencil from the man. I flipped to a blank page of the journal and wrote a single sentence: “I am confused.” I braced myself.
I sat there waiting for several seconds. I don’t know what it was that I was expecting to happen, but whatever it was, it didn’t.
“Well, what are you waiting for?” asked the man.
“I don’t know. I thought I would try something to…”
“Try again,” he said with a smirk scrawled across his mouth.
“Try what? All this is crazy and irrational and I…”
He cut me off mid-protest with an upraised palm. “Ah, but if I witnessed the scene correctly, you’re the one who couldn’t let it be. Think of it as an assignment. What do you do if you make a mistake on a test?”
Normally I would have taken offense to the manipulation of a complete stranger, but I could not help but feel a secret gratitude for any amount of direction in such an oddly ambiguous situation.
I thought for a moment and then flipped the pencil around in my hand and placed the eraser to the page. I rubbed out the word “confused” and replaced it with the word “angry”. Suddenly it was as though a switch had been flipped in my emotions that caused me to become engulfed by a fury, like rushing waters that had exploded through a broken dam. This unexplainable rage came over me for no apparent reason and I was left with the possibility that it had something to do with what I had just written. Quickly, I erased the entire sentence. The rushing waters inside me stilled and I quickly returned to my placid state.
The man who had been standing behind walked around and sat himself on the bench next to me. “Remarkable, isn’t it?”
I was flabbergasted. “I don’t understand. Tell me what’s going on,” I demanded.
The man chuckled to himself, an action which irritated me all the more.
“Hey, I don’t know who you think you are, but I don’t appreciate being the butt of this joke, whatever it is.”
He turned to look at me. “Well, perhaps you should appreciate it. People don’t come upon an opportunity like this everyday. And who I think I am is of no consequence. Perhaps you should be asking yourself who you think you are. Or, you could just read about it,” he said, with a grin and a nod of his head toward the journal I was holding. “Then again, be careful. You never know what you might find.”
His smug attitude nearly provoked me to tell him what I really thought of him, but I reluctantly decided to bite my tongue. I started flipping through the pages of the journal and witnessed the unexplainable records of my life, chronicled by my own hand. It made me feel quite uncomfortable, a naked sort of feeling. I flipped to a recent date, February 4 of this year, three days ago:
I lost my cell phone today. This disconnection from my digital leash leaves me feeling helpless. The more dependent we become on technology, the more I wonder what people ever did without modern conveniences. What if someone needs me? What if I get lost somewhere? It’s quite inconvenient, but an interesting reminder that as much as we try to control our lives, our environment, our reality, we are not God and are left at the mercy of things bigger than ourselves. Profound thoughts, all because of my lost cell phone. Alrigh, God, I get it. I’ve learned the lesson. Can I have my phone back now?
I turned to the annoying man of mystery. “It’s talking about my lost cell phone. This just happened a few days ago. These are my thoughts, this is my writing, but I didn’t do this. You seem to be so knowledgeable, so why don’t you let me in on your little secret.”
The man was gazing off into the distance, watching the traffic pass.
“Or not, you know,” I said, my tone a little sharper, “no big deal. Don’t inconvenience yourself.”
He sighed and shook his head, “Some things aren’t meant to be explained. Some things should just be accepted and experienced.” His low, leathery voice seemed to calm my racing thoughts despite the lack of explanation.
It was an odd experience in and of itself finding this book in a newspaper vending machine, but even more strange was meeting this man I’ve never seen before who had this insight into me, into my life, and into this paranormal event that had imposed itself upon my day. Yet, for some reason, my irritation was subsiding and I found myself warming up to him. There was something soothing in his voice, something in his demeanor that reassured me.
“You could keep exploring,” he said, “but again, be warned.”
Why does he have to be so cryptic? I sat and pondered for a few moments, the book in my lap and the pencil in my hand. Again, I put the eraser to the page, the February 4th entry. I rubbed vigorously until every trace of writing was gone and the page was left blank. A startling tickling sensation caused me to flinch and let out a squeak of surprise. This sensation continued, a tickling, something like a buzzing.
It was vibrating. Immediately I recognized what was happening. I reached into my pocket and pulled out my ringing cell phone. Incoming call: Mom. She would have to wait.
I stared with disbelief at the phone in my hand. “Ok, this is getting too weird.”
The man smiled at me. He began rubbing his hands together, “Weird, or exciting? You can’t deny that this is much more interesting than your typical morning.”
I couldn’t keep myself from smiling in agreement. “But if what just happened really happened, I mean, if I now have my phone after I just…”
He looked intently at me saying nothing, although the look on his face encouraged me to continue my thought. “Well, then I can just erase things and rewrite them, and they really happen. I can rewrite my life.”
The man nodded.
“Wow. This reminds me of something one of my English teachers used to say. ‘There’s no such thing as writing, only rewriting.’ Perhaps he had it more right than I ever realized.”
The man laughed, “Apparently so. So, what are you going to do now?”
What was I going to do now? This was not an experience for which I had planned, nor did I have any examples to follow. I continued to read the journal, and to add yet another twist to an already tangled plot I realized that the dates recorded extended past the current date. I began to read tellings of events that had not yet taken place. I read the beginning of the entry that would have been today’s:
The bus was several minutes late today. How am I supposed to portray a prompt, professional persona when I am at the mercy of the city’s flawed transit system?
I glanced at my watch which read 7:31, already a minute after the bus’s scheduled arrival time. Things were getting more peculiar with every passing moment. I continued reading. Tomorrow I would have an unexpected meeting with my boss: a promotion. Friday I would find twenty dollars on the ground. This coming weekend the concert my friends were planning on attending would be cancelled.
“It tells the future too?” I exclaimed.
The man was silent.
I kept reading and was suddenly taken aback by an entry dated sometime next week.
One never expects these things to happen, and when they do, the world seems to freeze around you. Suddenly all the fluff blows away and all that matters is what really matters. Mom’s accident has really shaken me. The hospital is a cold place; she doesn’t belong here. The beeping rhythm of her heart rate monitor seems to taunt me as I sit waiting, not knowing what’s going to happen.
Immediately the trite predictions I read previously paled in comparison to this foreboding prophecy. “Oh God, oh God,” I said to the man. “Did you know about this?” My tone had escaladed from perplexed wonder to panicked distress. I felt sick to my stomach.
“It’s time you stop questioning me and start answering yourself. For some reason fate has whispered a secret in your ear. With knowledge comes power, but as they say, ignorance is bliss. I tried to warn you.”
I was so overcome by everything that my eyes welled up with tears. “So what should I do?”
The man shrugged. “The choice is yours. Keep reading and risk reading more than you bargained for. It also seems we’ve reached the conclusion that you have the option of making changes. And then there’s the third option.”
“What’s that?”
“What you almost did already. Walk away.”
He was right, I almost did walk away. I should have walked away, and now I was the proverbial killed cat. Now I knew of my looming fate, or rather that of my mother, and I was faced with a decision.
I watched an elderly man slowly crossing the street at the intersection I had crossed earlier to get to the newspapers and my bus stop. Time waits for no one and neither do people who live inside of its constraints. The cars had the audacity to honk in objection to his slow pace, even seemingly inching up, anticipating a green light. They had no respect for him and the countless slippery seconds that had slid through his wrinkled fingers, seconds they had yet to experience. Time had slowed him down, passed over him like a storm cloud and left him drenched by its debilitating effects. He acted in this same drama in which I would soon be performing, whether tragedy, comedy, or both. Indeed, he had weathered the storm, and now he was crossing the same intersection that I had crossed in front of the same line of ravenous traffic. And he didn’t have a magical black book.
I turned to say something to my mysterious acquaintance, but to my surprise, he was nowhere.
I was puzzled, but it didn’t matter any more. I knew what I had to do. I saw my bus coming and gradually slow to a stop in front of me. I flicked out my watch. 7:37. I laughed to myself as I rose, leaving the troublesome black book lying on the bench. I did not want to be a confidant of destiny any longer; that was not my job. It was none of my business.
I boarded the bus and situated myself in a seat next to the window, breathing a sigh of relief. The hiss of the air breaks and groan of the bus’s tired engine signaled our departure, and I looked out the window to see a young man about my age who had just seated himself on the bench. He had picked up the book and the look on his face morphed into that of baffled confusion as he was leafing through the pages, just as I had. I smiled as we drove away.
The woman across the aisle from me was folding up a newspaper she had been reading.
“Excuse me, are you done with that?” I asked her.
She looked over at me. “Yeah, you want it?”
“Anything interesting?”
She shrugged and handed it over. “Eh, same old same old.”
I grinned. “That sounds perfect.”
I'm not proud of this, it's painfully cliche...I don't do short stories well. But here it is anyway.
The wind tossed my hair around as I set my sights on the green newspaper vending machine across the street, across the raging current of traffic dotted with busy yellow taxis that were resolutely migrating their way upstream. I pulled my hat down more snugly onto my head and wrapped my long brown coat a little bit more tightly around my body. Crossing my arms over my torso to protect myself from the cold and the rest of the world, I stepped intentionally onto the crosswalk. Hurrying across the street, I got an eerie feeling from the cars that waited hungrily for the next green light.
Somehow, I survived my pilgrimage to printed news. I fumbled around in my pocket for loose change, enough to buy what would probably be a biased perspective on reality—recycled ideas to match the recycled paper. Despite this, I do what I can to support this industry, I try to make some kind of statement to society that readers are not extinct and there is still a place for words and graphics other than on a screen. I figure that if all else fails, the crossword puzzles are at least worth my time and money. I only left three blank yesterday and I’ve been dying to see the answers.
A penny, a dime, a couple nickels; everything except quarters is equal in value with pocket lint. Finally, I arrived upon a couple of quarters so I popped them into the coin slot and opened up the machine. To my dismay, there was nothing, nothing but the back of the vending machine. I gritted my teeth. They would be out of newspapers, I thought to myself. Just as I was about to close it and walk away, something caught my eye in the back of the newspaper machine. Thinking it might be a crumpled paper, I reached for it and to my surprise pulled out a smallish black book.
That’s odd. I cracked it open and saw handwriting scrawled across its pages with dates at the top left corners. It was a journal.
I’ve always had a problem with nosiness. I’m one of those medicine cabinet kinds of people—I like wearing sunglasses so that I can watch people without being seen watching them, and sometimes when I’m wearing headphones I turn off the music so I can listen to people’s conversations. It’s something I’ve been trying to overcome. Because of this, I didn’t quite know what to do. This would be a golden opportunity to satisfy my urges of curiosity, to read a journal containing a complete stranger’s most private thoughts. It had, in fact, come to me. And yet, how low could I stoop? In junior high, this would be one of the ultimate transgressions any girl could commit against another. I was bigger than this. It was not my business, and I would never overcome this snoopy habit of mine if I didn’t start making choices against it.
To keep myself from trouble I tossed it back inside and closed the machine. Sitting myself at my bus stop nearby, I was quite satisfied with my own willpower. Good job. Well done. I deserved congratulations. It was better just to let things be, to let life progress as it had intended, and to mind my own business. I glanced at my watch. At least 15 more minutes until the bus. That’s okay, you could use some time just to sit and think.
I was sitting and thinking quite nicely, but through a series of unexplainable events, I found myself having scavenged my person for two more quarters, and was now sitting with the book back in my hands again. I couldn’t help myself.
I opened up the book again and began reading. The handwriting seemed to move across the page in a familiar sort of fashion. It gave me a peculiar feeling that I couldn’t put my finger on. The way the “y’s” looped below the lines and the letters slurred together as if the author could not decide on cursive or print seemed almost recognizable.
I read, and as I read my suspicion evolved into shock and bewilderment as events that were detailed were far too similar to my own experiences to be coincidental. Each name that appeared on the page was that of someone I knew. Each place was a place where events of my own life had once taken place.
The pencil lines sparked my curiosity. Pencil was not my usual weapon of choice with which to assault a page. What if… I fumbled around in my coat pockets, my backpack and the pocket of my jeans until my quest was put to a halt by a man’s voice that came from behind.
“Here, I have what you’re looking for.”
I twisted my head around to see a tall, slender man wearing a long black coat. He was all wrapped up in a scarf and hat, and the only features I could make out were dark eyes and ebony skin. He nonchalantly extended his hand to offer me a classic-looking pencil with a bright pink eraser on the end. Because of the confusion that already surrounded my situation I asked no questions as I took the pencil from the man. I flipped to a blank page of the journal and wrote a single sentence: “I am confused.” I braced myself.
I sat there waiting for several seconds. I don’t know what it was that I was expecting to happen, but whatever it was, it didn’t.
“Well, what are you waiting for?” asked the man.
“I don’t know. I thought I would try something to…”
“Try again,” he said with a smirk scrawled across his mouth.
“Try what? All this is crazy and irrational and I…”
He cut me off mid-protest with an upraised palm. “Ah, but if I witnessed the scene correctly, you’re the one who couldn’t let it be. Think of it as an assignment. What do you do if you make a mistake on a test?”
Normally I would have taken offense to the manipulation of a complete stranger, but I could not help but feel a secret gratitude for any amount of direction in such an oddly ambiguous situation.
I thought for a moment and then flipped the pencil around in my hand and placed the eraser to the page. I rubbed out the word “confused” and replaced it with the word “angry”. Suddenly it was as though a switch had been flipped in my emotions that caused me to become engulfed by a fury, like rushing waters that had exploded through a broken dam. This unexplainable rage came over me for no apparent reason and I was left with the possibility that it had something to do with what I had just written. Quickly, I erased the entire sentence. The rushing waters inside me stilled and I quickly returned to my placid state.
The man who had been standing behind walked around and sat himself on the bench next to me. “Remarkable, isn’t it?”
I was flabbergasted. “I don’t understand. Tell me what’s going on,” I demanded.
The man chuckled to himself, an action which irritated me all the more.
“Hey, I don’t know who you think you are, but I don’t appreciate being the butt of this joke, whatever it is.”
He turned to look at me. “Well, perhaps you should appreciate it. People don’t come upon an opportunity like this everyday. And who I think I am is of no consequence. Perhaps you should be asking yourself who you think you are. Or, you could just read about it,” he said, with a grin and a nod of his head toward the journal I was holding. “Then again, be careful. You never know what you might find.”
His smug attitude nearly provoked me to tell him what I really thought of him, but I reluctantly decided to bite my tongue. I started flipping through the pages of the journal and witnessed the unexplainable records of my life, chronicled by my own hand. It made me feel quite uncomfortable, a naked sort of feeling. I flipped to a recent date, February 4 of this year, three days ago:
I lost my cell phone today. This disconnection from my digital leash leaves me feeling helpless. The more dependent we become on technology, the more I wonder what people ever did without modern conveniences. What if someone needs me? What if I get lost somewhere? It’s quite inconvenient, but an interesting reminder that as much as we try to control our lives, our environment, our reality, we are not God and are left at the mercy of things bigger than ourselves. Profound thoughts, all because of my lost cell phone. Alrigh, God, I get it. I’ve learned the lesson. Can I have my phone back now?
I turned to the annoying man of mystery. “It’s talking about my lost cell phone. This just happened a few days ago. These are my thoughts, this is my writing, but I didn’t do this. You seem to be so knowledgeable, so why don’t you let me in on your little secret.”
The man was gazing off into the distance, watching the traffic pass.
“Or not, you know,” I said, my tone a little sharper, “no big deal. Don’t inconvenience yourself.”
He sighed and shook his head, “Some things aren’t meant to be explained. Some things should just be accepted and experienced.” His low, leathery voice seemed to calm my racing thoughts despite the lack of explanation.
It was an odd experience in and of itself finding this book in a newspaper vending machine, but even more strange was meeting this man I’ve never seen before who had this insight into me, into my life, and into this paranormal event that had imposed itself upon my day. Yet, for some reason, my irritation was subsiding and I found myself warming up to him. There was something soothing in his voice, something in his demeanor that reassured me.
“You could keep exploring,” he said, “but again, be warned.”
Why does he have to be so cryptic? I sat and pondered for a few moments, the book in my lap and the pencil in my hand. Again, I put the eraser to the page, the February 4th entry. I rubbed vigorously until every trace of writing was gone and the page was left blank. A startling tickling sensation caused me to flinch and let out a squeak of surprise. This sensation continued, a tickling, something like a buzzing.
It was vibrating. Immediately I recognized what was happening. I reached into my pocket and pulled out my ringing cell phone. Incoming call: Mom. She would have to wait.
I stared with disbelief at the phone in my hand. “Ok, this is getting too weird.”
The man smiled at me. He began rubbing his hands together, “Weird, or exciting? You can’t deny that this is much more interesting than your typical morning.”
I couldn’t keep myself from smiling in agreement. “But if what just happened really happened, I mean, if I now have my phone after I just…”
He looked intently at me saying nothing, although the look on his face encouraged me to continue my thought. “Well, then I can just erase things and rewrite them, and they really happen. I can rewrite my life.”
The man nodded.
“Wow. This reminds me of something one of my English teachers used to say. ‘There’s no such thing as writing, only rewriting.’ Perhaps he had it more right than I ever realized.”
The man laughed, “Apparently so. So, what are you going to do now?”
What was I going to do now? This was not an experience for which I had planned, nor did I have any examples to follow. I continued to read the journal, and to add yet another twist to an already tangled plot I realized that the dates recorded extended past the current date. I began to read tellings of events that had not yet taken place. I read the beginning of the entry that would have been today’s:
The bus was several minutes late today. How am I supposed to portray a prompt, professional persona when I am at the mercy of the city’s flawed transit system?
I glanced at my watch which read 7:31, already a minute after the bus’s scheduled arrival time. Things were getting more peculiar with every passing moment. I continued reading. Tomorrow I would have an unexpected meeting with my boss: a promotion. Friday I would find twenty dollars on the ground. This coming weekend the concert my friends were planning on attending would be cancelled.
“It tells the future too?” I exclaimed.
The man was silent.
I kept reading and was suddenly taken aback by an entry dated sometime next week.
One never expects these things to happen, and when they do, the world seems to freeze around you. Suddenly all the fluff blows away and all that matters is what really matters. Mom’s accident has really shaken me. The hospital is a cold place; she doesn’t belong here. The beeping rhythm of her heart rate monitor seems to taunt me as I sit waiting, not knowing what’s going to happen.
Immediately the trite predictions I read previously paled in comparison to this foreboding prophecy. “Oh God, oh God,” I said to the man. “Did you know about this?” My tone had escaladed from perplexed wonder to panicked distress. I felt sick to my stomach.
“It’s time you stop questioning me and start answering yourself. For some reason fate has whispered a secret in your ear. With knowledge comes power, but as they say, ignorance is bliss. I tried to warn you.”
I was so overcome by everything that my eyes welled up with tears. “So what should I do?”
The man shrugged. “The choice is yours. Keep reading and risk reading more than you bargained for. It also seems we’ve reached the conclusion that you have the option of making changes. And then there’s the third option.”
“What’s that?”
“What you almost did already. Walk away.”
He was right, I almost did walk away. I should have walked away, and now I was the proverbial killed cat. Now I knew of my looming fate, or rather that of my mother, and I was faced with a decision.
I watched an elderly man slowly crossing the street at the intersection I had crossed earlier to get to the newspapers and my bus stop. Time waits for no one and neither do people who live inside of its constraints. The cars had the audacity to honk in objection to his slow pace, even seemingly inching up, anticipating a green light. They had no respect for him and the countless slippery seconds that had slid through his wrinkled fingers, seconds they had yet to experience. Time had slowed him down, passed over him like a storm cloud and left him drenched by its debilitating effects. He acted in this same drama in which I would soon be performing, whether tragedy, comedy, or both. Indeed, he had weathered the storm, and now he was crossing the same intersection that I had crossed in front of the same line of ravenous traffic. And he didn’t have a magical black book.
I turned to say something to my mysterious acquaintance, but to my surprise, he was nowhere.
I was puzzled, but it didn’t matter any more. I knew what I had to do. I saw my bus coming and gradually slow to a stop in front of me. I flicked out my watch. 7:37. I laughed to myself as I rose, leaving the troublesome black book lying on the bench. I did not want to be a confidant of destiny any longer; that was not my job. It was none of my business.
I boarded the bus and situated myself in a seat next to the window, breathing a sigh of relief. The hiss of the air breaks and groan of the bus’s tired engine signaled our departure, and I looked out the window to see a young man about my age who had just seated himself on the bench. He had picked up the book and the look on his face morphed into that of baffled confusion as he was leafing through the pages, just as I had. I smiled as we drove away.
The woman across the aisle from me was folding up a newspaper she had been reading.
“Excuse me, are you done with that?” I asked her.
She looked over at me. “Yeah, you want it?”
“Anything interesting?”
She shrugged and handed it over. “Eh, same old same old.”
I grinned. “That sounds perfect.”
Neruda Plug
This is not really in line with our typical postings that are categorically original, but I can't help myself. If you have never read the poetic works of the master craftsman of language that is Pablo Neruda (all two of you that actually read this), run, don't walk to your nearest library, half-price book store, or black market vendor of literary merch and read some of his "verses of pastry which melt into milk and sugar in the mouth, air and water to drink, the bites and kisses of love," to use his own words (Sweetness, Always). Read that one. And then read the rest. And then try to catch your breath. Even if you don't, trust me, you'll die happy having been so moved by his unmatched workings of thoughts and images.
Robert Bly said it well in my Riverside Anthology of Literature when he asserted, "Compared to him, most American poets resemble blind men moving gingerly along the ground from tree to tree, from house to house, feeling each thing for a long time, and then calling out 'House!' when we already know it is a house."
I would commit myself to the Spanish language solely to experience the works of Neruda in their truest form. Actually, I am learning Spanish now, although it's my least favorite class. The professor is lame. But that's beside the point. The point is that it just might be worth it thanks to my dude, Pablo.
So yeah, it's possible everyone already knew how grand he is already and I sound really ignorant right now, but it doesn't even matter. I love him. I want to travel back in time and have his Chilean, beautiful, communist babies. Maybe you will too, if you don't already.
Robert Bly said it well in my Riverside Anthology of Literature when he asserted, "Compared to him, most American poets resemble blind men moving gingerly along the ground from tree to tree, from house to house, feeling each thing for a long time, and then calling out 'House!' when we already know it is a house."
I would commit myself to the Spanish language solely to experience the works of Neruda in their truest form. Actually, I am learning Spanish now, although it's my least favorite class. The professor is lame. But that's beside the point. The point is that it just might be worth it thanks to my dude, Pablo.
So yeah, it's possible everyone already knew how grand he is already and I sound really ignorant right now, but it doesn't even matter. I love him. I want to travel back in time and have his Chilean, beautiful, communist babies. Maybe you will too, if you don't already.
Betrayal
This story was written at the prompt of my friend, Allison Plummer, who goes attends the University of Missouri Ralla. There is a radio contest there for $50 in gas money for the person to write the best story/reason as to why they should receive the winnings. Here is my attempt:
Betrayal is a hard thing to stomach.
Stranded on the side of the road, out of gas—this was not the position in which I thought I would find myself when I left the house this morning. The alarm went off at the sinful 6 o’clock hour. The day was premature, only having existed for those six puny hours. Yesterday seemed so recent and sleep was something I somehow missed out on when I blinked last night. Now I had to peel myself out of my nice, warm bed and put my feet to the cold, unwelcoming floor and face another day.
An hour later, showered, dressed, and bitter I got into my car and turned the key in the ignition. The engine reluctantly turned over and the slow rumbling grew over the course of a few seconds.
“If I can do it, you can do it, Esmerelda.” Her exotic name seemed appropriate for her luscious, rusting 1992 Honda civic exterior in a dull but endearing navy blue tone. She’d been faithful over the years. What began as an embarrassment to my 16-year-old need for image maintenance grew into something like an annoying, quirky friend that grew on me while I wasn’t looking and now I can’t imagine myself without her. I think we have a sort of mutual understanding, a sort of symbiotic relationship, if you will. She takes me where I need to go and I keep her sheltered as much as much as possible and hydrated with gasoline. It’s a relationship characterized with joint respect and concern for one another and I had no reason to think that there was any sort of beef between us.
Esmerelda rolled down the driveway slowly, letting me in on her discontent at the trip commencement with a cloud of lavender-gray smoke streaming from the tailpipe in the rear. My dad’s diagnosis was that this was a symptom of burning oil; I knew that it was more of a physical manifestation of inner emotional unrest. “I know, Ezzie, momma knows...” I said patronizingly as I gave the dashboard a few loving strokes. A small flash of orange light in my peripheral vision caught my attention and my eyes migrated across the dash to my fuel meter. The low fuel light had just blinked on. This did not surprise me as I usually keep it filled in small increments based upon whatever small amount of cash I can reason with myself to part with for this obnoxious, environmentally unfriendly, money-guzzling cause. I often compared myself to the Biblical widow who miraculously always had just enough oil to get her and her hungry child through the day with nourishment. She emptied the jar to cook their bread for the day, and the next day she would wake up to find that there was miraculously just enough to do the same thing all over again. This comparison had made me feel noble although the pathetic puddle in the bottom of my car’s gas tank was something short of supernatural. It didn’t feel quite so miraculous when I was at the gas station, outside in the cold, fingers aching and lacking blood flow as they grasped the cold metal pump, cursing the day that this God-forsaken horseless carriage was invented.
So I found myself at the commencement of the daily commute trusting that this small amount of fuel in the tank would somehow be enough to get me where I needed to go until I was able to break out of my lethargy and find my way to a pump once again.
“Esmerelda, I’m sorry,” I said apologetically, “I know that it hasn’t been easy lately, I know that you’re probably frustrated with me, but I need you to do this for me today. Just this once, I promise I’ll do better. I promise to keep your tank fuller and not to leave you outside all night so that the ice accumulates and you have to be scraped in the morning (I know how you hate that). I really promise. Please just get me to work, please, please. I ‘ll make it up to you.”
I continued the drive out of my neighborhood with my fingers crossed (more mentally than literally as it often proves difficult to drive with one’s fingers crossed, especially when driving a stick). The further I drove, the rougher the engine sound became. The car seemed to be progressing in a fatigued, forced manner and my anxiety began to rise. Esmerelda had been a moody vehicle form the start, never one to put up with any crap. I’d let the coolant get too low lately, the last oil change was overdue, and the gas situation wasn’t helping either. She certainly did not hesitate to let me know that she was, in fact, quite peeved.
Despite my requests, despite my angry threats, my reminders of my quality traits as an auto owner, and finally, despite my desperate pleas, Esmerelda would not be appeased. It wasn’t long before she sputtered and slowed to a stop on the side of the road at a jaunty angle, as I had barely managed to get the car out of the steady stream of traffic in time.
That, my friends, brings us to my initial sentiment, that sickening feeling of betrayal referenced at the commencement of this story. In the argument between my car and I, my fickle, beloved automotive of Japanese descent had the last word. Betrayed—betrayed after all these years together. My nonchalant and lazy actions had culminated into this final act of animosity, this final statement of her exasperation. I found myself at the side of the road, wallowing in regret, wishing I would have done a better job of respecting my car. The problem is that the lightness of my wallet contributes to the heaviness of the obstacle that lies between the two of us, Esmerelda and me. I have not the funds to keep the tank full.
I recall this emotional saga to beseech, to ask, to beg, really, with those to whom this issue concerns to take this story into account when deciding the recipient of the gas money. I love my car very much, and I especially love the transportation she provides me. I desperately long to right that which has been broken, but the lack of gas money has created quite a rift. For the sake of our love, for the sake of my wonderful, piece of junk vehicle and the relationship between us, for the sake my livelihood, and for the sake of all that is good and holy, please grant us the gas money. I believe it will be money virtuously spent, and I think I can speak for Esmerelda (someone has to) in saying that she couldn’t agree more.
Betrayal is a hard thing to stomach.
Stranded on the side of the road, out of gas—this was not the position in which I thought I would find myself when I left the house this morning. The alarm went off at the sinful 6 o’clock hour. The day was premature, only having existed for those six puny hours. Yesterday seemed so recent and sleep was something I somehow missed out on when I blinked last night. Now I had to peel myself out of my nice, warm bed and put my feet to the cold, unwelcoming floor and face another day.
An hour later, showered, dressed, and bitter I got into my car and turned the key in the ignition. The engine reluctantly turned over and the slow rumbling grew over the course of a few seconds.
“If I can do it, you can do it, Esmerelda.” Her exotic name seemed appropriate for her luscious, rusting 1992 Honda civic exterior in a dull but endearing navy blue tone. She’d been faithful over the years. What began as an embarrassment to my 16-year-old need for image maintenance grew into something like an annoying, quirky friend that grew on me while I wasn’t looking and now I can’t imagine myself without her. I think we have a sort of mutual understanding, a sort of symbiotic relationship, if you will. She takes me where I need to go and I keep her sheltered as much as much as possible and hydrated with gasoline. It’s a relationship characterized with joint respect and concern for one another and I had no reason to think that there was any sort of beef between us.
Esmerelda rolled down the driveway slowly, letting me in on her discontent at the trip commencement with a cloud of lavender-gray smoke streaming from the tailpipe in the rear. My dad’s diagnosis was that this was a symptom of burning oil; I knew that it was more of a physical manifestation of inner emotional unrest. “I know, Ezzie, momma knows...” I said patronizingly as I gave the dashboard a few loving strokes. A small flash of orange light in my peripheral vision caught my attention and my eyes migrated across the dash to my fuel meter. The low fuel light had just blinked on. This did not surprise me as I usually keep it filled in small increments based upon whatever small amount of cash I can reason with myself to part with for this obnoxious, environmentally unfriendly, money-guzzling cause. I often compared myself to the Biblical widow who miraculously always had just enough oil to get her and her hungry child through the day with nourishment. She emptied the jar to cook their bread for the day, and the next day she would wake up to find that there was miraculously just enough to do the same thing all over again. This comparison had made me feel noble although the pathetic puddle in the bottom of my car’s gas tank was something short of supernatural. It didn’t feel quite so miraculous when I was at the gas station, outside in the cold, fingers aching and lacking blood flow as they grasped the cold metal pump, cursing the day that this God-forsaken horseless carriage was invented.
So I found myself at the commencement of the daily commute trusting that this small amount of fuel in the tank would somehow be enough to get me where I needed to go until I was able to break out of my lethargy and find my way to a pump once again.
“Esmerelda, I’m sorry,” I said apologetically, “I know that it hasn’t been easy lately, I know that you’re probably frustrated with me, but I need you to do this for me today. Just this once, I promise I’ll do better. I promise to keep your tank fuller and not to leave you outside all night so that the ice accumulates and you have to be scraped in the morning (I know how you hate that). I really promise. Please just get me to work, please, please. I ‘ll make it up to you.”
I continued the drive out of my neighborhood with my fingers crossed (more mentally than literally as it often proves difficult to drive with one’s fingers crossed, especially when driving a stick). The further I drove, the rougher the engine sound became. The car seemed to be progressing in a fatigued, forced manner and my anxiety began to rise. Esmerelda had been a moody vehicle form the start, never one to put up with any crap. I’d let the coolant get too low lately, the last oil change was overdue, and the gas situation wasn’t helping either. She certainly did not hesitate to let me know that she was, in fact, quite peeved.
Despite my requests, despite my angry threats, my reminders of my quality traits as an auto owner, and finally, despite my desperate pleas, Esmerelda would not be appeased. It wasn’t long before she sputtered and slowed to a stop on the side of the road at a jaunty angle, as I had barely managed to get the car out of the steady stream of traffic in time.
That, my friends, brings us to my initial sentiment, that sickening feeling of betrayal referenced at the commencement of this story. In the argument between my car and I, my fickle, beloved automotive of Japanese descent had the last word. Betrayed—betrayed after all these years together. My nonchalant and lazy actions had culminated into this final act of animosity, this final statement of her exasperation. I found myself at the side of the road, wallowing in regret, wishing I would have done a better job of respecting my car. The problem is that the lightness of my wallet contributes to the heaviness of the obstacle that lies between the two of us, Esmerelda and me. I have not the funds to keep the tank full.
I recall this emotional saga to beseech, to ask, to beg, really, with those to whom this issue concerns to take this story into account when deciding the recipient of the gas money. I love my car very much, and I especially love the transportation she provides me. I desperately long to right that which has been broken, but the lack of gas money has created quite a rift. For the sake of our love, for the sake of my wonderful, piece of junk vehicle and the relationship between us, for the sake my livelihood, and for the sake of all that is good and holy, please grant us the gas money. I believe it will be money virtuously spent, and I think I can speak for Esmerelda (someone has to) in saying that she couldn’t agree more.
Saturday, December 27, 2008
The Prototype: The Beginning
“Remember, Dr. Gallagher, these people are not scientists. They are possible donors, so try not to bore them with the facts.” The thin-framed, 26-year-old woman was straightening the tall, 53-year-old man’s collar.
“Right, thank you, Anita.” Dr. Gallagher tried to smile, but he was much too nervous even to do that simple thing. Instead, he quickly grabbed the handkerchief out of his chest pocket and shakily mopped the sweat off his glistening forehead. Anita frowned at the look of Dr. Gallagher’s disheveled gray hair. She tried to smooth it down, but thought better of it when she found her hand to be quite damp. The corners of her mouth turned down, and she tried to wipe the sweat off her hand with a paper towel nearby.
“Ok, turn this way.” Dr. Gallagher did as she asked. Anita took a step back to inspect her handiwork. Hmm, could be worse, she thought to herself. Many times, Anita had thoughts of perhaps getting a different job, but she was constantly reminded of how much Dr. Gallagher needed her as his secretary. The man was a complete mess. Brilliant, but a complete mess. Besides, they worked well together. The two tolerated each other very cordially. Dr. Gallagher had almost become a sort of father figure to Anita, and she did well to keep him socially in check. He was very grateful for her help.
Anita smiled reassuringly. “Well, do you feel ready?”
Dr. Gallagher took a deep breath. “Yes, I think so.”
“Alright, then go get ‘em, boss!” With a slight nudge from Anita towards the stairs, Dr. Gallagher straightened up and boldly walked passed the curtain onto the stage. As soon as Anita saw that Dr. Gallagher had made it to the front of the stage without injuring himself, she sat down on a small armchair backstage and crossed her legs.
Anita almost jumped in shock when the cell phone buzzed on the small table on her right. The phone vibrated loudly against the glass. Anita quickly picked it up and answered to keep it quiet. “Hello, this is Anita, secretary to geneticist Dr. Erwin Gallagher.”
A frantic male voice replied. “Hello, Anita. This is Dr. Shepherd. I’m afraid there is some serious trouble back at the lab.”
Anita became very worried. “What kind of trouble?” She bent over to see the stage. Dr. Gallagher was dabbing his forehead with his handkerchief.
“Something of extreme value and importance was stolen.” Dr. Shepherd sound reluctant, hesitant at best, to say what needed to be said.
“Please, sir, just come out with it! What has been stolen?”
“The Prototype.”
Anita’s eyes grew wide in a mixture of shock and horror. Dr. Gallagher had been working on that project for years, mostly in preparation for the creation of the prototype. Even his thesis in college was about experimental genetic mutation for the betterment of the human race. He had spent over half his life in preparation for that prototype and five years on the actual prototype. Now it was gone. She knew she would have to tell Dr. Gallagher immediately, but she dreaded it.
“Uh, Anita, there is more.”
“More? What more?” Anita was frantic.
“When the Prototype was stolen during the night, it seems as if it was…activated.”
“What?! Please tell me now that this is all one very cruel joke!” She tried to keep her voice hushed, but it was difficult.
“I’m afraid not, Anita. Of course, there is a possibility that I could be wrong, but all evidence points to that conclusion. The Prototype is missing, and it is alive. I’m very sorry, Anita.”
Anita’s tone was grave. “Ok, thank you, Dr. Shepherd.” She closed the phone, ending the call. Anita sat for a long moment in stunned silence. All that could be heard was Dr. Gallagher’s far-off voice on the stage. When Anita’s stupor was broken by the clapping and applause from the audience, she realized that Dr. Gallagher was finished and stood up with the cell phone still in her hand. Dr. Gallagher exited the stage with a smile on his face. It appeared as if he had done well, actually. He froze once he saw the grave expression on Anita’s face. His smile vanished.
“What’s wrong, Anita?”
“Right, thank you, Anita.” Dr. Gallagher tried to smile, but he was much too nervous even to do that simple thing. Instead, he quickly grabbed the handkerchief out of his chest pocket and shakily mopped the sweat off his glistening forehead. Anita frowned at the look of Dr. Gallagher’s disheveled gray hair. She tried to smooth it down, but thought better of it when she found her hand to be quite damp. The corners of her mouth turned down, and she tried to wipe the sweat off her hand with a paper towel nearby.
“Ok, turn this way.” Dr. Gallagher did as she asked. Anita took a step back to inspect her handiwork. Hmm, could be worse, she thought to herself. Many times, Anita had thoughts of perhaps getting a different job, but she was constantly reminded of how much Dr. Gallagher needed her as his secretary. The man was a complete mess. Brilliant, but a complete mess. Besides, they worked well together. The two tolerated each other very cordially. Dr. Gallagher had almost become a sort of father figure to Anita, and she did well to keep him socially in check. He was very grateful for her help.
Anita smiled reassuringly. “Well, do you feel ready?”
Dr. Gallagher took a deep breath. “Yes, I think so.”
“Alright, then go get ‘em, boss!” With a slight nudge from Anita towards the stairs, Dr. Gallagher straightened up and boldly walked passed the curtain onto the stage. As soon as Anita saw that Dr. Gallagher had made it to the front of the stage without injuring himself, she sat down on a small armchair backstage and crossed her legs.
Anita almost jumped in shock when the cell phone buzzed on the small table on her right. The phone vibrated loudly against the glass. Anita quickly picked it up and answered to keep it quiet. “Hello, this is Anita, secretary to geneticist Dr. Erwin Gallagher.”
A frantic male voice replied. “Hello, Anita. This is Dr. Shepherd. I’m afraid there is some serious trouble back at the lab.”
Anita became very worried. “What kind of trouble?” She bent over to see the stage. Dr. Gallagher was dabbing his forehead with his handkerchief.
“Something of extreme value and importance was stolen.” Dr. Shepherd sound reluctant, hesitant at best, to say what needed to be said.
“Please, sir, just come out with it! What has been stolen?”
“The Prototype.”
Anita’s eyes grew wide in a mixture of shock and horror. Dr. Gallagher had been working on that project for years, mostly in preparation for the creation of the prototype. Even his thesis in college was about experimental genetic mutation for the betterment of the human race. He had spent over half his life in preparation for that prototype and five years on the actual prototype. Now it was gone. She knew she would have to tell Dr. Gallagher immediately, but she dreaded it.
“Uh, Anita, there is more.”
“More? What more?” Anita was frantic.
“When the Prototype was stolen during the night, it seems as if it was…activated.”
“What?! Please tell me now that this is all one very cruel joke!” She tried to keep her voice hushed, but it was difficult.
“I’m afraid not, Anita. Of course, there is a possibility that I could be wrong, but all evidence points to that conclusion. The Prototype is missing, and it is alive. I’m very sorry, Anita.”
Anita’s tone was grave. “Ok, thank you, Dr. Shepherd.” She closed the phone, ending the call. Anita sat for a long moment in stunned silence. All that could be heard was Dr. Gallagher’s far-off voice on the stage. When Anita’s stupor was broken by the clapping and applause from the audience, she realized that Dr. Gallagher was finished and stood up with the cell phone still in her hand. Dr. Gallagher exited the stage with a smile on his face. It appeared as if he had done well, actually. He froze once he saw the grave expression on Anita’s face. His smile vanished.
“What’s wrong, Anita?”
Friday, December 12, 2008
Dead People Don't Hug Well
See me
Look into my eyes
And read my soul
See me
Fly into my lungs
And breathe my air
What do you see?
What do you feel?
I am not this mask you know
Take off the mask and all you've got
Is a wounded soul crying out to be heard
A little boy screaming for his daddy
Where is my daddy?
Has he left me
To this simple-minded crowd
Of pompous well-wishers?
If you really cared
Would you still see me this way?
Would you still glance in my direction
And promptly turn away?
Or would you step right next to me
Wrap your arms around my shoulders
Sit long with me in silence
As I weep until my eyes are dry?
As long as it takes
Would you do that?
Look into my eyes
And read my soul
See me
Fly into my lungs
And breathe my air
What do you see?
What do you feel?
I am not this mask you know
Take off the mask and all you've got
Is a wounded soul crying out to be heard
A little boy screaming for his daddy
Where is my daddy?
Has he left me
To this simple-minded crowd
Of pompous well-wishers?
If you really cared
Would you still see me this way?
Would you still glance in my direction
And promptly turn away?
Or would you step right next to me
Wrap your arms around my shoulders
Sit long with me in silence
As I weep until my eyes are dry?
As long as it takes
Would you do that?
Monday, December 8, 2008
Tired
Tired
We are
Running
Like Olympians on a track
Except we don’t know where we’re from
Or where we’re going because it doesn’t
end.
Domesticated rodents on a wheel,
We are frantically trying to get to the
end.
Now the end becomes the beginning again
And our circles spin faster and faster around us
The world blurs past us
Scandalously streaking by
And we miss is as it passes
What have I done to make myself
So tired?
My thoughts exhaust me
Swirling around in the atmosphere of my consciousness
Never condensing into something tangible
I grasp at the vapors
And clench the nothingness. It makes me
Tired.
To sleep, to find peace
Why does the quiet seem so loud?
Silence
We try to find silent solitude but this static follows us
As a shadow more defined even as the light grows brighter
Where is rest?
Is it a place? Can we go there?
Is it a state? Can we find it within ourselves?
Should we wait for it? Or try to catch up to it?
We can’t handle our troubled spirits
For very much longer
Slumber doesn’t seem to satisfy
Close us up like flowers at night
There is no morning glory until you do
This spinning wheel, this turning world
Too fast for too long
Take us to the motionless center
To the eye of the hurricane
To the middle where it stops
To where you are
We are
Running
Like Olympians on a track
Except we don’t know where we’re from
Or where we’re going because it doesn’t
end.
Domesticated rodents on a wheel,
We are frantically trying to get to the
end.
Now the end becomes the beginning again
And our circles spin faster and faster around us
The world blurs past us
Scandalously streaking by
And we miss is as it passes
What have I done to make myself
So tired?
My thoughts exhaust me
Swirling around in the atmosphere of my consciousness
Never condensing into something tangible
I grasp at the vapors
And clench the nothingness. It makes me
Tired.
To sleep, to find peace
Why does the quiet seem so loud?
Silence
We try to find silent solitude but this static follows us
As a shadow more defined even as the light grows brighter
Where is rest?
Is it a place? Can we go there?
Is it a state? Can we find it within ourselves?
Should we wait for it? Or try to catch up to it?
We can’t handle our troubled spirits
For very much longer
Slumber doesn’t seem to satisfy
Close us up like flowers at night
There is no morning glory until you do
This spinning wheel, this turning world
Too fast for too long
Take us to the motionless center
To the eye of the hurricane
To the middle where it stops
To where you are
If You
If you want to know what I am thinking
Open your hands a little wider
Because my miming methods are mimicked
By my ability to unfold.
If you want me to come closer
Close your eyes and count to 100;
Don’t hold your breath
Try to talk louder with your ears
And softer with your hands;
Gently rope me in without pulling.
Your ceaseless groping eyes
Poke and prod my desire to hide
All this refined aural sugar
Causes my teeth to ache
As my mind chews on the flattery
And then rots away.
If you want me to stay with you
As you tread at the surface
Dive in with me all the way down to the bottom
And then release;
I swear I will be buoyant.
We both need oxygen eventually;
I, like the fish, am jealous of our feathered friends
So stop being so cliché
And proverbially let me go.
Open your hands a little wider
Because my miming methods are mimicked
By my ability to unfold.
If you want me to come closer
Close your eyes and count to 100;
Don’t hold your breath
Try to talk louder with your ears
And softer with your hands;
Gently rope me in without pulling.
Your ceaseless groping eyes
Poke and prod my desire to hide
All this refined aural sugar
Causes my teeth to ache
As my mind chews on the flattery
And then rots away.
If you want me to stay with you
As you tread at the surface
Dive in with me all the way down to the bottom
And then release;
I swear I will be buoyant.
We both need oxygen eventually;
I, like the fish, am jealous of our feathered friends
So stop being so cliché
And proverbially let me go.
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Sensory Poems
Beauty
Beauty is clear
It sounds like a flute in an empty dome
It looks like a diamond in a dung heap
It tastes like a sugar cube in a can of spam
It feels like a swan fighting to be free of its rusty cage
Beauty is a broken window
Poetry
Poetry is elegant ebony
It sounds like a beautiful melody made of weepings and groanings
It looks like a masterpiece painted in blood
It tastes like a gourmet plate of sorrows
It feels like the rhythmic beating of a broken heart
Beauty is clear
It sounds like a flute in an empty dome
It looks like a diamond in a dung heap
It tastes like a sugar cube in a can of spam
It feels like a swan fighting to be free of its rusty cage
Beauty is a broken window
Poetry
Poetry is elegant ebony
It sounds like a beautiful melody made of weepings and groanings
It looks like a masterpiece painted in blood
It tastes like a gourmet plate of sorrows
It feels like the rhythmic beating of a broken heart
Poetry is the beautiful embodiment of a wounded soul
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Christina
It’s all so troubling. It’s such a strange sensation to listen to a news report talking about someone you knew and loved with such cold, objective terms. “A woman was found dead in her apartment.” People are troubled and the neighbors are uneasy, and this is bothersome to us because we don’t want them to be uncomfortable; we want them to care. “Don’t you see? We knew her. She was someone with whom we grew up and experienced things, and with whom we laughed and lived and tasted and smelled and saw, and with whom we felt our mutual realities with our nerves as well as our deeper sensing parts. Can’t you understand that?” We want their insides to get a little torn up. We want to tell everyone we know what has happened because we want them to feel it too- this scraping, scratching, gnawing feeling. Even more so, we want to feel it ourselves.
Things can seem so bad on a large scale and then something tragic happens to drive it home. You realize you’ve been ignoring other people’s news reports. Tragedy grabs you by the shirt collar, gets in your face and shrieks, “I am real!” So you’ve got this evil villain right here, so close you smell its reeking, panting breath, but what are you supposed to do? Sometimes there are no words to articulate these thoughts that you haven’t quite formulated and these racing, sharp emotions that scuff and nick at you but won’t cut you deep enough for you to feel satisfied with your grief. And maybe you wail or cry uncontrollably, but sometimes I just sit and try to squeeze out even one tear but it just won’t come. It won’t come out. It’s too much, this happens too much, too many times. Oh, God, we just try to walk through life but there’s all this molten lava around our feet and we’re getting assailed from all sides and even the air is toxic to breathe. So our lungs hurt and our eyes are stinging and our fingers have gotten burned so many times that we can’t even feel things anymore. We can’t feel things and we can’t see our fingerprints. We barely know who we are and so much of this precious, limited time is spent on simply trying to survive. And on top of all this, we are so tired. And people have terminal diseases and girls are anorexic and the holocaust really happened and governments are corrupt and friends malign each other and we’re all so selfish and people who love each other hurt each other the most and beauty is perverted and raped and consumed and we hate ourselves and everything is backwards and inside-out of the way it should be.
And I’m sitting here wringing my tear ducts, trying to cry, but all I want to do is punch something and scream “damn it!” but then I realize that even this exclamation is fruitless because it already is. This whole thing is already damned, it seems.
And I guess it’s proverbially “darkest before dawn,” but all this talk of dawn and hope and “working together for good” seems to minimize and render banal the heaviness we’re all experiencing right now. All of us. The whole bloody planet.
So God, would you help me to feel it? Would You come in here with us and help us to know that You’re in the midst of it too? And would You tell us what to do next? Because maybe You’re already reaching in and maybe You’re already trying to help, but we’re just humans. We’re just these frightened animals. You’re just so big, and all we can see is what’s directly in front of us. Maybe You’re helping but all we feel sometimes is pain so it’s scary and overwhelming. So come closer and come smaller and simpler because we’re feeble and weak and fatigued and broken and at a loss. Come gently and softly and tenderly, but please do come. Please come quickly.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
αγάπη της ζωής
I am full of awe
At this one thought
This thought so amazing
So perfect, so lovely
The beautiful love story
The greatest romance ever written
Then, now, forevermore
It lies behind me
In front of me
Everywhere beside
Inside
The purest love there ever was
You came
You proclaimed
You served
You died
You loved
Let me reciprocate
Your love in me is so great
When a cup is filled
More
More
More than full
It can't help but pour out
Let it be the same
Your love in me
Fill me
More
More
Never stop pouring out
It comes
It flows
It fills
It sows
I reap a harvest of the greatest gift
The one thing that has remained since
...forever
Love
The one thing worth living for
At this one thought
This thought so amazing
So perfect, so lovely
The beautiful love story
The greatest romance ever written
Then, now, forevermore
It lies behind me
In front of me
Everywhere beside
Inside
The purest love there ever was
You came
You proclaimed
You served
You died
You loved
Let me reciprocate
Your love in me is so great
When a cup is filled
More
More
More than full
It can't help but pour out
Let it be the same
Your love in me
Fill me
More
More
Never stop pouring out
It comes
It flows
It fills
It sows
I reap a harvest of the greatest gift
The one thing that has remained since
...forever
Love
The one thing worth living for
Saturday, November 15, 2008
φως της ζωής
Dead
This place is dead
Walking, waking death
Existing, not living
In the real, not the ideal
Counterfeit, not genuine
Complacency the culprit
The killer be contentedness
Death in the daylight
The night brings the end
But a different light is here
Brilliant
Vibrant
Unquenchable
Radical
Alive
It carries us to life and beyond
This place is dead
Walking, waking death
Existing, not living
In the real, not the ideal
Counterfeit, not genuine
Complacency the culprit
The killer be contentedness
Death in the daylight
The night brings the end
But a different light is here
Brilliant
Vibrant
Unquenchable
Radical
Alive
It carries us to life and beyond
Friday, November 7, 2008
Moth
I had purchased a newspaper and had seated myself at a table at the airport café in an effort to kill the next couple hours before my boarding time. It was a table next to the window, and I could clearly see the storm outside and the travelers coming and going. The torrent that was attempting to break through the panes of window glass next to me gave an anxious tone to the roaring music created by the muffled burning of jet fuel. The sound of the rain on the window was a steady rhythm: tapping, tapping, like nervous fingers on a tabletop in harmony with the attitude of the nervous travelers wheeling luggage across the bare, glossy floors outside the café. Glancing undecidedly between screens telling of flight plans and departure times and the miniature ticking screens on their wrists, people narrow-mindedly collected themselves and prepared to defy gravity.
So many people doing what they do in airports- leaving those they love, watching those they love leave- it all creates a characteristic atmosphere that is unique to this place of arrival and departures. It’s an atmosphere that is breathed in and out, and we all become a part of it.
A few tables away from me, directly ahead was seated an intriguing creature of a woman. It was almost as if her whole self was wrapped around her coffee cup drawing warmth into her body through her cold, weathered hands. The cardboard sleeve was set aside the way a person sets aside the one they were manipulating and using in order to get to the one with whom they’ve truly found themselves infatuated. There on the napkin next to the used wooden stir-stick was lying, the unwanted barrier between her and her life-giving heat. It was taking in the shameful mockery of the cardboard cup which contained the true object of her affections.
“Would you like to come sit down?” she said.
I flinched and looked around to see if there was someone behind me or beside me who she was addressing. No one. She must be talking to me, but why? I knew my habit of staring was going to get me into trouble one day.
“Yes, you!” she said with a chuckle. “Come keep an old woman company. I’m nervous to go up into this storm and you look like a frequent flyer.”
I could feel my face get hot and I knew it was turning red as it always does when I feel uncomfortable. “Sorry ma’am. I…” She continued to invite me over to her table with an inward wave of the hand. I did not feel the need to say more. I decided I had nothing to lose, so I gathered my things and plopped down across from her at the table by the window.
“Thanks,” I said, smiling awkwardly. She gave me a nod. Her hair was all wrapped up in a scarf printed in earth tones. A doubtful light was cast upon her comment regarding her age as I noticed a certain vitality about her. Despite the creases on her face and the salt and pepper strands peeking out from under the scarf, she couldn’t have been older than half a century. A plain black dress was draped over a spindly body and boney, knobby knuckles stuck out from under its loose sleeves to bring the cup of coffee to her lips again. She looked a little bit eccentric with the same look I remember noticing about an art teacher I used to have. Mrs. Mitchell-Meyers- a strange woman she was; the name sends a shiver down my spine to this day. She was abnormally superstitious and had an exaggerated interest in the metaphysical world. She was always working on some artistic piece inspired by a “transcendent experience” she’d had, which my friends and I would snicker about under our breath. The only “A” I got in her class was on my desperate attempt to complete a painting on time by literally throwing paint at the canvas the night before. She said it had “existential value”; I just thought her head wasn’t screwed on straight and took the good grade.
Anyway, this woman, this woman nestled next to the window had that same detached look about her, yet not in a repellent way. She didn’t seem to quite blend in although the way she carried herself said seemed to indicate that she knew a secret and the rest of us were still in the dark. “Storms like these make me nervous enough, let alone when I’m about to be up inside of them! Where’r you headed?” she asked.
Good question, I thought to myself. “I dunno, I’m just going…”
She had a puzzled look on her face and cocked her head. “What do you mean? Are you leaving or coming?”
“Leaving, I guess. I just bought a ticket to New York to see a friend.”
“Oh really? How long will you be there?”
I shrugged, “You know, I don’t really know. I guess I’m just waiting to see what happens.”
She just looked at me, right in the eyes. There was such beauty there; but not beauty one would notice right away. Those eyes, unadorned except for their frame of crow’s feet in the corners, were deep and searching- a grayish, bluish, greenish shade that seemed to look so intensely through me I didn’t have time to decide what color they were.
“Ah, I see. You’re running away,” she said matter-of-factly.
I immediately jumped on the defense. “Running away? No, I uh, I just wanted to go, I’m still…well, here’s the thing, I’m taking a break from school to sort of figure things out, you know? Things at home, my family, have been…and I have this friend. Not really friend though, and he…well, I just needed to get away for a while.”
She raised one eyebrow. “And you think that while you’re away things are just going to solve themselves?”
I was caught off guard by her frankness. I felt disarmed; my mouth was left empty-handed as any possible response escaped me.
She sat and she sipped. The way she nursed that steaming cup of blackness made it seem as if it was the cup that was suspending her and not the other way around. A fluttering movement drew her gaze to a moth that was flicking itself against the window beside her. We both began to watch its silent and fruitless pursuit of freedom, undaunted by the clear barricade that stood in the way of that outside world. It knew it did not belong in this place, not in this building, this place of waiting, this enclosure for anticipators of synthetic flight. This winged insect was relentless in its attempts to break through. It was jealous of the winged, metal creatures outside. They circled in the air above them, pondering whether it was safe to stretch out their feet and hit the tarmac running. This moth clearly wanted to join them. We both watched it, lost in thought.
“You’d think it would learn after the first several collisions. It’s kind of stupid, but I always feel bad for them when they do that.” I said, attempting to change the subject. I didn’t really feel like divulging any more of my personal information to this woman; I didn’t want any more unsolicited advice.
“Me too,” she said. “Sometimes I wonder if that’s how God feels.”
Suddenly a loud banging sound and a bellowing voice and snapped our attention away from the window and pulled our attention to a tumultuous scene that was unfolding at the counter.
“That’s the most ridiculous thing I ever heard!”
An older man who was clearly unsettled had slammed his fist down on the counter, causing the unsuspecting blonde barista to cower in fear. His brow was crinkled and his bushman eyebrows were slanted downward behind giant yellowing lenses that came from another era.
“ ‘Thank you, have a nice day,’” he said imitating the girl, contorting his voice into a shrill, nasally counterfeit of how she really sounded. “What have I done that made you wish me such good fortune? Honestly, you people astound me.”
The girl stood frozen. The room was filled with an air of tension.
“Give me one good reason why you give a rip whether or not I trip walking out the door and a grand piano falls on my head from twenty stories up?”
The girl had been subconsciously backing up during the course of this outburst. The look on her face was that of disorientation, like she’d just been hit from behind. Her head was tilted slightly downward as she hid beneath her green uniform hat. “Sir, I…”
He cut her off as soon as her words had escaped. “Perhaps they would draw one of those white chalk lines where my dead body was, or is that only if it’s a murder? Who knows, maybe it was a murder. Maybe someone had it out for me.” His elevated tone was dripping with sarcasm and his exaggerated gestures made him quite the spectacle. “Or, maybe it was a freak accident. All things considered, I’ve given you no cause for any further consideration than giving me the correct change. Don’t give me your false courtesy, ‘Have a nice day.’ Garbage!”
“I…you, uh…I just th…” she stammered.
“Shut up. Don’t say anything else to me. I know what you were trying to do, but maybe next time you should think before you feed your fake corporate rubbish, your less-than-genuine fluff to another person whose day could not matter any less to you.”
He stormed out the door, leaving the steam of rage and hot coffee trailing behind him. The employee looked down and sheepishly smoothed her apron. She then turned to the co-worker at the bar and began a tirade of cutting mutterings with a distinct defensive tone. The place was silent for a good few seconds, and I could hear the gentle flicking of the moth against the window. Surely enough, though, just as the gawkers finally speed up again after seeing an accident on the side of the highway, the people in the café slowly began to resume what they had been doing.
I looked at my new acquaintance in shock. “Wow.”
She shook her head, clearly disenchanted by the scene. “You see, that’s what happens when you don’t fix things. You deny them, you push them away, and they fester, just like they did with that man.”
“What do you mean? You don’t just think he was nuts?”
“Nuts? No. Something like that comes from somewhere deep. He let it get that way; that’s what happens. And then it’s too late to do much about it. You keep wrapping yourself up in that cocoon long enough, thick enough, and soon you won’t be able to get out.”
Once again, she turned those searching eyes back to meet mine. She held me there in her gaze for what seemed like an eternity until it was too intense for me to take it anymore. I looked back out the window. I looked back after a few seconds to see if she was still looking at me, but she had flicked out her wrist to look at her timepiece. “Well, I had better be off, my flight leaves soon. You know how security is these days.” She stood and grabbed a small rolling suitcase that had been sitting beside her, adjusted her dress, and picked up her coffee cup.
“It was nice talking with you,” she said.
“Same here,” and then with a grin I added “Have a nice day,” hoping she would catch my reference to the commotion we’d just witnessed.
“You do the same,” she replied with a smile and a wink, “And be careful about that cocoon.”
With that, she vanished from the airport café, and left my presence, yet many of the words we had exchanged continued to resonate in my mind. She had walked out the exit that opened to the rest of the terminal, but there was also another exit leading outdoors right next to where I was sitting. The orange exit sign kept invading my mind, taunting me. I sat for a while. I sat and wallowed in the thoughts of all that had transpired. I thought about how much I wanted to go, and I watched other people get ready to go. I watched families saying their last goodbyes over a cup of coffee. I watched a mother with tears in her eyes as she was holding the hand of a husband in military attire. I watched lonely businessmen with their leash-like neckties tapping their fingers on keyboards of laptops. I watched and I thought.
I looked out the window again and noticed that the rain was diminishing. I watched the line of people getting into cars and exchanging embraces and greetings. I saw the angry man from earlier wave down a yellow taxi. No one had come for him. As I continued to gaze through the window, my eyes focused on movement closer to me and I realized that the little winged friend the woman and I had witnessed earlier was continuing its struggle. It was gradually moving closer to the door. A rough-looking earphone-clad teenage boy had just purchased something cold and sugary with whipped cream exploding out of a dome lid and was headed for the exit. As he opened the door, the moth fluttered through the opening and released himself into the outside world.
After a moment’s contemplation I stood up and started moving toward the exit too. I tore my plane ticket in half, and dropped it into the garbage can. I then took a deep breath and walked out the door, fluttering into the outside world where patches of sunlight were beginning to seep through the storm clouds.
So many people doing what they do in airports- leaving those they love, watching those they love leave- it all creates a characteristic atmosphere that is unique to this place of arrival and departures. It’s an atmosphere that is breathed in and out, and we all become a part of it.
A few tables away from me, directly ahead was seated an intriguing creature of a woman. It was almost as if her whole self was wrapped around her coffee cup drawing warmth into her body through her cold, weathered hands. The cardboard sleeve was set aside the way a person sets aside the one they were manipulating and using in order to get to the one with whom they’ve truly found themselves infatuated. There on the napkin next to the used wooden stir-stick was lying, the unwanted barrier between her and her life-giving heat. It was taking in the shameful mockery of the cardboard cup which contained the true object of her affections.
“Would you like to come sit down?” she said.
I flinched and looked around to see if there was someone behind me or beside me who she was addressing. No one. She must be talking to me, but why? I knew my habit of staring was going to get me into trouble one day.
“Yes, you!” she said with a chuckle. “Come keep an old woman company. I’m nervous to go up into this storm and you look like a frequent flyer.”
I could feel my face get hot and I knew it was turning red as it always does when I feel uncomfortable. “Sorry ma’am. I…” She continued to invite me over to her table with an inward wave of the hand. I did not feel the need to say more. I decided I had nothing to lose, so I gathered my things and plopped down across from her at the table by the window.
“Thanks,” I said, smiling awkwardly. She gave me a nod. Her hair was all wrapped up in a scarf printed in earth tones. A doubtful light was cast upon her comment regarding her age as I noticed a certain vitality about her. Despite the creases on her face and the salt and pepper strands peeking out from under the scarf, she couldn’t have been older than half a century. A plain black dress was draped over a spindly body and boney, knobby knuckles stuck out from under its loose sleeves to bring the cup of coffee to her lips again. She looked a little bit eccentric with the same look I remember noticing about an art teacher I used to have. Mrs. Mitchell-Meyers- a strange woman she was; the name sends a shiver down my spine to this day. She was abnormally superstitious and had an exaggerated interest in the metaphysical world. She was always working on some artistic piece inspired by a “transcendent experience” she’d had, which my friends and I would snicker about under our breath. The only “A” I got in her class was on my desperate attempt to complete a painting on time by literally throwing paint at the canvas the night before. She said it had “existential value”; I just thought her head wasn’t screwed on straight and took the good grade.
Anyway, this woman, this woman nestled next to the window had that same detached look about her, yet not in a repellent way. She didn’t seem to quite blend in although the way she carried herself said seemed to indicate that she knew a secret and the rest of us were still in the dark. “Storms like these make me nervous enough, let alone when I’m about to be up inside of them! Where’r you headed?” she asked.
Good question, I thought to myself. “I dunno, I’m just going…”
She had a puzzled look on her face and cocked her head. “What do you mean? Are you leaving or coming?”
“Leaving, I guess. I just bought a ticket to New York to see a friend.”
“Oh really? How long will you be there?”
I shrugged, “You know, I don’t really know. I guess I’m just waiting to see what happens.”
She just looked at me, right in the eyes. There was such beauty there; but not beauty one would notice right away. Those eyes, unadorned except for their frame of crow’s feet in the corners, were deep and searching- a grayish, bluish, greenish shade that seemed to look so intensely through me I didn’t have time to decide what color they were.
“Ah, I see. You’re running away,” she said matter-of-factly.
I immediately jumped on the defense. “Running away? No, I uh, I just wanted to go, I’m still…well, here’s the thing, I’m taking a break from school to sort of figure things out, you know? Things at home, my family, have been…and I have this friend. Not really friend though, and he…well, I just needed to get away for a while.”
She raised one eyebrow. “And you think that while you’re away things are just going to solve themselves?”
I was caught off guard by her frankness. I felt disarmed; my mouth was left empty-handed as any possible response escaped me.
She sat and she sipped. The way she nursed that steaming cup of blackness made it seem as if it was the cup that was suspending her and not the other way around. A fluttering movement drew her gaze to a moth that was flicking itself against the window beside her. We both began to watch its silent and fruitless pursuit of freedom, undaunted by the clear barricade that stood in the way of that outside world. It knew it did not belong in this place, not in this building, this place of waiting, this enclosure for anticipators of synthetic flight. This winged insect was relentless in its attempts to break through. It was jealous of the winged, metal creatures outside. They circled in the air above them, pondering whether it was safe to stretch out their feet and hit the tarmac running. This moth clearly wanted to join them. We both watched it, lost in thought.
“You’d think it would learn after the first several collisions. It’s kind of stupid, but I always feel bad for them when they do that.” I said, attempting to change the subject. I didn’t really feel like divulging any more of my personal information to this woman; I didn’t want any more unsolicited advice.
“Me too,” she said. “Sometimes I wonder if that’s how God feels.”
Suddenly a loud banging sound and a bellowing voice and snapped our attention away from the window and pulled our attention to a tumultuous scene that was unfolding at the counter.
“That’s the most ridiculous thing I ever heard!”
An older man who was clearly unsettled had slammed his fist down on the counter, causing the unsuspecting blonde barista to cower in fear. His brow was crinkled and his bushman eyebrows were slanted downward behind giant yellowing lenses that came from another era.
“ ‘Thank you, have a nice day,’” he said imitating the girl, contorting his voice into a shrill, nasally counterfeit of how she really sounded. “What have I done that made you wish me such good fortune? Honestly, you people astound me.”
The girl stood frozen. The room was filled with an air of tension.
“Give me one good reason why you give a rip whether or not I trip walking out the door and a grand piano falls on my head from twenty stories up?”
The girl had been subconsciously backing up during the course of this outburst. The look on her face was that of disorientation, like she’d just been hit from behind. Her head was tilted slightly downward as she hid beneath her green uniform hat. “Sir, I…”
He cut her off as soon as her words had escaped. “Perhaps they would draw one of those white chalk lines where my dead body was, or is that only if it’s a murder? Who knows, maybe it was a murder. Maybe someone had it out for me.” His elevated tone was dripping with sarcasm and his exaggerated gestures made him quite the spectacle. “Or, maybe it was a freak accident. All things considered, I’ve given you no cause for any further consideration than giving me the correct change. Don’t give me your false courtesy, ‘Have a nice day.’ Garbage!”
“I…you, uh…I just th…” she stammered.
“Shut up. Don’t say anything else to me. I know what you were trying to do, but maybe next time you should think before you feed your fake corporate rubbish, your less-than-genuine fluff to another person whose day could not matter any less to you.”
He stormed out the door, leaving the steam of rage and hot coffee trailing behind him. The employee looked down and sheepishly smoothed her apron. She then turned to the co-worker at the bar and began a tirade of cutting mutterings with a distinct defensive tone. The place was silent for a good few seconds, and I could hear the gentle flicking of the moth against the window. Surely enough, though, just as the gawkers finally speed up again after seeing an accident on the side of the highway, the people in the café slowly began to resume what they had been doing.
I looked at my new acquaintance in shock. “Wow.”
She shook her head, clearly disenchanted by the scene. “You see, that’s what happens when you don’t fix things. You deny them, you push them away, and they fester, just like they did with that man.”
“What do you mean? You don’t just think he was nuts?”
“Nuts? No. Something like that comes from somewhere deep. He let it get that way; that’s what happens. And then it’s too late to do much about it. You keep wrapping yourself up in that cocoon long enough, thick enough, and soon you won’t be able to get out.”
Once again, she turned those searching eyes back to meet mine. She held me there in her gaze for what seemed like an eternity until it was too intense for me to take it anymore. I looked back out the window. I looked back after a few seconds to see if she was still looking at me, but she had flicked out her wrist to look at her timepiece. “Well, I had better be off, my flight leaves soon. You know how security is these days.” She stood and grabbed a small rolling suitcase that had been sitting beside her, adjusted her dress, and picked up her coffee cup.
“It was nice talking with you,” she said.
“Same here,” and then with a grin I added “Have a nice day,” hoping she would catch my reference to the commotion we’d just witnessed.
“You do the same,” she replied with a smile and a wink, “And be careful about that cocoon.”
With that, she vanished from the airport café, and left my presence, yet many of the words we had exchanged continued to resonate in my mind. She had walked out the exit that opened to the rest of the terminal, but there was also another exit leading outdoors right next to where I was sitting. The orange exit sign kept invading my mind, taunting me. I sat for a while. I sat and wallowed in the thoughts of all that had transpired. I thought about how much I wanted to go, and I watched other people get ready to go. I watched families saying their last goodbyes over a cup of coffee. I watched a mother with tears in her eyes as she was holding the hand of a husband in military attire. I watched lonely businessmen with their leash-like neckties tapping their fingers on keyboards of laptops. I watched and I thought.
I looked out the window again and noticed that the rain was diminishing. I watched the line of people getting into cars and exchanging embraces and greetings. I saw the angry man from earlier wave down a yellow taxi. No one had come for him. As I continued to gaze through the window, my eyes focused on movement closer to me and I realized that the little winged friend the woman and I had witnessed earlier was continuing its struggle. It was gradually moving closer to the door. A rough-looking earphone-clad teenage boy had just purchased something cold and sugary with whipped cream exploding out of a dome lid and was headed for the exit. As he opened the door, the moth fluttered through the opening and released himself into the outside world.
After a moment’s contemplation I stood up and started moving toward the exit too. I tore my plane ticket in half, and dropped it into the garbage can. I then took a deep breath and walked out the door, fluttering into the outside world where patches of sunlight were beginning to seep through the storm clouds.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
The Flyer
Shadows on the pavement
Just one lamp to bring light
No one here, but for me
No moon to shine tonight
Soft footsteps on the street
My own bring fright to me
Thoughts echoing through time
More real than what I see
There beneath the lamplight
Just a blur in my eye?
No, I know what stands there
To myself, I can't lie
My mind full of flashbacks
Bleak visions of my past
The torment! Oh the hurt!
How long must this road last?
A breeze blows on my face
An autumn leaf dances
Much too late to turn back
Enough second chances
Closer to the lamppost
I'm stepping silently
And here inside my chest
My heart beats violently
Someone give me the strength
This path is a hard one
My only hope is this
Tonight I will be done
Finally I reach it
The evasive lamppost
And there beneath the light
A man much like a ghost
I look upon his face
Shocked by what I'm faced with
With skin like a shadow
Surreal but far from myth
A recognized semblance
I see upon his face
So long I ran from him
Tonight is not the case
I looked into his eyes
And this is what I said
"You've held me back too long
From this day forth, you're dead."
The shadow disappeared
My wings sprang forth, I flew
Extraordinary
Is my life birthed anew
Just one lamp to bring light
No one here, but for me
No moon to shine tonight
Soft footsteps on the street
My own bring fright to me
Thoughts echoing through time
More real than what I see
There beneath the lamplight
Just a blur in my eye?
No, I know what stands there
To myself, I can't lie
My mind full of flashbacks
Bleak visions of my past
The torment! Oh the hurt!
How long must this road last?
A breeze blows on my face
An autumn leaf dances
Much too late to turn back
Enough second chances
Closer to the lamppost
I'm stepping silently
And here inside my chest
My heart beats violently
Someone give me the strength
This path is a hard one
My only hope is this
Tonight I will be done
Finally I reach it
The evasive lamppost
And there beneath the light
A man much like a ghost
I look upon his face
Shocked by what I'm faced with
With skin like a shadow
Surreal but far from myth
A recognized semblance
I see upon his face
So long I ran from him
Tonight is not the case
I looked into his eyes
And this is what I said
"You've held me back too long
From this day forth, you're dead."
The shadow disappeared
My wings sprang forth, I flew
Extraordinary
Is my life birthed anew
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