I actually don’t spend much time at bars. Symbolically I think I think of bars as a place of reflection.
Cheers!
A beautiful women is looking at me from the other side of the bar. While holding her eyes to mine she’s moving her tongue up and down the outside of her straw before taking small, dainty sips while never for a moment breaking eye contact with me. I sit with my elbow on the bar and my hand on my cheek watching her as I rest, a half a smile as though to say, “How nice to share this moment with you from across the room, your company is pleasant.” She is beautiful, but I have another on my mind.
I haven’t seen her for so long that it would be stupid for me not to consider the loveliness whose eye I’ve caught as the possibility of a nest that would not be shaken by hurricanes; a place to rest my heart after wandering a desert in hopes that my memory of water is not merely one more accursed mirage. I’ve met her before enough to know she is in every way likeable, but not enough to know what the feel of her hand tells my heart and hers after communicating for five minutes apart from the speech of the rest of me. Beauty looks me in the eye and says we both have a basic common denominator; identity says there is nothing glaring to alarm. And yet my mind reminds me as I connect with a friend from a distance that at a further distance yet is the reason regret may exist where otherwise my mind would have no reason to exist.
But because I have a mind, and it remembers another beauty in another time that made my heart pump blood where before it only knew how to process bile, I can’t help but be reminded of another face by whose light I began to live as appropriate to one who should see beauty in friendship across a bar and respect that every face contains a universe that bears exploring respectfully before creating eternities more calling themselves by individual names always striving to declare “I Am.” And in light of the importance of mind to reason the desire to see another universe created to flourish, I say hello and shake hands when she brings her drink to where I sit, and we begin to discuss what we really enjoy for the rest of existence when we are too sated to eat and quenched to drink.
This one has overtones of day-time professionalism and was the brain-child of a particularly pernicious daydream.
Checking Others Out
Always the same gray permeating the air. I look out the window at work, and there’s the fog. I wake up in the morning, and there is the fog. All day every day, the fog . . .
Actually, it’s not so much a fog that effects the mind. It’s not bland or boring or depressing, at least, not when I look at it. Usually it’s just there at the periphery of my sight; it accompanies me as I go about my day. I focus on customer after customer and, staring at me from the outside, it meets the corner of my eye and keeps me company as my mind wanders and as I go about my business. But when I look out toward it, what I really see is the light behind the mists. I see the light from the journey I haven’t taken yet. I see my customers’ heads in the light’s direction all day every day.
In point of fact, this day has been rather long as it is, and I really can’t recall another . . .
I remember waking up, the fog outside my window. Getting ready; slippers to bathroom, nakedness to the feel of the water warm and refreshing. There was no hurry, I had plenty of time to get to work; I washed and relaxed. Brushing teeth and eating eggs and bacon, toast and fruit. I walked to work; the light was bright through the fog and accompanied me to the door of the store; I almost turned from the sidewalk to see if there was pure light behind the curtain of mist, but I entered the store instead; I knew I needed to work, I needed to earn my way to what I was waiting for, there would be something terribly missing if I explored the place toward the light just now. I need to earn my way . . .
And so my day began. It has been a long day. Aside from beginning my day, the rest is all I can remember. It feels like I have been processing customers for forever. Every one I ask the same question of, “Have you found everything you wanted?” They almost always say, “Yes.” I tell them to have a good day, and after I hand them their receipt, they walk toward the door, toward the light beyond the fog. When they disappear behind the veil of vapor I almost always seem to see the light brighten but for a second before returning to the glow accompanying me through my day.
When they say “no” it is almost always with a frown. And then I ask the next question it is my job to ask, “Is there something we can help you find?” If they say, “I don’t know,” I then offer them a job and they begin performing some task in the store if they accept. If they decline a job I send them to the manager’s office. I have sent a dozen or so to the manager’s office, some after they refused work; I never see anyone come out of the manager’s office.
Sometimes they tell me that they are looking for their daughter or son or other person they cannot find. I call for a woman’s daughter over the intercom, and after several minutes have passed her daughter appears from one of the aisles. She embraces her with tears in her eyes and I ask, “Is there anything else we can help you find.” She shakes her head with tears of gratitude, “No.” And I hand her her receipt and tell her to have a nice day. After they head outside the light becomes brighter for a few seconds and I return to give full attention to my next customer. It always makes me smile when I see two people reunited. I do hope my shift ends soon.
Sometimes, when someone can’t find a person, I have to call in a constable to assist one of our customers. They usually come in twos, and they usually walk with the customer toward the front entrance. Rarely there is a flash of light when this happens. Every now and then I see one of them return and take a place at a check-stand, but I never speak to them again at that point and I don’t think to speak to any of them thereafter; I have customers to focus on.
Sometimes people speak of misplacing vast sums of money, or misplacing their car keys. The constabulary is contacted in these instances, and the people are often walked outside, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen the light grow brighter any of the times I’ve seen that happen; it is rare I see that happen though. I’m grateful that when I’m done with my shift everything I could need is waiting for me at home; people seem so upset when they misplace something.
Some people complain of hunger and then wander off back into the store. There is always plenty of food here, no one ever asks me to help them find a particular food, they seem content to wander back into the rows of shelves in search of what they want themselves. After watching a customer or two wander back into the store I think about if there is anything I should buy for home, but I recall my shelves well stalked. I feel like there is something I am here for myself, but it is my duty to focus on my work so I return to giving full focus to the next customer; if there is something I am missing, I am certain it will come to me before I leave and I will get what I need before leaving.
Some tell me they are thirsty, and I point them toward the water fountain. They walk there, take a drink, then smile and wave at me before they walk to where the light brightens when my customers leave.
Some ask to use the restroom, and them pass once more through my check-stand once returning. It is my job to make sure I address everyone’s issues and concerns. Every customer’s need is responded to. If they require something that I do not know, I simply ask my manager or call upon the constabulary.
Once I saw a man caught for trying to steal from our store. As the constable brought him into the office, the assistant manager just kept asking him what reason he could have for doing such a thing. The man was repeatedly shaking his head while looking down through closed eyes and a clenched mouth. No one here has ever been denied, I do not know why he would have tried to steal when we always seem eager to give to the customers what they want; it is the customer service our company is built on, we never say no.
I know I have a break coming soon, yet I don’t feel like taking it. I wish to keep working, it pleases me to make my customers happy, and I feel that I am working for something; that the more I work, the closer I get to what I am working for. I just can’t remember what it is I am here earning for myself, but the job is pleasant enough, and I am grateful enough that I am closer to earning my way to what I am here for.
. . .
How much time I have spent here, I do not know, though I don’t think it can have been longer than a day; I don’t recall going home to return. I look up to my next customer and it is hard for me to ask what it is my job to ask. Recognition seeps into my brain from the distance of a lifetime called from across eternity although I know I know her at once. As the last word leaves my lips I feel the tears well to the corners of my eyes. She responds, “I didn’t at first, but I have now.” I shake from my tears as I reach her receipt out to her. As she touches my hand and our eyes do not part I know I have come to the end of a very long day; I no longer can not remember what I have come here to work for.
She does not let go my hand as she walks me passed my register and into her arms. She pulls me close and tight, whispers into my ear that it is ok now; it was ok when first my eyes recognized without recognition. I rest my head upon her shoulder as we walk out the door hand-in-hand; our receipt is shared for whatever it is worth. The world is brighter as we enter into and past the mists. I don’t remember who we were before we arrived here, only that I waited for her for I could not imagine going on without her. It is so very bright, so very, very bright. It is so very bright, and so very warm . . .
I wanted this to be serious, but immediately upon writing it this line came to me, so, an outtake from this story: Trial by flurry.
Without Shame
I stand here amidst the wind howling my name in denouncement of my life in entirety. Who is it to judge? It is that by which voice may be heard, and thus, the final say.
Caused though by heat, cold upon my face as molecules of matter I can otherwise walk through lash at my face in their tongue declaring my crimes for all to see. I stand and face my accuser, defended only by what my crimes have enabled me to make of myself, and what I made from what I was able. I stand as a version of my crimes, what the truth of repentance tells me to be.
I hear it call my name; denouncing my existence by asking why it should continue; listing the worst of the results of my forms actions; a voice of chill pulling at me from every direction as I give the only answer available to me in response to the accusation of what I was, “I AM!”
“I AM!” I speak my name loudly that my accuser may hear me clear despite its own voice comprised of that which I walk through as I take a step forward toward judgement. I declare loudly what my crimes have created as I raise my hand to solemnly swear the truth of my testimony.
As the wind grows still I take my final step toward judgement. It has heard my defense. I know the jury, in whose hands the verdict is held, well. When this step is completed I will stand to know my fate as spoken by the truth of my words; it is the echo that will declare my guilt or innocence.
As I was pondering what I wanted to write, it occured to me that I simply didn’t have the time to invest in the fullness of a thought if I wanted to sleep. So, here is a meditation in accordance . . .
A Short Story
Picking up his pen he considered his own imagination and the stories he wanted to tell. He reflected briefly on her smile, of course, that which motivated the breath in his lungs, let alone the lifting of his pen. Then he considered his idea for tales at the moment; entering a picture into eternity, a surrealistic rendition of illness, the beats of the drums he listened to in the background, the internal struggle between that which he found himself of and that which he wanted to be . . .
He decided on a prosaic poem that blurred the lines between that which would be created, that which might be created, all that had come before to create the possibilities, and the form itself the indecision in his mind took; he decided that a practice of any kind was superior to the atrophy of the possibility of what might be, even if nothing in particular was created as a result. Whether anyone would read he did not know, but decided that if he didn’t tell that story of his self, there may come a time when he would never give the opportunity for anymore to be read. He decided that in the moment of creating his self, in that moment others’ perceptions didn’t matter so much then as they would later, that if he were to give them a chance then, he must work as ever he could now.
So, he let his mind flow to the page free of the constraints of coherent story, and the energy needed to bind together a tale accordingly. He let his mind work unbound with his hands that his heart may have the opportunities to bind specificity to the minds of others in future tense. He breathed and thought of his breath, and its meaning; he thought that by his breath he’d rather make any effort toward what he’d have the energy to accomplish before long than waste the breath he was given by the grace of her recollection alone. He was grateful to type up next to nothing for his own sake, and perhaps the sake of anyone else even if by happenstance, than nothing at all.
More of the same in terms of process. In this one I found my end point a day or two after writing the first sentence. For me not knowing what I’ll write from beginning to end is a journey. I have fun as a story emerges that is more from a subconscious exercise than a conscious one . . .
Tunnel
A clear tunnel as a wind-swept cloudy-gray swirled all around him. He ran his sword through the wall of vapor as he walked, it tugged lightly against his weapon, calling it to unknown realm, or perhaps oblivion.
He had opened a door he found in a tree as he was patrolling the forests. He felt air rushing past him toward the light he stared at through the open door; he saw nothing but it. He had decided to walk through to find out where it came from, what it was, if it was useful to the others. As he walked through, the door shut quickly behind him, and now he found himself surrounded by the tunnel, staring at a long path, a light somewhere in the distance. He walked.
The ground below his feet was mossy, few dry scattered leaves here and there. No breeze from the tunnel moved the leaves but his own footfalls one after the next. Looking back toward where he came, he saw no place a door could have been, just a shadowy more-of-the-same that extended back apparently a half-mile or so. He took another step forward.
He walked for what felt like hours with his sword in hand. He didn’t know what may be ahead for him, he supposed some sort of magic to have brought him where he was, while he did not feel danger, he would not be caught unprepared. After what felt like several hours walking with his sword in hand, his sword began to feel heavy. He sheathed it. He took another step forward.
After what felt like more hours he stared into the wall of the tunnel. In the mists he saw shapes and forms as he remembered seeing in clouds one day when he had looked toward the sky from a place by a stream. He saw his fellow warriors in combat against a dragon. He saw a hand wipe away the battle, the outline of a face, a pair of eyes open toward him. He saw a stream and a man beside it staring up at the sky; he saw clouds swirl before the man, speaking to themselves, and beckoning him forward. He shook his head from side to side quickly to break up the wanderings of his mind. Again he saw a wall of swirling mists. He took a step back from the wall, back to the center of the path. He took a step forward.
As he walked he began dragging his sword behind him through the leaves, across the ground. He ran his sword from time to time through the mists to feel the light tugging that reminded him he had some reason not to wander off the path. He sheathed his sword again and noticed that the light did seem brighter if not particularly closer. He was about to sigh when he heard a voice echo in his mind, “Leave sword and sheath behind, or no closer will your footsteps bring you.” He considered it unwise to follow the voice of a magic that might leave him vulnerable. He stepped forward despite that voice and kept walking. His resolve continued for what felt as more hours, and the light did not become brighter.
He unfastened his sheath and laid it down with sword. He stepped forward. One step later he turned around to where his sword lay. It twitched, and he lunged for it. It moved toward the tunnel and immediately was lost from sight. He heard a voice echo in his mind, “Step forward now away from where that thing lay, or meet a fate same as it, a place where ever will you have need of it, the place opposite of where your steps will lead should you continue forward now . . .” He looked up toward where he had been walking and saw that the light was brighter. He was unsure, did not trust, and was unaccustomed to being without his weapon, but the light felt better than the gray, and so he stepped forward toward what gave him choice to move rather than the swirling mists which seemed in essence to tug and pull. He took another step forward.
As he stepped closer to the light, the light grew. The further he walked the more the tunnel blended in with the light. The swirling mists began to transition, slowly, from grey into lighter and lighter shades. He could swear he heard the sweet soft sound of humming as he stepped ever onward toward the light. Until, truly it became bright . . . He stepped forward.
And as he stepped forward, slowly now, the mists began to dissolve into the light and a brightness shined before him, in the distance, spectacularly bright where before the light was merely white compared to the gray the tunnel had been. It dazzled before him and grew as he stepped closer. Where before he walked toward light that at times did not at all grow, now every footfall brought him closer to a destination; something that he would come to physically before long, the shadows surrounding him now all but gone. Another step forward.
And surrounding him only white; no swirling, no mists, no gray, no tunnel to speak of, only white. And the brightness was maybe ten steps before him. He felt a light breeze of warmth caress his face coolly. As he took another step forward he heard a voice echo within his mind, “You may walk anywhere but forward and be returned to what you know, and not know what you don’t. Though, in this moment, you may be assured that what you don’t know will bring you no pain.” As this statement had finished within his mind he had already stepped four steps closer. And over the course of the next four steps, as something felt very right, he contemplated that he was bound forward by his own volition even if the voice had not caressed his mind with its assurance. He trusted his steps and wished only to know what only his steps could teach. “Extend your arms outward,” he heard in his head before beginning another step forward. Raising his arms outward, he took another step forward.
As his foot fell a final time he felt a deep softness upon his mouth followed shortly by a cool calmness of light within his mouth. He dissolved into the light and released himself of care for his body in entirety. He was relieved to carry no longer the burden of gravity; his body inconsequential as he was as what he reached; without care of substance, he was grateful to share with what was also as he.
Felt the need to write something neither initially romantic nor dialogue. For longer pieces I take the time to learn what my story is in advance, and then let the nuance fill itself in on the way to the main events and happenings of that story. For this story an opening sentence occurred to me, then, without thinking about it, I start writing the story as it comes. Tis an exercise in discovery. Fun!
Just as an aside: it did turn out a bit romantic in tone after all toward the end. So, with a glimpse of images of things that might be, even if only in imagination-tense, with this first post of the new year I wish All that this may be a Happy One!
Water Walk
There they stood looking at each other. Step by step they walked toward each other. Their carpet, the sea below.
Of the years since the creation of modern superstition, over 4379 had passed. It was in 3247 that something would have to be done to protect the ocean; sea life had become so scare and frail that if even a sail boat were to clip a single fish, an entire species might go extinct. If a child were to toss a stone into the ocean, the last sea turtle might be its victim. And the technology was available, so a glass barrier was erected over the ocean 150 miles from the edge of every piece of land inhabited by humans, which by 3247 was almost every piece.
Though it was illegal to journey further than 100 miles out to sea without being a licensed scientist, they took the chance. They started from different places, packed their bags for the journey, and began out on foot. They knew the laws for driving an unlicensed science vehicle upon the glass were harsher, and more regularly enforced, than walking too far toward the ocean. The fact was, the law did not worry about those making journeys of over a hundred miles by foot.
The silence above the glass did not seem eery in the least as they made their way toward each other from different towns. Their journey was not just one to the water, but as the crow flies, likewise to each other. It was not common to see birds this far out to sea, and likewise this far to the sea. The birds stayed for the most part on one side of the zone of glass, or another. They walked toward each other. Their bags light with nutrient-rich foods that could stay edible for a hundred years. Each pack upon their back stocked with enough food to last a year in addition to tents and other traveling amenities. With each passing footfall, they grew closer. They dared not communicate with mobile devices due to the listening sensors. They planned their routes thoroughly and precisely before they set out. Small distance measuring devices were sufficient to make sure they were on route precisely and timely. They wanted to make sure they met for the first time after the work they had put into planning.
A promise made with each passing footfall. Adventure begun between strangers seeking similarities in another who’d never met before. True adventure in a world in which everything was known, and little wasn’t. To walk to where the water was; pioneering as closely as a terrestrial being could. They grew to know each other’s minds from a distance; see glimpses even of each other’s forms. They liked each other enough to make a journey of so many miles, and they both believed that Love required something more than a knowledge of another at a distance. They both believed love to be creation of reality itself, not merely passive perception of it. If they never met, then they could know admiration in some way for what each other was created as. To walk step by step made both their realities to be something else altogether, something common and unique, something uniquely uncommon. Each step a promise being fulfilled, each step a question of promises to come.
They saw fishes underfoot. Dolphins coming up to the layer of air just beneath the surface of the glass. The further they went, the more they saw life flourish. In their own time they contemplated a time when glass would no longer separate life from life; sea to land. At night the stars reflected on the face of the ocean, two universes overlapping and reflecting, the moon showing almost all there was to see. Step by step they grew closer as days passed.
From a distance one day they saw a figure in the distance seeming to move toward the other; a speck that might be moving. And the passage of time was short before they knew they saw what they thought they would see at this time, at this place, on this day. They would run, but the sun was hot, the journey was long, and they knew that in a moment they would know a friendly handshake, and whether or not that first touch was more. Step by step, a promise fulfilled.
Mere minutes passed, and there they stood looking at each other. Step by step they walked toward each other. Their carpet, the sea below. A breeze brought moist salt to their faces as they saw a smile on each other’s lips. They knew before touching they gazed at beauty unlike any they’d ever seen. They looked forward to sharing the experience of touching the water below over which they walked.
A deeply personal meditation for me as I enter the New Year. May the New Year bring joy to my readership and also all in this world.
How Long?
“I feel trapped between a rock and a hard place!”
“How cliché.” She smiled a little as she watched him writhe in his own mental anguish.
“But it’s as accurate a way to say it as any I know.” He frowned. “Everything I’ve lived over the last three decades tells me I’m an idiot if I look at anyone but her. But how long am I supposed to wait for her to speak to me? It’s been more than twenty percent of my life I’ve waited with her in mind; struggled, grown, worked; become something more than a lazy shit-head dominated by fear. How long am I supposed to wait?”
“You’ve already described to me the ways you feel inadequate in your life. Is that really what you wish to offer her? Sex is easy to come, like the much touted quad-hourly bus, if that’s all you want out of your life. But, as I understand it, unexpected children aren’t cheap and you’re already pretty ashamed of your debt . . . caused by necessity though it may be.
“You ask me how long you’re supposed to wait? I think the answer to that question is another question. How much do you really love her?”
Since I’ve been hearing this song just about everyday during the yearly ritual of the preparation for the annual celebration of the culmination of greed of capitalism praying on the insecurity of consumers, a question has consistently arisen to my mind every time I hear the song play, “This must have had long term consequences to the psyche of this child. What must the consequences to this child’s mind have been?”
20 Years Ago Last Night . . .
I saw Mommy kissing Santa Claus, underneath the mistletoe, 20 years ago from last night.
Two weeks later, when I went back to school, little Cindy Sandra Morgan was telling her friends that her parents were getting a divorce. I was only five then, I’d never heard the word “divorce.” And then she went on to tell them that her father had been sleeping around on her mother. Apparently Cindy’s mom had been something of an alcoholic, and as she fled to stay with her mom, Cindy’s Grandmother, she had been drinking a lot. Apparently Cindy had spent much of her Winter break listening to her mom tell her all about adultery and divorces through whiskey-soaked breath while Grandma was asleep late at night. She said something about waking up late to get a drink of water, and she was going to check on the cookies she had left for Santa when her mother, sitting in a rocking chair in a dark corner of the room, told her to come over and sit down by the foot of the chair. Cindy told her friends that her mom smelled like bad, strong pickles, and that her mom told her all about what she called “sleeping around” and “divorces.”
I mean, in retrospect, my father role playing with my mom was really quite healthy. But I didn’t learn about sexual role playing until I was a junior in high-school, and I didn’t really understand it in-depth in terms of relationships until I was well into my second year of college taking an introductory course to psychology. Can you imagine? At five years old I was still quite convinced of Santa’s existence. I thought my Mommy was sleeping around on my Daddy until I was about twelve. I didn’t dare say anything to Dad, I didn’t want my parents divorcing. When Santa came to visit Christmas Eve the next year, it was all I could do to keep from breaking down in tears at once. And it strained my relationship with my mom. I kept thinking that she was going to break Daddy’s heart because she couldn’t “keep it in her pants.”
And when I was seven, instead of Santa coming over on Christmas Eve, we went to see him at the mall. It was horrible. I spent weeks avoiding the mall. And then when we started walking by the Christmas display, there I was on the other side of Mommy trying not to look at “Santa’s workshop.” But then Mommy took me by the hand and started pulling me that way, and I couldn’t say no without her finding out that I knew about her and Santa. So there I was waiting in line to meet Santa, and wanting to escape, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. And by the time I was seven I’d heard the term “Can’t keep her legs together,” and was wondering why Mommy couldn’t. And then there I was on Santa’s lap, and he asked me what I wanted, and I told him. I motioned that I wanted to whisper in his ear, and I told him. “Please stop trying to make my parents divorce. Please.” And no wonder he gave me a strange look. And then he started laughing a typical Santa “Ho, ho, ho.” And in retrospect he was just nervous because he didn’t know how to respond to that and was trying to buy himself time to answer in a helpful way. And he was about to say something, but before he could, I hopped right down from his lap and kicked him as hard as I could in the shin! Mommy looked so embarrassed as she took my hand, apologizing as we went. And then when we got to the car she asked me what I was thinking, but I just sat and didn’t say anything, trying to avoid her gaze. I didn’t want her to know I knew about her and Santa.
That was the last time I ever sat on Santa’s lap, or that Santa ever visited our house. But I didn’t care. I spent the next five years in dread of Christmas, but every time I didn’t see Santa I smiled quietly to myself that I had saved my parents’ marriage.
When I was almost twelve I finally understood that Santa wasn’t real; that Dad had been Santa. And that was weird thinking about my parent’s kissing at all, let alone my Dad dressed as Santa. But then the guilt started to seep in. Guilt, and the realization, that would take the next several years to unfold, that I’d deprived myself of one of my favorite parts of childhood. Every year I go broke around Christmas time. Not because of the gifts I give to others, but because every time I pass a Good-Will Santa I put five bucks in his bucket thinking that maybe this Santa is the one I kicked in the shin all those years ago, and that maybe my donations will make up for hurting someone just trying to make little kids happy, and make up for how I messed up my own childhood.
Most people have neurosis that were passed to them from their parents. Mine was completely self-afflicted. So, my kids will never think that Santa is real, and they’ll always get good presents, whatever they want. And if their Mommy ever cheats on me, I’ll just make sure I make her death look like it was caused naturally so that they don’t have to suffer the prospect of divorce like I had to. When I have kids, they will always enjoy Christmas!
This story is actually derived from a dark chapter in my life. There was a very brief moment in the true story that was a gratitude unlike any I’d ever known. Unfortunately, my fears and self-hatreds were too severe to make the good last, and quickly I was made to see myself as someone I’d never want to be again. From this darkest of times for me, however, was given me the motivation to work to become someone I could like.
Sweet Dreams
He saw her lying there and knew not what to do. For all intents and purposes she was an angel, seeing her asleep didn’t add to his inclination to regard her as directly created from the divine. Likewise, he couldn’t help but feel as a dog who hadn’t been fed in a month and a half, staring at a 120 pound piece of fillet Mignon, wrapped in bacon, and just about ready to be broiled.
He wiped a drop of saliva away from his lower lip before kneeling down before her. “Cindy. Cindy.” He very gently, with as little force as he could muster, put pressure on her shoulder, almost as though shaking it while whispering her name as though hoping to watch her sleep several more hours before gaining her attention.
“Cindy.” He raised his voice to almost audible, grateful for the feel of divinity wrapped in blanket, sweatshirt, and T-shirt under his hand. After a ritual of raising his voice by quarter-decibels, and firming his grasp a few inches from where her wing must have been tucked behind her for the night, her eyes slowly met with his as a smile began to form across her mouth.
“Jim, good morning. What time is it?” Her whisper broke through her struggle to remain warm asleep.
“It’s about five, Cindy. I hate being awake so early, let alone waking you, but I needed to ask you, I just couldn’t wait.”
“What is it Jim?” He saw that she was resigning herself back to her mind unconscious in warmth from where he had pulled her forth, he tightened his hold on her shoulder ever-so slightly so as to keep her with him just a few moments longer.
“Cindy, my life has become worth living since the day I met you. Existence swirled inside my head and created the universe habitable by my person when first I shook your hand; so loudly did all creation seem to find purpose within me, that it took some time for me to believe myself anything but insane; the pathetic wretch I’d become accustom to existing as taking exception to having to vacate its terribly-too-familiar home. Years have I had to grow accustomed to my life having meaning in the face of infinite reality, years have I longed to express my gratitude that I can be happy to exist as a part integrated and useful in all that is. For years have I strove to make of myself someone you could be proud to know once I knew that I could not before, so fully had I taken my life for granted, my existence almost automatic without me. And whether my work has made of me a being that could reflect even a spark of the light that your beauty has brought to how I see myself and this world, I do not know. But what I do know is that so completely does the desire to express the joy in my heart you have brought to me wish to vacate my skin, that I thought it best to waken you and speak any of what I have become, for I do not believe that I can bear my own silence for much longer.”
Her eyes opened very slightly and she smiled at him. From under the covers one of her hands found his and squeezed it very gently for just a moment. “When I awaken,” her words spoken with the clarity of crystal dipped in honey from the back of her throat, “you will hear the echo of your voice envelop the whole of your reality such that you’ll never have the need to speak the joy in your heart again, for why would you attempt to describe the sound of silence when you find yourself enjoying its speech; why throw a piece of wood into a raging forest’s fire?” And with that, her eyes shut and his heart began to float forward, wondering how much longer he would watch her rest.
There’s, like, at least four different dimensions of different personal perceptions of love in this story. Maybe more. This shorty was a brain-cleaning if ever I had one.
Love Is A Four Letter Word
“Well it is!”
“Shall I lecture you again on the difference between connotation and denotation?”
“I think I speak for all of us when I say that you can keep your lecture to yourself.”
“There’s only the two of us here.”
“Yeah, I was speaking for you too.”
“Well, someone’s feeling their inner wise-ass today. And before you say it, I’m definitely talking about you. But seriously, did someone with a captivating smile just turn you down, or did you just feel the need to start counting how many letters there are in the first words coming into your mind?”
“Are you sure I’m the only one here named Alec? I could swear for a second there I just saw your pants get smarter. Anyway, I was just in the park reading a book, and a couple is walking toward me, holding hands, and then, just as they were right about in front of the bench I was sitting on, I hear their voices start to raise, they unclasp, and there they start a fight right in front of where I’m sittin’ tryin’ to read. I’d have politely excused myself, but if I had stood up, I literally would have had to stand into them; they were that close! So there I am listening to some nonsense about why she shouldn’t have spent so much on a skirt, and it just brought back all sorts of memories about our joyful childhood.”
“Yeah, I must admit, when mom and dad divorced, that may well have been one of the happiest days of my life. Second, that is, only to the day they stopped living in the same house. I love them individually, but put them in the same room, you might as well ask chlorine to marry ammonia.”
“This is what I’m sayin’. So, actually, I was almost thinking of asking this cute girl I work with out, but then I thought, of course of Bea–“
“Bea again? Dude! It’s been five years already. Cute girl at work sounds like a good idea!”
“Which is why I was thinking about it. But then I thought about how it was that before I met Bea they never thought I’d walk again. It’s kind of hard to escape the fact that I was able to wiggle my toes for the first time in my life right after admitting to myself I was falling in love with her. I mean, call me crazy . . . And that coupled with Fighty McGees’ this afternoon at the park. I’m motivated about now to walk over to you and exclaim from a plethora of unsettling emotion and recollection that love is a four-letter word, but I think that’s about as far as I can take love today, unless of course Bea decides suddenly to forgive me out of the blue for being crazy-stalker guy, and just today I can’t fathom holding my breath.”
“Pity she can’t see you as you are now, you’re almost tolerable.”
“Gee sis, thanks. So are you.”
“Really though, one way or another, you’re bound to find someone who can stand you.”
“I did find someone who could stand me; or rather, somehow enable me to stand . . . and walk. But given my history, it’s probably better for her to find me at this point. Anyway, I guess I’ll mull it over over a jog in the park; that way at least I won’t be trapped by any more couples calling their love in quotation marks the real thing.”
“Well, brother, I’ll tell you. You know what another four letter word is? Soul. And you’ve got plenty of it. One way or another, I promise you’ll do just fine for yourself.”
“Thank you, that’s very sweet. You know what another four letter word is? Four. And that. And yarn. I’ll be running along now. Love ya!”
Hi! I'm Tygarjas Twyrls Bigstyck. Currently the home of the long work in-progress "The Chronicles of the Angels of Eden." Prior to this, I wrote about a conception of divinity that might be helpful for those willing to think outside of organized religion, and subsequently a place for me to flex my creative muscles as I devoted a year of blogging to short fiction. Enjoy!
Tygarjas Twyrls Blog 