Month: September 2015

Walking slowly into the bus station Jeff reads every departure and arrival. Ahhh, a Houston bus has just arrived and an Oklahoma bus is just going. Are these people, all the people on the seats, are they all going to Oklahoma? Jeff sits down in the mangy interior, unfolds a newspaper with a brisk movement and sits in the waiting room. He doesn’t read any of the paper, in fact he’d already read it this morning. Rather, he’s reveling silently  inbetween places: here people come and people go, and here he can stay and watch all the goings on with a similar pleasure as watching ducks at the pond.

Smiling a softly sad smile, Jeff watches all the going on’s over his newspaper. Everyday after work for the last five years this has become his routine. He checks the schedule everyday as he walks in, and as of yet in the entirety of five years it has only had one major route change. That was an exciting day, to see the bus come that has never arrived here before, to see all the little ticks that the staff have trying to adjust to something new when happenings of the new are few and far between. Almost everyday there are buses that are late, and these always provide exciting times.

Once, a bus was two hours late, and for the entirety of it a woman with her two small children waited for her husband to arrive. As they first arrived the jubilee of buses arrival was radiating from the three of them. Soon daddy is home, soon my husband is home, soon, again, we will be a full household. The bus was two hours late. It had to have a driver change where the driver called off sick and no replacement was found in time. Two hours is not such a long time, but it is endless when you are feeling at the top of the world and trying to maintain that euphoria. It is beyond endless when you are with two small children. Jeff watched the time pass, watch as the goofy grins gradually left the children’s faces, replaced as the time passes between look of patience, impatience, annoyance, crankyiness and finally the very worst: unending boredom. At the beginning the children were on their best behavior, by the time the bus finally arrived with their father they’d become little nightmares, the mother exhausted by trying to keep them in line and when her husband finally arrives they all hug quietly without euphoria and coldly walk to the car. The wonder that had so much potential had been lost. Jeff silently wept in his own mind watching the whole opera. It had easily been one of the highlights of his year.

Jeff is somewhere in the middle ways, the sorry type of man that so easily gets lost in a society that only prizes the individual, the successful individual at that. Is there a point to summarizing a life in a sentence? Even the grandest life would seem truncated, empty, yet, we will try since to understand Jeff you need to have his context. His children have come and gone, a part of his life that at the time seemed like such a head ache but now he looks back as the happiest time of his life. He was not close to his children. He has been divorced for five years, around the same time his children moved away. It was a silent point of pride in his life that they stayed together through so much personal indifference to each other until his children became adults. Jeff was ok with his kids being so much more close to their mother then him, it just seemed like the natural order of things. Now, five days a week for fifty weeks a year he wakes up in his inpersonal condo, has a large cup of black coffee and goes to work as a car salesman.

Being a car salesman is hard work for beginners, however, Jeff was no beginner. He’d been in the industry for over thirty years and he’s made peace with the ebb and flow. On some days you make a sale, on most days you don’t. Most days were boring, sitting there always needing to be turned on, always watching, waiting, hunting, yet, it was just that, waiting.

There was a high burnout rate for the new guys,   you can watch them show up at the beginning eager, ready to make money. Then, watching as the smiles break, the hunger becomes cannibal: they have to make the sale, they need to eat, it’s a slow month, they have to have to have to. These new guys, they were like new farmers, thinking every month would be harvest time and never preparing for a dry spell. Well, dry spells happen, and they can break even the strongest. Jeff was friendly with the new guys, but he never became close, it can hurt your soul being near someone who is breaking, and many of these guys over weeks, months, even years, they break. For Jeff though, he was a veteran, he’d survived though sometimes he looks back with a grin and thinks all it cost him was his relationship with his children and his marriage. It’s a pretty ironic grin. Jeff had no secret in the industry but an easy smile, a professional manner and above all patience. A few years before he’d been watching a nature documentary and he saw a man fishing for wild salmon with his bare hands. The man would let dozens slip through his hand, not moving, barely breathing until BAM, suddenly, one that to an ordinary person would look the same as all the others to the hunter would look perfect and he would grab it perfectly, dinner would be had for the night. You don’t need so many salmon to feed a man, and you don’t need to sell so many cars to make a living, you just need to make sure that when the right one comes you get it.

While it never consciously crossed Jeff’s mind, he was purposeless. He’d accomplished those things that he was going to accomplish and now no one had a need for him anymore. Sure, this idea never consciously verbalized itself to Jeff, but if one was to watch him for any amount of time it would become very evident that he was aware of this fact. Even more, he seemed to be at peace, since for some having nothing to look forward too was a nightmare, but for Jeff it was wonderful: it meant nothing to fear. Everyday could be the same, it made no difference, the clock was ticking towards something, some type of end. Jeff was not a hunter, all of his bills were cared for , he was no artist. Simply, the world had no need for him and equally he had no need for the world.

Except, of course, for his daily trips to the bus terminal. Simply sitting there, sometimes in the same seat, sometimes sitting wherever there was many people, sometimes sitting away from the others.. Here, not at his home and not at his work, one gets the feel that Jeff is most alive. His head is like a young sparrows, flitting each and every way to see all the happenings. He loves it all, absorbs it all. Some people arriving just on time, some people arriving just late. Long, passionate goodbyes and cold cure get-away-from-me’s. With a child like glee he absorbs it all.

Perhaps Jeff subliminally accepted that the tree of his life was to bear no more fruit, however, this is not to say that there was no magic in witnessing the art of life being acted by others. Some might go to a restaurant, some a movie theatre, Jeff chose the bus station. A place where people come and go, a place that is always out of the routine, either the beginning or the end of a new chapter of life, something that Jeff had long lost the ability to imagine.

Sometimes Jeff thought of buying a ticket. Go to one of the clerks, all of who had long ago become used to his continues presence and finally go somewhere, anywhere. It was a nice fantasy. He thought that he wouldn’t tell anybody, just blitz off. At work he had years of unused vacation days prepared, he was sure that he could leave without a note and just tell his manager that there he had to leave immediately for personal reasons. Nobody else would really care. He could go on the bus without a suit case, get off on the other side and be whoever he wanted. New name if he wanted, but even more a new personality. He could be the joker, the romantic, the drunk, anything he wanted to be. While in Jeff’s secret heart he knew he would never leave, that he had made his bets in his life and now just had to play out his hand, nobody can blame a man for mindless fantasy. In fact, if only there was the ability to actually talk with Jeff, to tell him that ‘Yes,’ he really  can leave this life, he really can recreate himself, turn the vehicle of his life a new direction, a more honest direction. Life does not need to be measured by the route you have been on or the route you are going, everyone is the master of their own destiny. Jeff is the master of his own destiny.

However, it is Jeff’s life to live. He is happy, in a way that pleases him if perhaps it wouldn’t please everyone. Things are good, perhaps things aren’t great, but to have things be good isn’t something to be lightly sniffed at. Those few moments each day at the bus terminal is not the sign of a man wishing to escape, it is more a reflection of a man watching television, fantastizing about a story that he doesn’t need to live to love. Days pass, pass and pass. This is a life. It may even be a good life.

 

Placed just over the shoulder of our man, the man whose perspective will imbue this story with any poignancy it may transmit, we see him reenter the company of his fellow man after a long departure. Where was he? We don’t know. At this point, we don’t even know who he is, though we do hope to discover more about him very soon.

He is nonchalant, maybe even happy. You get the feeling that perhaps if no one was around he would be skipping and clipping his heals. Maybe this sense of exuberance is not as marked as it would immediately seem, since the utter despair firmly imprinted on the faces of all those people surrounding him sets a somber scene in which our protagonist is most definitely an outlier: a flash of color in a secondary corner of some monochrome scene.

Not noticing the melancholic sea he is lithely flying above, our man keeps making his merry way: even going so far as to be jubilantly tipping his hat to the elder women that he passes. Is he rude? I don’t think so. He seems to just be lost in his thoughts. However, his rapture does not exclude his merriment being noticeable by others, and there is a palpable feel of malcontent percolating through the crowd bordering our man.

Eventually, after one too many ‘hellos’ with a bit of a wink, an elder gentleman confronts our man. He asks why he is happy. In fact he goes “Why are you so happy?” Except he said it in a manner both more cutting and more formal.

Our man seems unperturbed, not thinking anything of this incursion into his privacy. Our man said something along the lines of he was happy just because it was a beautiful day, and in his opinion there was no reason to not be happy. He said that he hoped he hadn’t done anything to offend the elder gentleman.

The older gentleman was emotional. Restrained, yes, but more emotional then such a simple statement could propagate. He was mumbling those words to himself that our man had just recited: no reason not to be happy; no reason not to be happy; no reason not to be happy.

This scene is not a normal scene. There is something off that is not impossible to describe, but just difficult. The scene is normal, just an average street scene, likely on a weekday; the day is even wondrous for its summer charm: flowers blooming, blue skies, and that sublime smell of fresh cut grass. No, it is the people infecting this scene with a noxious air: a hollowness to their eyes, a leadenness to their step. They are broken. Standing side by side to our man, it is very much the difference between seeing Dorothy entering Oz for the first time, radiating color and playfulness, and beside her the bleakness of depression era Kansas bathed in black and white. Our man is alive, but no more alive than any other of that endless yet endlessly joyous breed of people. No, the problem is not in our mans joy, or even in the sourness of the crowd around him. No, it is  the fact that our man is the only joyous one. Where in the normal spectrum our man is represented by an entire range, here, in the spectrum of this crowd, that entire range is missing; all the shades that would normally be represented by this shade are missing too. There is an absence of joy, of even that which has one upon a time touched joy.

The elder gentleman is emotional. Our man is unhappy of causing this. Not unhappy as a person, or with himself, simply with this situation. The syntax of this story may become difficult. Our man tells the elder gentleman that his words mean nothing, that he was just joking around. Inside the head of our man there is confusion. He is unsure of what he said cause this drama, maybe there was an offhand remark that this elder gentleman is taking out of context, maybe there is some meaning to his words that he did not connote when he constructed the sentence. He wished to make it very clear that he wished nothing but good cheer, kindness and respect towards this elder gentleman, yet, much to our mans consternation, it seemed that the more he tried to communicate his kindness the more the elder gentleman became disconcerted. Finally, abruptly, the elder gentleman gathered control of himself. He looked our man right in the eye, and said a thanks for the kindness, but that the kindness was undeserved. Then, he said something startling, that he, our elder gentleman, did not deserve any such kindness. And that he would have thought by this late date that our man would have realized the futility of expressing such empty kindnesses. Then, after a balefully remorseful glare, the elder gentleman turned on heal, perhaps he was once in the military, and paraded in the crowd.

Releasing a general sigh of relief, the crowd feeling that this anomaly that had broken its immersion has been exterminated carried back along with the busy nothing of living a life one responsibility at a time. However, the equilibrium was still perturbed: where before it was our mans exuberance disturbing the crowd, now it was the crowds complacency towards the bizarre scene with the elder gentleman that was perturbing our man. He was standing still, where the old man left him. He was not in shock, but rather seemed to be replaying the preceding scene in his mind, trying to put a puzzle together that he was not sure he had all the pieces too. Why had the man said he did not deserve kindness? Why had he questioned the sincerity of his remarks? His confusion was radiating into the crowd, subliminally attempting to catch the help of another, but now that our mans anomalous character had been checked it seemed that the crowd had stonewalled his existence.

He continued walking. The farther he went, the stranger the world. People were universally dismal, this he now noticed, and the air of despair was trying to invade his soul. His genuine good cheer was still strong, keeping the melancholy at bay, yet he was now conscious of the lack of a resonance similar to his own in the wake of his walk. Where was the happiness, where was the exuberance of life that need not be universal but one would hope may make a butterfly out of another kindred soul in all of this. Answers flooded our mans mind: maybe there was a loss of a particularly hoped for sporting event, perhaps there had been the death of some famous personage. Our man was aware that he had been away from society for some time. The world can change.

An easy solution could of course rectify this entire confusion! And our man, brave in ways such as this, bit back the bile that all brave men fight through and blatantly fished for the eyes of a casual walker by. He made his stare unavoidable; he was ignored. Then, he was even more brave and lightly touched the sleeve of a young girl walking by. She had large innocent eyes. They caught his, and she was his, though one wonders to what extent this casual engagement was a breach of some subliminal social etiquette. Was our man a bad man maybe whispers through our mind. After all, we do not know him well yet, and watching a happy man be happy gives little insight into the sort of things that might supply his pleasure. We all have our secrets, and we will let our man have his for now. But right now, we must deal with this young girl. If it makes a difference she is lovely, as only the almost full bloomed flower can be. Let’s get to her. Let’s stop keeping our man and this young girl waiting.

“What has happened to make everyone sad, to make the world grey on such a sunny day?” Our man asked with his eyes while phonetically inquiring if this young girl knew the way to a certain park that I’m not sure existed. Our girl looked at her feet and said some response that may have been a truth to one or both of the answers, yet, was tragically so soft the words were lost even before they left her lips, let alone before they travelled through that treacherous void of space and entered our mans ear. He of course said “pardon” except he didn’t. He saw a scene, a scene I have no problem admitting I have never seen, one which our man could not ignore, and which this young girl could not pass off with a mumbled breath either.

The scene was this, or close to this. Our man and this young girl had come to a busy intersection with some form of parade on it. Bisecting our mans street, the multitude of the parade like gathering marched perpendicularly in front of them. Maybe I can give this scene a color: it is green. Does that make a difference? The parade is ramshackle, like that which suddenly apparates around the murdered body of an innocent in war. Indeed, there was even a body at the centre of this beast, yet instead of worshiping the fear of death, it was a newborn in a hamper who was being deified. Wearing pink swaddling clothes and a blue bonnet the newborn was wailing loudly for a mother who was far away or refusing to gift comfort. The crowd walked with the enfant lacked boisterousness; rather, this was a parade with a serious agenda: a parade that meant something to each of its participants. The seriousness of this scene was undeniable. People coming from our mans street had fixated gazes to the innocent wailing child. Many persons consciously joined the throng and others or were so lost in the sight of the enfant that unaware of the motivations of their feet became active participants to the parade. This scene meant something.

Our man watched the unfolding with a sense of wonder entirely different then the cultish worship that everyone else bestowed upon the scene. He did not join the adoring throngs, nor did he stare captivated and lost at the scene; rather, he went back to looking at this young girl, who was staring at our young man with a questioning gaze which implied something which this narrator at this point is unable to communicate.

She gave him a look questioning his confusion. He gave her a look of questioning, and made a motion to touch this young girls hand before shying away. She asked him in no certain terms why was he so confused. He answered in very confused terms that he was nothing but confused, and suggested by the terms that reality was constructed in his interpretation of the world anybody would be confused. He also added that he had not been in society for a few days, and he mentioned this particularly thorny subject in a manner which would not suggest anything but a plausible excuse for the normalized chaos confronting him.

This girl looked at our man with those large eyes, those eyes that were undergoing a sea change from hostility and questioning to one of understanding. She said, “oh” and that the last few days were transformational in the world, that she did not know where to begin, did not know if she was the right person to even begin telling our man of the devilry that had saturated the world in recent days. But, she said, she would do her best. She took a breath, rubbed, her elbow, fidgeted for a microsecond. Then, she met our mans eyes, asked him to give her time to give a story known to the universe but not to our man in a manner uninterrupted, then, upon an accepting nod from our man she began a recital which I don’t think our man broke once. However, for clarification of scene, they did gradually drift to a spot more off the street from where their conversation was initially instigated.

“I was walking down the street, six days ago. Well, and this sounds stupid, but, well, it is not stupid, it is what happened. Rapture. Yes, like in the Christian bible. No, please, don’t look cynical, I am not reciting to you any of my beliefs, simple the reality of what has happened. You see that the world is different: think that I am joking? Ask any of these others if my words are true. Please, if you want the truth, trust me, I am no liar, no matter what sins I have committed. Rapture happened. I was walking down the street when suddenly, just like the evangelicals prophesied, certain people walking past me on the road began to levitate. A light imbued them much like they were a mild sun sprouting rays in all directions. Suddenly, with a noise like a mixture of an amen and a thunderclap, various people were being awarded haloes. There was no question that this could be anything but rapture: the bringing to heaven of the worthy by a just god in the last days. I was..I was not an unbeliever, yet, there was no doubt that the beliefs I held were wrong, that all the other religions were wrong, that science was wrong: just like the depictions in those stained glass windows that you have seen in every church, or on so many cheap postcards, here was the reality. Cynicism be damned, it was just like the sermons promised”

“Myself, I have considered myself to have lived a good life. I was by no means perfect, but I believe that I lived a fruitful life, the sort of life that the secret god of my heart that I prayed to would have thought valid, valuable, and soulful. During rapture, people were not ascending simultaneously. Rather, there were gaps between some and others. Maybe there was some hierarchical list to which some angel was calling in descending order. I waited, thinking I would be called. I watched many around me both ascend, and wait for ascension. Many times I thought the light had chosen me, that the thunderclap of amen had spoken for me, and I would look above my head to see that there was no halo and look below to see that I was not levitating. I waited in this state of frantic anticipation for a substantial amount of time, until much like one cannot ignore the rise of the sun once it has reached noon I had to acknowledge that I was not one of the chosen. The knighting  had stopped hours ago. There was still a multitude, truly, a vast majority of us non alighted standing on the street. Some of us collapsed on the street. Some of us cried. Some of us continued standing, waiting for something that was emphatically not coming. Me, myself, I just stood staring. I may have cried, or I may have smiled, I don’t know, but what I do know is that the thought so firmly entrapped in my skull was ‘what did I do wrong? Why was I not one of the chosen? How did any god see me as a sinner? What did I do wrong? Had I not lived a good life?’ My brain was flooding, weeping, transforming. Yes, I am speaking incoherently, but please understand that I have not shared this with anyone. I wish I had not shared it with you, it burns me so deeply; but the words have been said and I want to follow them through. You see, what the truth is that I am a sinner. I am a sinner. I have had the examination of my life marked. It did not suffice. I am a bad woman, a monster in the eyes of the creator whom irrefutably exists. I am a monster. That despair you feel weighing in the air is the acknowledgment sprouting from all of us left behind that yes: we are all sinners. And you, my friend, the one we’ve decided to call ‘our man’ you are a sinner too. You are still here, yes? Let your jubilation be finished. Appreciate the despair that is within the rest of us left, your fellow sinners. You have failed. You did not pass gods tests. You are a sinner, hated by god, doomed to whatever truth there is to the wretched idea of hell. Join us all, waiting to discover hell, realizing wretchedly that if god has taken those he loves to heaven, then what has he for his unchosen?” And this girl was stammering, speaking faster, impassioned, even gesticulating with a infusion of drama which was of an entirely different tone of the bright joyfulness of our man and the drab grayness of the other.

Brightness still infused our man. The wretched news of this girl entered his heart, yet for reasons as of yet he could not communicate he did not feel the self abhorrence that was clearly the dutifully directed point of this girl. They stared at each other for some moments, short or long in time not meaningful because it lasted just the length of time that it needed to, this girl bug eyed trying to break the news of our mans sinning nature, and, then, our man staring balefully at this girl with eyes that were very emphatically devoid of the despair which this girl very much thought would fill our man. What was there in his eyes? I don’t know yet, am not even sure if they really contained anything, maybe the news had so surely shattered the man that there was nothing, just the screen saver of that joy that so recently permeated them laying an opaque screen disguising the vast tracts of nothing that this news had decimated our mans mind into. Yet, this was not the case. No. No what was here, or there, time slipping in such an ephemeral pace that what is and what was is difficult to grab a hold to, no, what was there in our mans eyes was something that this girl did not expect to see: continued joy. You could still say that if he was moving, alone, that he might be skipping: maybe even clicking his heels.

How could this be? It was a question that clearly confused this girl, clearly confused myself your narrator, and indeed even confused our man. He was standing being thoughtful. The thoughts behind his eyes I wish I could jump into but their current was running so fast that it would be dangerous to jump in mid process: who knows what mental rocks might be exposed, what mistruths might be realized passing by at such speeds. No, we must wait for our man to come to certain epiphanies, to show himself in his dynamism in his ability to change in front our eyes, or even more truthfully to remain static, to retain that awe filled merriment that resonates in his every step: to communicate the joys of his existence despite the harrowing despair that sought to invade his heart.

He said to this girl that he was not an evil man. He said that confusion filled him, yes, but that he still loved himself. That in the litany of his life, he did not know what he would change to more assuage a god that clearly deemed him unworthy. He admitted the acknowledgement that he shared the pain of his fellow men, that he felt a vacancy through his mind that some higher power had not chosen him, had watched him emphatically doing his best to live a life that he would classify as beautiful and deemed his efforts unworthy. Yet, still, again, this perversion had not pervaded his heart.

“How?” asked this girl. And again our man was silent. The answer was not given to our man, just the confidence in the eventual righteousness of whatever that answer is. Our man tried anyway. “I once watched a young boy on glue trip over his own drunken feet, hit his head on the tumble down and lie there immobile, maybe dead, maybe fine. I looked at him, wept in my heart, walked on without helping him, without looking back. I make no claim to be anything but a sinner. My life is littered with moments where I look back and self-loathe the demagogue that I was. What I proclaim is happiness, not that happiness of a sadist who takes pleasure in his own maliciousness, but rather that of the ambitious man, the sort of man who understands the limits of life: that one has to take chances: to roll the dice, and appreciate and deal with the absolute eventuality that mistakes will be made. I was ambitious. I climbed mountains from whose summits I could not see any land that I knew, but rather made my way just following my feet and the survival skills inherent to my humanity. I was told the way of the lord. I knowingly deviated from it. I supposed my punishment is at hand. But so what? I did not spend my life enthralled to the mantras of others, repeating words, actions, and days in the service of the already discovered, the already experienced. I believe that those people lifted up into rapture are happy, but their happiness is very different from that which infuses me. I know no fright of the hell which you proclaim is before me: I greet its eventuality with the same moderate curiosity that I would greet that heaven which was not gifted to me, or to the turning to dust which I thought was my eventuality. Will they torture me with pain? Is that the fear of a hell, pain? I will master pain with the same curiosity I would ponder a fresh summer day. I am my own master, I am no slave to god even if he is the true god. Death provides me no fear, life provides me no fear. The only thing I fear is not being true to myself. Of compromising those axioms through which I live my life by trying to conform to some system which does not have the ring of truth sing sweetly in my ears. The others were right in their beliefs? Yes, they were risen. But so what? Eternal life and the pearly gates of heaven to me seem a poor reward to not appreciate that we were in heaven anyway, an ability to live in the infinite moment and appreciate the visual splendor of light playing off a poorly painted wall. Maybe these people will find the meaning to life in their immortal incarnation, but, I pity them. Pity those days on earth where they lived for the glories that they have now attained rather than those glories which were before them. I lived my life true. I will continue to live my life true. I am at peace, much like a mountain, star or running stream: those forces of nature which do not operate in the hope of some different life but rather operate with the same intensity, day in, day out, until their existence in their present form no longer exists. Upon my death regardless of where my soul goes I will be forever happy thinking that those molecules that once created my flesh will now be a part of some different mountain, some faraway star, some young bubbling stream. I care not what is the reality, all I care is what I make out of my perception of reality, and under the guise that I am true to myself I will be forever in praise of the wonders of life. Yes, I have sinned in the Christian sense, walked past that poor boy who tumbled. You don’t think his fate has filled my mind, those others sorrows that buffet me every day: but I have chosen a higher morality then that of the eternal gods: I have chosen the way of compromise, the undeniable infinite of shades grays. That tumbled boy an equation whose eventual causality I could not encompass, and I made the cynically realistic choice to avoid the situation: a choice I live with, though now I believe it may have been the wrong choice. Life is full of mistakes. To me, it is not the avoidance of mistakes that is the witness to a holy life, but, rather, it is how we interact with our mistakes, learn from them, learn to be their masters and finally, to rise above them. These men, surrounding us with their despair, they are not sad because they were not brought to revelation but rather because in their hearts they feel like they were caught. They thought they could keep secret those deviances in their hearts and are depressed that god has found them out. Myself, god has seen me as unworthy, but I showed him with honesty everything that makes me, me. To hell with a god that loves me not! I love me. I would argue with god in every decision I have made, in all their vast complexities, and I believe I could prove in every case that I took the course most honorable, one not filled with the laziness of not attempting to tackle the complexities of life nor one defined by a fear of misstep. I have misstepped; I have gone astray; but at least I attempted to walk towards something magnificent. Judge me as you will, girl, your insight just as important as any gods. Just as likely to make me question myself, just as I believe in the strength of my own position being able to carry me through the harrow of your contempt no matter your loathing of me.”

Well, that was long, neurotic, and not overly cohesive. Clearly the reality of a pure thought passing through the killing fields of verbal expression. But still, if perhaps those words meant nothing concrete the impassioned tone and fiery eyes spoke their own language with this girl. She looked at him while he talked, saying nothing but never looking away from his face, his eyes. Both of them were as rocks in the flowing river of the malcontents flowing around them, that malcontent threatening at any moment to break both their spirits: our mans spirit being tested in its virtuousness as never before and this girls spirit having a flower bulb so ready to bloom, just needing respite a little longer, a few more moments of sunshine on a quickly fading day.

She told him that his words did not make sense, that she disagreed with him and that he was in denial. She said this while staring down, staring to the left, staring to the right. Human weakness, it is how we know there is no true god no matter what he who lives in heaven might proclaim: weakness pervades our souls so deeply that there is no way it can be separated from the model that gave us genesis. Pervades us so deeply that those who claim to holiness are doing nothing but hiding a truth, shying away from honesty. Monsters, all of us: can we not accept it, make peace with it. This girl, she took a step back from our man. Said she was sorry to be the one to carry to our man such unfortunate tidings: she looked him right in the eyes, rainbows sprouting from her sad gaze, eyes that showed a luminosity which was always there and would, we hope, always be there. Then, she slipped into that quiet river of despair floating around the quickly disappearing island of their conversation. She was gone with such an abruptness that our man did not think to reel her in, to thank her, to do something incorrigibly human that would make him exist in her heart as anything but a moment in a day which was quickly fading from her conscious mind and, even that of her subconscious mind. These two had shared something palpable, but no more palpable then those interactions undergone thousands of times in a life that we ignore. Those little resonances that are the answer to the true holiness which our man proclaimed to adhere to.

Our man stood in the street without that girl for a few moments. His face underwent a certain number of facial expressions but none of them extreme. Then, in the face of glowering humanity and mournful gods our man continued walking down the street. Continued looking like if there were no others around he would be skipping, even clicking his heels. Continued trying with all the power of those infinite universes which constructed the vast labyrinth of his existence to live life as truly as he was capable.

Well Miss Pouwer, I’m in a bit of a pickle. I’m in the mood to write you a letter but I just talked to you on the phone. I was thinking I could just fill up the piece of paper, talking just for the pleasure of talking, then I thought instead hey: maybe I can kill two birds with one stone. I wanted to write this little story I remember from India and maybe I’ll write it for you. I think India meant something special for both of us, maybe you’ll feel the emotion I put behind the words, even if I don’t get them out properly.

Let’s start then. Let’s introduce out protagonist and hero, the one and only Barrett Nash. He’s got a funny hair cut an easy smile and is searching for something that he’s not totally sure he’ll find. In this story let’s have him go by his first name, Barrett, because things are a little different here than in reality. Maybe I don’t remember things perfectly, maybe I want to make some small changes. Should we do past or present tense? How about past tense? OK, good. Onward.

The scene, the scene! It’s an Indian train. You know it don’t you? A thousand people, all eyes on you, your eyes on one of the million sights fighting for your eyes attention. Barrett was just sitting looking out the window. He’s got a book, a computer, a phone, an ipod and a tablet with him but he just stares out the window. Maybe the best time to think is when you have nothing to think about and Barrett is just letting his thoughts flow. He’s been doing this for I swear to god thirty hours already, while the train is a crazy 54 hour trip.

So far it has been pretty good. There was that group of Jain women that invited him to take dinner with them, very nice food though Barrett isn’t sure how he feels about being fed by a stranger as if he was three years old. There was that old man who didn’t speak a word of English, but his eyes danced as he gave Barrett a shaving of a nut he was peeling. His eyes roared with amusement and good cheer when that nut froze Barrett’s tongue and conquered his brain for a few minutes. What was that nut? Who was that man? Was it a good thing the man gave Barrett the nut? This story isn’t about the nut. It’s not about the family that he watched a Salman Khan movie about. No, this story is going to be about the men who sweep the floors.

I wonder if you’ve seen them, these men who clean the floors? Sometimes I feel like I’m blind to a lot of the bad in the world, I look over it unconsciously just wanting the world to be perfect. Then, these men, these untouchable dalits, they try to disappear as well don’t they? You remember my apartment in Udaipur, there was half a dozen dalits working there. They cleaned my room every day, yet, I never saw them. I never learned their names. They break my heart. People lower then dogs, sinners in a past life spending their entire accursed existence atoning for something that they didn’t even do in this life. Life should have hope, life should have opportunity, what a tragedy for these people to live life’s where they feel compelled to suffer, to be shit, to be less than shit. The train cleaners are these type of people, not the hardest lives, India doesn’t let it’s foreigners see the true bottom, but not the top dalits either. Usually they are old mean, pulling themselves on hands and knee as the scrape with their bare hands the garbage, waste and general gross shit heaped on the floor without regard by the very friendly and very blind Indian masses. The well off of these sweepers might have a little skateboard they’ll drag themselves on, most just drag themelves, skin against the floor, day in and day out. This is their life, this is what they do, this is their livelihood. After digging into every corner they humbly put their hand out, not meeting any eyes, hoping for a rupee or two. They usually get that, I suppose it’s enough to not starve on. That means something, I guess.

This trip Barrett was on was long enough to need to be swept three times at the point this story starts at. It was always an old man, ageless in his wizened feautures, maybe 90, maybe 50 and broken. Barrett doesn’t know if it was the same man each time, he can’t remember. I’m going to move to the present tense, it just feels more natural for me right now. The train cleaner is coming again, dragging himself, his darkened back shirtless. Barrett see’s that he’s coming, feels in his pocket for a few rupees and gets a little tip ready. He just wants to get back to starting out the window, get back to fantasizing and dreaming. The old man crawls through the compartment, comes to clean underneath Barrett’s legs, looks up at Barrett and shit, it’s not the old man. It’s just a boy. Maybe he’s fourteen, he can’t be older.

Well, let’s say this just kind of breaks Barrett’s heart right now. There are so many hard scenes in the world, yet, you build a wall, you build emotional calluses, there is too much pain in the world to let every scream pierce your serenity. This, however, is unexpected. A punch to the kidneys from behind. Just a young boy whose life flashes before Barrett’s eyes. This young boy will become one of those old men. He will spend his life crawling on the floor of trains, dragging himself. He will know the careless feet of people forever better than he will know even his lovers eyes. This is not a life Barrett would wish on anyone. And he is a child. He should be free, he should be playing video games, fantasizing about girls, getting into trouble. “The world is unfair, yeah, of course, but fuck, couldn’t it be just a little more fair,” is what Barrett is thinking.

He gives the boy the few rupees, he gives a smile that maybe still has a splash of innocence in it, then he carries onto cleaning the next compartment. And the compartment after that. Barrett looks back out the window, but his mind can’t stop thinking about the boy. He wants to save him, to take his suffering away, to change his life, to give him hope, to give him happiness. He thinks, “How dare I have so much when he has so little,” but Barrett, well, he’d tell you to your face that he’s a cynic. He cynically thinks that to change a life is not as easy as a lot of people would want to think. Maybe there’s something to that Chinese idea that when you save a life you are responsible for it, to change someones world is never something that should be done casually. Yet, today, Barrett’s icy cynicism melts under his anger at the unfairness of the boys life. “Fuck it,” he figures. He’s not going to change the boys life, but, just maybe, he can give him a little something. He can give him a little bit of money, not much, not even enough to throw his budget off for the day, but enough that the boy would think it special. Enough so that even if his life wasn’t changed, at least he might be able to have a fun day or two just to be a kid. Enough so that maybe he’d realize that there can be some good and good luck in the world.

Wrapping the notes in a piece of paper to disguise them, since people are evil everywhere and would think nothing of robbing a penniless dalit slave boy, Barrett chases down the boy. Without looking into his eyes he gives the boy the money, nods his head with the faintest splash of a smile, then goes back to his chair. He’s no happier, his heart is no more at ease. He wonders if he gave the boy money just to hide his own guilt. He doesn’t know. A shot of whiskey would be nice for times like this. He wrote a poem, maybe I’ll try to find it and put it at the end of this story.

Time goes on. Some people heart that Barrett gave the boy some money. He eyes them with a ‘who the fuck are you’ stare and tells them that it was his money and he can do what he likes with it. No one supports him for doing it, someone tells him to never do that again. This is how the heart builds its calluses. Time goes on. More hours unravel. Does the boy leave Barrett’s heart? No, but it is fading away into another color that builds the spectrum of his life, the immediate shock and pain fading away in that dirgeful symphony that fills Barrett’s mind through his waking life. He is enjoying the train ride.

After about another five hours of looking out the window, wondering how a billion people can live in the land on the other side of this glass, a man comes up to Barrett. He has the demeanor of importance, you can tell that he is used to being listened to. He says commandingly” Are you the foreigner who gave that boy all that money?” Barrett thinks this is just another person trying to butt into his business, then he sees the insignia that makes this man recognizable. He is the conductor of the train. Barrett says yes, he is the one that gave him the money. The conductor says, “That boy was bragging to other people. Word got around that he had all that money in his pocket and some men beat that boy up and threw him off the train.” The only word that Barrett gets out is, “Oh” and there is no sympathy in the conductors eyes for the pain in Barrett’s. He says to Barrett, “Don’t worry I have taken care of it. Don’t ever do something like that again” Then he marches off. What does ‘he will take care of it’ mean if the boy has been thrown off the train? There is a breaking in Barrett’s heart. There is another callous made. There is a certain amount of his faith in the goodness of the world taken away. There is a sadness that buries itself deeply that will not be forgotten. Then, with eyes that refuse the tears that the heart begs from them, he stares back out the window and carries on watch the unfair world unravel in front of his eyes.

This coffee tastes like shit. Why do I feel like I need to buy a coffee to stay in a coffee shop? I should have just bought a juice, I even saw bananas by the till. I would love a banana, when was the last time I had fruit? Could I feel like I could work for a few hours here with just a banana though? Would people look at me and judge me? It’s not so busy here but it is a money making establishment. What’s a banana cost, a dollar? Maybe nobody cares, maybe nobody thinks about things like this, or if they do they only focus on themselves. I’m not looking around at other people, wondering it they have earned their place to stay in this coffee shop. Still. Buying a coffee in a coffee shop, I guess it just makes a certain sense. “Hey everybody, look at me, this is a coffee shop and here is my coffee. I’m doing exactly what I’m supposed to do here. So fuck off.” Yeah, I guess that works.

Ughhh. What am I supposed to do. I’m just not in a working mood. Ughhh. My head hurts just looking at this excel worksheet. Come on brain, start. Let’s go. Ok, so let me get my set of raw data from last month and compare it to last month and last years. I’m sure there’s growth, we’re making a good profit, why do we care? Does my partners even care? I sit here for hours and it looks pretty and there are these lines going in all the right directions, but is it just an ego boost for my partners? No, I think the physical affirmation means something. I’m just feeling lazy. Maybe it’s good I have this coffee, maybe it’ll jump start my brain a bit.

My eyes keep drifting around the room. Come on. Come on. Time slips away. How long have I been here. I haven’t done anything yet. I just want to daydream and float. I just want to put my laptop in my bag and put on a pair of head phones and drift through the streets, disappearing in my mind. Yeah, that sounds nice. Let me be free. Let me be free. But, I’m not free. I said I’d do this. What am I if I’m not my word. Eyes stop drifting.

Who is this girl that just sat down next to me? She just has a banana, good for her. I should do that next time. I should be more healthy. I should be better than myself. My eyes creep up from the banana to her hands. Why do girls always have such elegant hands? As if they were designed to play the piano. How stupid that we shove cocks in their hands when they should be making art? But maybe that’s why it’s so nice, their delicacy compared to all our brusqueness. She has a nice black nail polish on. Is she a punk? Nah, let me flash a quick look, no, definitely not. I guess wearing black nail polish isn’t the major stigma it used to be. Besides, she’s brave enough to buy a banana and take a table at a coffee shop, maybe she just doesn’t give a shit, maybe she is just herself.

She’s cute. How am I supposed to do work when there’s this cute girl next to me? What’s she doing? She’s got her computer out too! With only buying a banana? Is that really fair. I wonder if anyone will say anything. I wonder what her voice sounds like. I wonder what she dreams about. She really is cute. Look at her, staring at her computer, so determined. Is that a condescending thought? I wonder if I’m sexist. Whatever, the world is more complex than the words we associate with it. I don’t look down on her or anyone, isn’t that what sexism is? No, I suppose it’s not. I don’t really feel like thinking about it right now. I think I’m just going to keep looking at this girl out of the corner of my eye. Let me enjoy her beauty like a flower. If only I could smell her. If only I could be close to her. Do I want to fuck her? Maybe. I think I would rather wake up with her. Am I lonely? When is the last time I woke up and had another human being, eyes wide and beautiful and brown, are these girls eyes brown, waking up and being stared at. Just quiet, not a big deal, but having someone stare at me. Makes me feel real. See that look that they really see you. To wake up feeling close to something, to someone. Is that love? I don’t think I’ve ever known love, but maybe that’s a type of love that means something to me. Spare me all this bullshit about lightning bolts, I just want to feel close to someone. I want someone to feel close to me. To make each other be real. To be close. To be able to reach out to another human being and touch them. To be touched by another human being.

Her hair is short. I love short hair. I love the feeling of putting my hand around their neck and feeling their bare skin. To run my thumb up and down and to stare at those brown eyes again. To be close. I would like to be close. When was the last time I was close with someone? When did Stacy and I break up? She was beautiful, for awhile there we really made each other exist. I wonder how that feeling disappears without you even really noticing it. Is love like a bottle of wine, when you finish drinking it there is no more, it’s just empty, what was there is now gone? I wonder. I wonder if I will ever fall in real love. I wonder if real love really exists.

I should be working. This work isn’t going to do itself. Do I have time to complete it still? Yes, but it will be a rush. Fuck. This is just one thing on my to-do list anyway. I wish I could catch up. There are all these responsibilities. I want to be better than I am, I wish I was better than I am, I will be better than I am. I will be, I will be. I can achieve my dreams. And here I just spent ten minutes thinking about this girl. Maybe love is like a bottle of wine, but so is life. Maybe I could share this finite resource that is myself with all these different specters that I dream about. Give some of the nectar of my soul to love, give some to myself, give some to living a meaningful life. Then, maybe there is just not enough of me to go around. To dilute myself means that I will never actually use that potential that I have. Everyone would be drinking, but no one would be getting drunk on the magic of myself. Sorry to the pretty lady and sorry to myself, I need to be committed. I need to think about nothing but work. I need to be better than this time I am spending thinking right now. Let me dive into this spread sheet. Maybe this is not the only way to live a meaningful life, maybe this is not even the life I want to live, but this is the life I have committed too and I will not back down. Back to work.

Besides, she probably has a boyfriend anyway.

Today I am fast. I can go faster than anybody. I wish Tommy could see me go this fast. What if he could run faster than me. Where is Tommy? What did mommy say he had to do? I wish he was here to play with. I hope he’s not doing something secret that I’m not allowed to do. If he doesn’t want to play with me I will tell mommy and she will yell at him. He has to play with me. I bet that I am faster than Tommy today. He is bigger than me but I am growing faster. Mommy says if I eat my broccoli I will become big and I eat more broccoli than Tommy. I should time myself with a watch and see how fast I am. I have a watch somewhere, I wonder where it is? Maybe I should time myself, then have Tommy do the same run and not tell him that I am timing him because I would be timing him secretly. Then, I would know if I am faster and if I am I could tell him “Tommy I did this faster than you.” and he would turn pink and know that I am better than him. I wonder if I ran fast enough if I could fly? That would be so scary but maybe I would be the first person to do it and I would be famous like Einstein and mommy and daddy would watch me flying and the entire world would think I was so great and I would be a famous celebrity. Let me try running even faster.

Zoooooooooom. Zoooooooooooom. I like to make that noise and flap my arms like an airplane. Zoooooooooooooooom. I like how it feels on my arms as I run, the wind, I feel like I’m close to flying. If I could go faster. I could go over the fence, I would look down on the apple tree, I would see mommy through the skylight and she would look up at me and Tommy would join her and his face would turn pink and mommy wouldn’t say anything mean but Tommy would know she wanted to know why Tommy couldn’t fly.

My backyard is so big. It’s one of the biggest in my class. James says his is bigger but I counted my yard all the way around with my feet, then at James birthday I did the same to his and mine was wayyyy bigger. He called me a liar but he’s the liar. He’s just jealous. Mommy says that jealousy is a sin so I bet James goes to hell and he will burn there. Zoom. I wish Tommy would come out and play. I’d like to fight him. He always beats me but one day I am sure I will beat him. I eat broccoli even when mommy says I don’t need to. I am going to be the biggest baddest boy in the school. All the big kids are going to look at me and think “Wow, this guy is scary.” And then they will be scared of me and they

“Mhwarellllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll”

What’s that noise? I didn’t make that noise? Oh no! What could it be. The backyard is safe, daddy built the big fence, he says nothing bad can happen here.

“Mhwarekkkkkkkkkkkkkk”

I don’t like that noise. I don’t like it, I don’t like it, I don’t like. Let me run home into my bedroom and watch television I don’t want to play our here any longer I’m tired.

“Mhwarekkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkl.”

Oh no the noise is close and I don’t want to know what it is but I see it and oh it is nothing scary it is just a tiny puppy. Oh it is ugly. It has no hair. It is gross. I don’t want to look at it. All the girls in my class would be so scared of it. I could put it in Missy’s desk and she would scream and everyone would laugh. I don’t want to touch it though, it looks icky. It’s pink like a valentine’s day card. Good thing Tommy isn’t here, he’d make me touch it and laugh and I would hit him and hurt him and then mommy would be mad and I would be in trouble and wouldn’t get to watch my TV.

The puppy is not scary anymore. Now that I know what makes the noise is just the little puppy the noise is not scary anymore. It is funny! “Mhwareheeeeeeeeeee” hahahahaha, it sounds like a fart hahahaha. I can make the noise too. “Mhwareeeeeeeeeeee.” Hahahaha.

Why is this puppy so ugly? I get my eyes as close to it as I can. My nose is almost touching it but I don’t want to touch it, it looks icky. It’s so small. Maybe it is a baby? I wonder why it has no hair? I have seen puppies before and wanted them but I don’t want this one because it is so ugly. I would any use this one to make hilarious jokes with, like “Hey Missy you know what your face look like, it looks like this dog.” That would be so funny even the teacher would laugh.

Why is it making that noise? I wonder if maybe I get a stick and poke the puppy if it will still make that noise. Where is a stick. Here is a stick. Oh it’s a good one, strong and long. I can poke it from a far distance. Not because I’m scared because I’m not but maybe the little puppy will transform into a big dog or a monster and I need to be smart like daddy always says. I poke it in the side, right in the middle and it makes an even louder noise. This is really funny. I poke it again and again and again and each time I do a little harder to see what the noise will be like. Haha. It is becoming quieter now each time I poke it and I don’t like that. Even when I poke it as hard as I can it doesn’t go louder anymore. The puppy is stupid. Now it’s not making any noise. Why isn’t it making any noise? Oh no what if it died? Oh no oh no oh no oh no. Mommy would be so mad at me. Even though I didn’t do anything wrong she would think because I was poking it with this big stick that it was my fault and I’d be in trouble and Tommy would laugh at me. He would tell everybody in school that I killed a puppy dog and everyone would laugh at me. Oh no oh no oh no.

What do I do? I wish I was strong enough to lift a big rock off the ground and put it on the puppy so it would be hidden and I could watch it become all gooey. But I’m not strong enough yet to do that. What do I do. I don’t want to get into trouble. I will pick him up with the stick yes and I will hide him over here on the other side of the yard where no one goes. Let me dig a hole for him and put him in here. That’s good. No one will find him here. Let me go back to running, playing with this puppy is boring.

 

“Hey you fat fuck get out of the way. The streets supposed to have room for more than one elephant.”

Oh who said that? Who the fuck said that? I stop and I look around blood rushing to my face just in anger, just in anger. Oh I want to kill that little asshole. How dare a person say something like that to another human being? Sure I’m fat, but does that make me less human?

I spot the little creep that shouted at me. He has a mischievous look in his eyes. My heart drops. Who am I fooling? What am I going to do, eat him? He sees both my rage and its fading away. There’s no one else around, maybe he gets a kick out of picking on the vulnerable.

“Hey mother fucker, when you eat Christmas dinner, do you get a turkey to yourself? I bet you do! I bet your mother is fucking fat, and your father is fucking fat, and all your brothers and sisters are, and you all have your own turkey. People like you make me sick. Pigs. You’re what’s wrong with our country. You’re why the Chinese are winning.”

I keep walking. I stare at the ground. He’s shadowing me. Why would one person intentionally be cruel to another person? What have I ever done to this man? Doesn’t he know how much it hurts to be this fat? That every day the first thing I think when I wake up is how much I hate myself for being like this. Is this voluntary? Yeah, people like this always tell you to go hit the gym, get life sorted out, but it’s not so simple. They make it seem like we don’t try. All I do in my life is try to not be this disgusting blob that I am and it doesn’t make any difference. I hate myself. I hate myself. I hate myself.

“Oh, don’t want to lose some calories by talking back to me? I understand, wouldn’t want you to waste away to nothing. Oh ho! You really are something. You really are something.”

He turns to go away and I feel so good to be left alone. I should shout something out after him. I should tell him how evil he is. I should call him on his arrogance. But why would he listen to some fat piece of shit like me? Why would anyone listen to me? Let me just get out of here.

It’s a sunny day and there is no city in the entire world as beautiful as Vancouver on a sunny day. Alicia is about to go on break from the little coffee shop she works at on Broadway and Laurel and when she opens the door to sniff the new outside freshness she knows she wants to spend her break looking out over False Creek, downtown Vancouver and the still snowy mountains. Today is one of those special February days when snow is still in the air, there has just been a week of grey clouds and rain and there could easily be another week. For this one fleeting moment, between shifts at work, the world is sunny and rich. The world seems to be a better place. Alicia doesn’t want to squander this opportunity.

Her break is only thirty minutes. The too early evenings means that Alicia wakes up in the cold darkness then gets off work in the cold darkness. That truth often weighs her down, but not now, not at this moment. For this moment Alicia’s mind is singing. She barrels down the hill, over the pedestrian overpass that bridges the ugly concrete of sixth street and is in the faded glory of Creekside Park, which is gleaming like a polished penny in today’s perfection.

Without actively thinking Alicia just allows her mind to flow. She breaths in deeply the wonderful air and feels alive in a way that is impossible to feel at work, that is impossible to feel on a grey day. Moments of life are always so compartmentalized and Alicia without even realizing it is for the first time in too long of a time actually having a moment of true freedom. She has about twenty five minutes left of her break, where should she go? She thinks about it. She’d love to go to Granville Island or the Olympic Village but they are just too far, so what is closer? She thinks she could maybe just walk the seawall until she needs to head back to work but then she sees an empty concrete bench, in memoria to an Annabel Deschutes, and feels like the only thing in the world she wants to do right now is sit on this bench in the shadow of the glass forest of downtown Vancouver with the icy depths of False Creek at her feet, and to think about nothing.

She sits with a contented sigh and begins thinking about nothing, which is of course that space of time when a person thinks about everything. Like an inactive machine suddenly brought to life there are suddenly a swarming of moving parts sirening through her brain. We don’t need to know the details of all this clatter. Suffice is to say that Alicia is a sweet girl. Yes, she has her faults, maybe she should be more ambitious, maybe she should be more brave and maybe she should try to take more control over her life. These frustrating depths are always below the surface of Alicia’s mind, yet, she is so in love with the act of living these thoughts only get her down when she lets them get her down. She thinks life is how you spend your moments and perhaps a lot of the moments in her life are imperfect, yet, this is a perfect one so she shouldn’t squander it.

With an unconscious smile tickling the sides of her mouth, Alicia sits with pure contentment on the bench. This is the sort of moment that will be forgotten in a day yet whose halo provides some of the sweetest memories of life. Alicia would gladly of spent the rest of her break like this and gone to work fulfilled, except, a man interrupts her reverie by asking if he can sit next to her. Without really looking at him or thinking about it she says, “Of course.” The bench, after all, is for everyone and there is plenty of space.

However, once he is already sitting, Alicia feels like a grey cloud has dampened the scene in front of her. She even looks to the sky before realizing it must be the man. What is he doing that effects her so strongly, she wonders. Sometimes a man just being a man spoils the day of a woman, just as a man being a man can make a woman’s day special. This is not the case though. No, what is drifting like a plume of smoke from this man right into Alicia’s face is a profound sadness. He does not look at her, his face is expressionless, yet, a simple glance at the ashen face of the man sitting next to her and Alicia knows that in a weaker person tears would be flowing.

What should I do, wonders Alicia. It is hard to be around someone who is suffering. Alicia does not know him, she does not understand his plight and has nothing to offer him. Yet, he is suffering. Isn’t there something universal in trying to ease the suffering of another? What if Alicia is wrong, what if he is actually not sad? She doesn’t want to be rude. Then he looks over at her and she is shattered, a piece of whatever has broken inside of him falling through his eyes and cutting her. The beauty in fragility makes him for this moment the most handsome man Alicia has ever seen. Their eyes are locked. Alicia cannot look away, while the man is not trying to capture Alicia’s eyes, the emotions blooming from them are just so strong that like magnets they do not let go of Alicia.

After a split second of this the man opens his mouth to say something to her, then stops himself before letting a single syllable falls into the air. He breaks his gaze with Alicia to stare back at the perfect weather that seems to be eaten out of the air into the dark crevices of this man’s face, into the dark crevices of this man’s eyes.

Alicia wonders what he was going to say to her. Her break is almost over though, she knows she has to leave. She stand to gather herself and again the man looks into her eyes, this time however he looks at her to see her. He looks hard and Alicia is paused for a moment. Then, in a strong voice that wavers just a touch, the man asks Alicia something that seems to make all the beauty of the day shatter into a million bits, leaving only the broken cracks disguising what was just a moment ago perfect and transparent. He asks her if she could tell him that she loves him. He just needs to hear the words. Something like this has never happened before to Alicia. She has never told a man that she loves them, yet, why has she kept the words so sacred? Perhaps by keeping love trapped so tightly we forget that everyone is worth loving, that love is universal. Perhaps this man’s sadness is simply because in the coldness of our world he has forgotten what it is to be loved. Like a flower wilting without sunlight this poor, poor man is losing a leaf at a time, blaming himself instead of the sky for his bereftness of love. Alicia looks at him. She wants to touch his face, to kiss him, to be a ray of sunshine in his life that will let him know that the world is more than it is. Yet, she has to go back to work. Yet, language has never been an easy thing for Alicia. If only words could unlock the true emotion of her heart. She tells the man that she loves him. Then, she tells him that she thinks he’s worth loving. He smiles sweetly, the cloud that circles him maybe not dissipating but for a moment sunshine sings through and he thanks her.

Quickly walking back to work to not be late she thinks for a moment of the man. She feels like they shared a moment of understanding, giving to each other something deeper than either of them knew. Alicia feels happy to have met the man. Then, letting the memory slip out of her mind like water from an open bottle, she thinks again about going back to work and is again conquered by all those little cares which own our souls. The memory of the man disappears, and Alicia is ok with that.

What was it I was supposed to get again? Six pack of beer, bottle of wine and a twosix of vodka? I hate vodka I hope I don’t have to drink any of that shit. Maybe I could get rum instead, would anyone notice? I should just stick to what I’m supposed to get, what’s the point of agreeing on something if I just break my word? Will that be enough liquor or too much? There’s four of us, I think it will be good. Will it be too much? I think it will be ok. We’ll be pissed, but I guess that’s the point.

Here’s the little liquor store now. Haha, I wonder when they’ll know me on a first name basis. Then, there’s always a different staff member here, they’ll never recognize me. That’s ok. Who wants to be recognized at the liquor store? OK. What beer should I get? I’m putting up with vodka, I should at least get beer that I like. How drunk do I want to be? What a stupid question? How drunk do I want to get? Should I get pissed should I go crazy should I dance on top of tables? Haha. It’s fun to joke in my mind but I don’t like the bitterness that floats along with this stream of thought. Do I even want to drink tonight? Am I just drinking because that’s what there is to do? That’s what life is. You drink with your friends.

Maybe a hefeweisan. I like that, not a beer I’d want to get drunk off of but it’s something nice to just have the flavor of. Shit, it’s not cheap though. I suppose the good things in life cost money. That’s ok, it’s just money, there’s always more of it. Sure, let’s get this, maybe if I expose my friends to this they’ll like it and we won’t always have to get vodka. I guess everyone has different taste though, if you like vodka you like vodka. Everybody seems to like vodka, I’m the odd man out.

Where is the vodka? Here it is, at least it’s cheap. Is that why people like it? Just because it’s cheap? Maybe liquor is like a drug and this is just the easiest way to get a hit. Let it disappear in some orange juice and without having to deal with the liquor itself: boom, you’re pissed. I like the taste of a lot of liquors, does that change alcohol being a drug for me? Hell, it’s so cheap, I’ll get the bigger bottle.

Now for the fun part. Which wine should I choose. I’m no connoisseur, I don’t know what things should cost, but I figure I need to get something that is at least expensive enough so that if anybody sees it in the store they won’t think I’m a cheap fuck. It’s all the same to me. This bottle will be fine, I like the shape of it.

OK so what’s the damage at the till? Christ! How many hours did I have to work to pay for this. Well, we’ll share the tab, but still, that is more expensive than I thought. But it’s a night out and the good things in life cost money. Wasn’t I just thinking that? This is a heavy load to bring back, I should’ve driven to the liquor store but then it was such a nice day. It still is a nice day. A sore shoulder is not such a thing to suffer through. I guess I’m looking forward to tonight.

I’m trying not to look bored. Karen is talking about work. I guess it’s good to be talking about something. At least the food is good. It’s nice that Karen wanted to come out, but, I wonder if she really wanted to see me or if she just had a night to fill and I was the name that came to the tip of her tongue. Still it is nice of her. We’ve known each other for so many years, since early childhood, maybe it doesn’t make a difference if we really like each other anymore. Maybe there’s just something for being with each other, for knowing that she was there with me when I wasn’t who I am now.

The restaurant is lovely. Karen always had good taste. I usually hate fusion food but this is done right, I’ll have to remember this place. I wonder if I should tell Karen how much I like it? She always likes to feel like she’s the dominating one in our relationship. I don’t want to give her more to work with. There are lilacs in the corner, real ones. You don’t see real flowers so often anymore, it’s a nice touch. I will tell her I like this place very much.

I tell her, “Karen, really this place is wonderful. Thank-you for taking me here.”

She smiles graciously, saying “I thought you would like it, I came here a few weeks ago and there was just something about it that screams you. I made a point of taking you here.”

She is beaming and that is good. Nice of her to think of me. Did she arrange this night just to show off to me? That’s a mean thought, then, there is often a bit of truth in mean thoughts. That’s what makes them so mean. Still, it doesn’t change the fact that it is nice to be thought of.

I used to be the one who talked more than Karen. When we were young girls together in high school she was so quiet, I’m not even sure why we became friends. We were always so different. Funny, how in childhood just sitting next to a person can make you become friends for life. Maybe it’s not so different now, all these decades later, being friends with your coworkers, your neighbors. That’s ok though, I guess. She has been a good friend. I think she talks more now because of me. And maybe I talk a bit less now because of her. Maybe it’s good to talk less, maybe it’s better to listen. I wonder when we switched positions?

Of course I am listening to her and responding. It’s a pretty good conversation, she’s talking about how she’s aspiring for this new position. How it would be meaningful work. I hope she gets it. She deserves it. I just am not fully here tonight, my mind just a bit distracted. It’s like trying to stand on one foot, I’m just not able to get a steady balance tonight. I’m just a bit off. Nothing’s wrong, maybe it is just the weather. Sometimes I feel the changes in pressure in my head. Or maybe I’m just having a sugar low. Or maybe it is just one of those days. If I could I would just go for a walk by myself, maybe get some dark chocolate somewhere and just enjoy my aloneness. I wouldn’t do that to Karen though. This is where I need to be, this is what I need to do.

Out of the corner of my ear Karen says something I’m not expecting.

“Could you say that again?” I ask.

“Sure, sorry, I shouldn’t talk with my mouth full.” she says, “I was just asking if you’d heard what happened to Angelica? Remember, from high school? She was a bit of a friend of yours for awhile wasn’t she?”

“Yes,” I say, “I definitely remember her. What happened?”

Karen loves telling a juicy piece of gossip. I used to like that about her but now it just seems a little bit exhausting. Why does every conversation I have need to be so serious though? I wish I was more light hearted. She launches into her artificial sadness mode, whatever the news is she wants to seem like it hurts her even though it doesn’t. “Well,” Karen says, “My friend Susanna heard from her friend Laurel, who keeps up with everybody from high school, that Angelica was crossing the street after work a few days ago and got hit by some driver who just didn’t see her. Apparently, and I certainly hope it’s not true but I fear that it is, Angelica died right there on the spot. She leaves behind a husband and two kids. Tragic, isn’t it?” Karen looks at me with these big expectant eyes, does she know what Angelica was to me? She can’t. I don’t like her staring at me. I tell her that it is tragic and make small talk with her for a few minutes. I don’t want her to know the pain in my heart, it is private. It is just for me. I tell Karen about how excited my husband Paul is with the current lease rates on Toyotas, I tell her she should look into them. Then I tell her I need to use the ladies room.

I go in and thank  god it’s empty. I lean on the counter and I stare at myself in the mirror. Angelica is dead. When was the last time I thought about her? It’s been years. Does it make a difference to me that she is dead? Yes, yes it does. It should. Funny, how with Karen we have been friends for so long without really getting to know each other. With Angelica we were only friends that brief spurt of life, that one summer, yet, yet, still maybe no one in the world knows me better. Knew me better. She is dead. Do our memories together die too? Even when I never talked to her, never thought of her, it was still nice to know that somewhere she was out there and in her mind she would always remember me as that young girl who I’m not anymore, staring at her with eyes that could never have looked so innocent.

Both of our lives moved on after that. We loved each other but we were too young for that type of love. I think we were both afraid to commit to what a life like that would have meant. At least I know I was. It was innocent. It was wonderful. Do we idolize our youth for what it was, or do we idolize it just to have the memory of something beautiful in our mind, even if it is not true? Did her hand as it touched my face really make me feel the way I remember it? How can she be dead? How can she be dead? How can it be that all that time is gone, that life has moved on, that I won’t just wake up in my parent’s house and think of my sweet Angelica, my great secret. Everyone should have a great secret. Life is so unfair, that time only lets us go in one direction. I want to go back. I want to do things different. I want my life to be more than it is.

I have been in here too long. Karen will be getting impatient and start guessing why I’m taking such a long time. Just taking a really long shit dear Karen! I don’t want her thinking that I needed a moment to myself to think about Angelica. She remembers things like that, uses them against you because she doesn’t know how vulnerable other people can be. Just because she has such a thick skin shouldn’t mean that she should be allowed to puncture holes in others. I stare into my eyes one last time. Are these really the same eyes that used to sit inches away from Angelica’s face? My face has changed but my eyes are the same. I want to cry for what is lost, for what could have been and wasn’t. I need to get back to Karen.

The Greyhound was late. Isn’t it always late? It was after a fifteen hour journey that I arrived into Rapid City and I was exhausted. All I wanted was to be in a place that I could call home and instead I was going to spend a week with Tom. At the time I hadn’t seen Tom in over five years and I remember getting off the bus with this feeling of trepidation. Nothing too intense, mind you, this isn’t the start of a Stephen King novel. It’s just I was about to spend a week with someone who I’d long called one of my best friends even though I wasn’t really sure if we really knew each other anymore.

I was the first one off the bus because I hate being late. Even though the bus was out of my control, I was ashamed to be starting off by being a nuisance for Tom. Had he checked the bus schedule to see if it was going to be on time? I wouldn’t have. He was there though, in this ancient Volvo station wagon that looked like a relic from a decades old commercial and he was smiling. This big radiant smile. This sincere happiness to see me writ all over his face and it made me happy, so I cracked a big fat smile right back at him. Squeeking out of the back of the Volvo was this little pug, monstrous creature in the wrong light, yet here his manic freneticism was just a nice accent on a lovingly vivid scene. My smile grew even bigger.

“Good to see you Tom.” I said.

“Good to see you Bob.” He said.

We just stared at each other for a second, maybe both wondering if after five years it was still OK to hug, but that only lasted a second. A hug still means something, maybe a hug is one of those few things that have meaning and this hug had meaning. Makes me miss Tom just thinking about it, though I don’t think I could hug him today with that same ease. It’s amazing how time passes and it doesn’t pass. We broke the hug, he grabbed my bag and put it in the trunk while I got into the car.

“Whose this big bruiser?” I asked, tickling that perfect spot between the pugs ears.

“We call him T-Rex, because he’s so fearsome.” Tom replied, keeping a straight face while he watched the road. The little pug was at this moment belly up on my lap, with a great amount of dignity yelping for his belly to be rubbed.”

“T-Rex,” I said, “I like that. Must be quite the guard dog, no criminals could mess with this chap”

“Oh, no. He’s a terrible guard dog,” Tom said, “Being so good looking means he gets all the babes and by the time night rolls around he’s about as tired as a creature can be. If anything, I’d have to warn Rex that there was a burglar.” I grinned into myself, we don’t need to talk about who we are because we know each other. Friendship does mean something, I guess.

The drive through Rapid City to Tom’s house had me looking out the window. I’m not really a small town person, I don’t have anything against them, they’re just not really where I ever ended up. I like them though, I like the feeling that this isn’t some place where you need to be somebody you aren’t. You can just be you and people will respect that, even if your name is never lit up in lights or your mug never shows up on the television. People just living their lives, maybe I could get used to that.

We drove and drove, longer than I had been expecting. My god, he lives in a suburb, I thought. I didn’t even know towns this size could have suburbs but there we were, turning into his cul de sac. Nice little house he had, maybe it didn’t have a picket fence but it was close enough. He took my bag for me and let me walk in first. Maybe the house was little but in my long life I’ve never had so much space to myself, not before I went to Rapid City and not since. After being in apartment after apartment, people always living on the other side of the wall from me, walking into Tom’s house made me want to yell at the top of my lungs. Yell just to see how loud my voice could go, to revel in the fact that no one would care.

Out from the kitchen walks Brandy. I hadn’t forgotten that Tom was married, but I suppose it had slipped my mind a bit. He’d gotten married just a few months before, there hadn’t been a wedding. Brandy was looking lovely, this glow in her cheeks. Maybe it was the first time I’d seen her looking happy. Tom goes and gives her a hug and then I’m next in line. Even though I’m not really the hugging type I give her a bear hug.

“Congratulations, Congratulations and Congratulations.” I said.  She blushed and said, “Thanks Bob. Let me show you to your room.”

“This house is really great Brandie.” I said to her and I meant it. It was obviously a first home but that doesn’t have to be a bad thing. A home is different than an apartment or a house where you are living month to month, a home is a place where you put your heart into it and here there was heart . She led me into my room which was bright and airy with a perfectly made bed dominating the center. Tom came into the room as I was putting my bag on the bed, saying with no small amount of satisfaction, “This will be your wing of the house. Brandie and I sleep on the other side of the house. Everything here is just for you.”

“Well thanks a lot Tom,” I said. After all this time it seemed my friend had become a pretty decent fellow.

—

Of course we were going to be drinking deep into the night. I think Tom had quieted down in the years since we’d seen each other and was looking to let loose the same way we did when we were kids. I had calmed down too, though in a different way than Tom, but I could do him this favor. Make for a night an illusion that things, just for a moment were the way they had been. I wanted that too, for a night.  He had the biggest bottle of vodka I’ve seen in my life and was rambling about how cheap it was. I nodded and made all the right noises but vodka is vodka. I guess I was judging him a bit, I don’t think vodka is a good choice. This night was going to be about Tom though.

The entire night was just a hoot. While looking back at my memories they pass like a montage, yet  I’m pretty sure at the time the night felt like a drunken montage as well. I remember pedaling some bike up a hill and being so drunk that I couldn’t understand how to switch the gears. I would just keep toppling over and then Tom would laugh so hard at me that he would topple over. We were smoking cigarettes or cigars or something, though I don’t remember it, just their taste on my mouth. Brandie said we stayed up till four in the morning, which I find hard to believe, but why would she lie. It wasn’t one of the best nights of my life, but then it was a very beautiful night. It was fun. It reminded me of why I was friends with this fellow in the first place.

—

The next morning I woke up groggy as a hibernating bear. I remember my brain flashing on for a second: where am I where am I where am I, then the first sight that I knew was the real world and not the fantasy of a dream was Tom’s mischievous smile conquering the room. Now what, I wondered, was he so happy about? And why, I also wondered, is he not feeling this same brain dead hangover as me?

“Mornin Bob. So, do you remember what you said last night?” He said with an airy seriousness. I heard Brandie guffaw in the hall. What did I get myself into last night, I wondered.

“Of course, I remember every word. I remember telling you my undying love for Brandie and how I should never have let you steal her.” I countered back at him. Brandie gave another laugh but Tom just seemed to brush my parry aside. Whatever it was that he was in such a damned good mood for, he wasn’t going to let me spoil it.

“Well Bob, remember when I dared you to paint your toe nails, and you said I could paint them if I could get to them? Do you remember saying that?” He said, I nodded slowly. There was some fuzzy recollection of this, why on earth had he cared so much about my toe nails? I guess everybody has their own strangeness.

He just rolled right on, “Well I bet you thought that I would have to fight you to paint them. But you know me, I like to think outside the box. Plus, beating you up is no fun anymore, I’d hate to break something on you. Bob, check your toe nails.” What the hell, I thought. Brandie came into the room laughing her head off. I pulled my sheets up and I’ll be if he hadn’t come into my room in the night and painted each one of my toes a different color. Brandie and Tom are in hysterics with each other, looking a merry picture except at my expense! He’d come into my room. He’d violated my personal space. The more disgusted I looked though, the more Brandie and Tom laughed and they broke me down. OK, I thought, this is a little funny. I cracked a grin that evolves into my own barrel laugh. As they say, when in Rome. This maybe isn’t the fun I wanted to have, but hell, let’s call it fun regardless.

—

After stepping out of the shower I heard Brandie yelling, “Breakfast is ready.” Now normally I would never eat breakfast, yes, I know a bad habit. That day though, after all that liquor, well some pancakes or whatever deliciousness it was I smelled from Brandies kitchen, well that was exactly what I was in the mood for. I threw on just a pair of good old blue jeans and a shirt and as quick as you could say bacon hashbrowns I was sitting down at the table with Brandie and Tom.

I remember thinking: wow, what a spread. Really, I was figuring this whole marriage thing might have something to it. Tom was yapping at me about the toe nails, even taking a picture to send to friends, but by this time I was thinking it was pretty funny too. It’s good to let loose in life, to just laugh a good barrel laugh and let it be honest. There was a smile glued to my face and it wasn’t leaving. I was just swimming through the food. French toast slathered with butter and soaked in good proper maple syrup. Bacon that you could sink teeth into. Eggs just runny enough that your could soak up the yolk with a piece of bread. My god, just thinking about it and I can feel my stomach rumble.

“You know, Bob, for somebody so small you can really pack the food away.” Brandie said to me, with a gentle smile.

“Well,” I said to Brandie, adding some more butter to my French toast, “Where I come from, it’s not good manners to make fun of a fellows bulimia.”

She looked me straight in the eyes to see if I was joking but I’d kept a straight face and the smile wilted right from her face. She stammered, “Oh Bob, I’m sorry….” Christ, I thought, what had Tom been telling her about me that she would even entertain this. I said to her, “Oh please I’m just joking.” but it felt like the mood was spoiled a bit. The food was starting to feel like a heavy weight in my stomach and it became a bit tasteless.

In the corner was Tom just giving Brandie a 10/10 glower. This sour face could teach lemons a lesson. How quickly, I thought, the clouds can come in front of the sun. We all kept eating in silence, I think all of us realizing that somehow the record of our morning had come off kilter. All of us wanting it to get back to smooth sunny tunes but afraid that maybe this static was the new norm. Actually, no, I think already at this point there was something in Tom that just wanted to strike, to be vicious. Every person has a demon in them, has something outside of their control, I think Tom’s was always closer to the surface.

After breakfast Brandie took the dishes away. Tom and went for a bit of a stroll just around the block and it was a nice time. We just chatted to chat and I forgot about the awkward breakfast. Tom’s mind is quite a lively one, he was keeping me on my toes.

“Well, if the government debt is 90% of GDP,” he was saying to me, “And an economy starts to be damaged at anything in excess of 90%, then isn’t the time to change our financial motivations right now? We are crossing a threshold.

“Yes, it’s true.” I replied, “But the fact is that we aren’t doing small scale experiments trying to gauge the right way forward. We have an all or nothing shot. We decided to follow this route of taking on debt to spur growth and everyone would agree it hasn’t met even the lowest benchmarks. But to count it as a failure is the difference between building a house where the roof is unfinished while it’s raining, and starting fresh again in the rain. We might have built this wrong, or at the wrong time, but this work has started something, and an incomplete start is still better than starting at zero.”

He nodded and we kept walking on. Talking and talking, isn’t that the foundation of every conversation. Yet, it felt to me like his heart wasn’t fully into it. His mind was elsewhere.  We got back to the house, this part I remember very clearly. He walked in and looked Brandie up and looked Brandie down. He noticed she was eating peanut butter and this is what he focused on, but I’m sure she could have been doing anything and it would have been the exact same result.

“Who, the fuck, said you could eat my peanut butter?” he said to her. Voice calm but the restrained anger making the words bubble. They hit Brandie hard, like fists, like she knew where this conversation was going to go. That she knew this was going to hurt.

“I asked you a question? Why don’t you say anything back? Why are you eating my peanut butter?” He said, his voice even more seething.

“I didn’t think it was a big deal….” She said until Tom cut her off, now shouting in that broken voice of a little boy, “Didn’t think it was a big deal? You take my shit, you think everything is yours? Who gave you your fucking life? This house? Those clothes? That car? And that isn’t a fucking enough? You have to take my peanut butter too. You know what you are, Brandie, you’re a bitch. An ungrateful bitch.”

I was just sitting there shell shocked. How can anyone who just a few hours before be brimming with love for a person let it invert so quickly? I opened my mouth to say something but I suppose I was a coward because no words came out. Brandie, her eyes filled with tears dissipates into the master bedroom. A moment of silence befalls where Tom seems to be waiting, anticipating Brandie to make the next step. Suddenly there was a crash and Tom seems almost happy, like there is a game being played and Brandie has just played into his hand. He had this reptilian grin for just a second, then he stood up and knocked on the door of the room. There was crashing and booms.

“Let me in,” Tom said calmly. “Let me in Brandie, don’t do this.”

“You’re making me do this, Tom, you’re fucking making me. Fuck you.” She screeched back, punctuating syllables with crashes of items hitting walls.

“Now, Brandie, you’re being irrational. Please, just calm down. I want to talk to you like you’re an adult but you’re not let letting me do that are you? Are you going to calm down.”

“No. Don’t you dare. Don’t you dare talk to me like that, like I’m a child. You started this.”

Tom’s face had become reprehensibly reptilian by this point, I can’t even stare at him. I wanted to leave but I guess I really was a chicken, am a chicken. I just sat right there. “Now Brandie,” Tom cooed, if you don’t open this door I’m going to have to break it down. Now we don’t want that do we? So are we going to open it or no?” There was silence on the other end of the, then the click of the door being unlocked. Then there was silence. My god, I thought, Tom is enjoying this. He was loving this.