Rapid Passing

Life

A current to the sea? More like rapids. I splutter and choke, getting scraped up legs and a foggy head. Every once in awhile , my head goes up, my body down, and I see sunlight. Once in awhile.

Why does it hurt so much? Why does the startling spray make my stomach disappear as my heart fills my body. Why do I contemplate yesterdays now and forget about today's second? I throw my memories into focus and am completely blind as my future fades.

Should I look ahead? Should I look nowhere and just endeavor to float? Should I purposefully swim to the rocky depths and hang onto a boulder till I can breathe no longer.

Things grow up and die; things grow old and disappear; I, caught in time, watch and mourn.

My fingers no longer grasp at comforting hands. My arms embrace no body. I sit in a freezer full of frozen bodies and long to freeze, myself. I sit on a cliff, watching vultures wheel, and long to fly. The cold seeps into my muscles, the depression into my calves. If I cannot fly, then no longer walk.

Deadness embrace Deadness, or just embrace me. Greenest leaves and purply flowers, reddest blood and sallower skin. These things only do i see, and after seeing, pray screaming.

A Hidden Volcano

Is there a sorrow in happiness?
Or a happiness in sorrow?
I see your smiles,
The happy glances at the ones you love.
Yet your eyes show through paths unknown,
The volcano of your heart.

Why do you not show it?
Why do you not show me?
I see it, it's underneath your film.
It's underneath your happy exterior.
Like a wall covered in bright ivy,
Your dying wall lies beneath.

Or in your sadness.
You grieve silently, alone, unhappy.
You don't show me your face,
You don't show me your smile.
How I long for it to brighten these dingy rooms!
These rooms we call our homes.

"Home is where the heart is,"
Then I have no home.

My heart is yours,
But you do not accept it.
Therefore I'm alone.

I live in constant wonderment of you.
Waiting, watching for your acceptance.
When you are ready,
When the wild volcano is cooled,
When the smile shows its face again,
Then I will be there.

Look towards your future, and I will be waiting.
Look to me, and you will see yourself,
Gleaming in my eyes.

A Challenge

I feel like Jean Valjean.

I’m starting to question who I am. What I am. Where I am going. What it all means.

Of course, I’m not running from the law with a child that I took from a sleazy bar during the French revolution, but still, I feel like my life is that confusing.

I want you all to know clearly and truly (take your time, I don’t want you to misunderstand): I…AM…A…HYPOCRITE. That means “someone who is not who they seem to be.” “Someone who tries to deceive.” “A liar.” I lie everyday in the ways I communicate, in the ways that I appear. If you ask me how I am, don’t trust my answers. If you see me smile, have some doubt about my smiling heart.

My relationships are no longer like a sunny meadow. That’s how it was when I was a child. Every laugh bright and green. I turned into a teenager, and my life became overcast. My screaming can’t reach my mouth. I can no longer think straight and a heavy hand grasps my heart at every chance of happiness. Life like the many flashes from a Polaroid camera, I am blinded with hopeful insignificance.

I speak, but the fire of my thoughts burn my throat and nothing is heard.

I write and my pen runs dry before I can explain.

Who, no what, am I?

Am I dramatic, and this is just a farce?

Maybe I’m completely different and no one will understand.

What if I’m irrelevant and no one will care?

Or maybe I’m the most spoilt sinner, deserving of hell, eternal judgment, God’s wrath. Yes. This is truth finally.

I am selfish, proud, and arrogant. I am a perverse fire, I am an unwilling sacrifice. My heart is rotten, like a soured apple, and my soul causes my affliction. I can only weep and moan in my own waste looking to receive the light of God’s eye.

Why can’t we see each other? Why can’t we see each other! Look into a friend’s eyes. Look into your parent’s eyes. Look into your own eyes. I am an unworthy sinner.

BUT

God sent His Son to save you from utter destruction. From unending flame, and unceasing pain. He chose YOU.

Why?

Not of anything in you! Because He wanted to. That’s why.

Now?

Live. Just live. Obey His commands, and love. It is pretty simple. We don’t need to go around wondering who we are. We are redeemed. We are God’s children. Now live like it. Forgive, Love, Endure, Hope, Witness, and STOP! STOP! STOP! Being proud. Eradicate it! Take it out of your soul. Take it out of my soul, oh GOD!


Dear me,

You disgust my soul and everyday I will try to kill you. Take your residence elsewhere and make room for the Spirit of the Living God. Thanks.

Myself.


Now hear my challenge. This is not more fiction. This is me. This is your friend calling for help. Please comment, whether it be anonymous or not, just let me know, let everyone know that they are not in this by themselves. We seem to be caught up in a mess of jokes and sarcasms, we seem to be caught up in stolidness and unfeeling. Let everyone know that you are there, alive, for them. That you care, and that you need to be cared for. This is a cry, a plea, that we let each other know that we are hurting. We all are. Just communicate it.

Not many people will see this. Not many people will care. But I do. And I’m sure others do too.

So please, be a Godsend, and let others know that you exist. As a brother. As a sister. As a friend in Christ.

The Prodigal After-effects

Spring was setting, and summer rose. It was a beauty that ate out your heart, leaving it hollow, needing to be filled with wonder. Like an apple hollowed by a worm, so the sunsets I saw ate me alive. I felt like I needed to grasp it. With my power, keep it where it was, so I could awe for one more minute. I felt like every moment was priceless, and I was letting a Van Gogh slip between my grasping fingers, fingers that grasp like a baby for its bottle.

But this summer was hollow for me. And my life remained so for the rest of my years. It is strange that God makes us to love one another devotedly, but we always seem to break one another, leaving our family desperate and dying. Like Cole left me and Dad. Like Cole broke my heart, not in the traditional sense, but he broke it like so many glass shards that I found in his apartment.

This story is a stunning reality that appeared to our non-suspecting family after years of happiness. It was rain on a sunny day that turned into a black hurricane that claimed lives. Like my brother’s.

Today, I keep thinking of those happy times we had. The time when the grass was green, the neighbor’s dogs would come over and, with their silky long hair waving in the breeze; they would use their weight to knock me over by rolling onto me. Cole hadn’t liked the dogs; he thought that they my might crush me. He was very protective. But that’s what made this day perfect. I knew then, that my older brother, liked, no, loved, his little, annoying, bratty sister.

Another time, I sat by the fountain in the park. I was writing what I felt.

Strangely, I wrote it as perfectly as I felt it. I wrote the whole spectrum of mixed-up light; I formed a rainbow from my non-existent life. I remember how angry I was when he saw. His face was complexly confused while he read my diary; I, on accident, left it sitting out on the table. How insensitive I thought him! But I really was thankful. I was thankful that someone I loved really could understand me.

And I know that he knew it.

As I stared into the fragmented face of the little porcelain boy, I remembered that look the first time Cole ran away. The look that I received when I startled him climbing out the window. Throwing his stuff out. He was surprised at the angry tears that I hoped would burn his skin. The tears that I hoped would make him hurt. And I was happy, because they did. He looked bewildered, took his stuff, and ran.

He was found, of course. He was only 15, and was easily spotted sleeping on the bench in a park 10 miles from our house. It was so pathetic, so frustrating to his spirit. I was ashamed for him, and ashamed to look at him, and ashamed that maybe it was myself that ran him away. Shame. That was what took root in our house.

I wanted to die. Simply. Clearly. I wanted to die and escape these emotional bonds that tied me to the very thing that was dragging me down. I couldn’t stand, I couldn’t sit. I was being tortured by my brother. How my heart cracked and moaned, like the wood on a ship screaming for its past life, free and green.

No longer was there shame in my heart. No longer anger. But a reflective worrisome spirit. Could I have stopped this from happening. Stopped this by not looking at him in anger when he ran. Not being angry for stealing my journal. Maybe it was my fault he did this horrible crime, violating himself. Maybe it was my visit that set him off…

In the back of my mind, I knew the truth. It was Cole that hated Cole. He caused himself to do this. It was a chasm full of guilt that caused him to pick up one of these fragments I’m looking at now…and…

I knew that no longer was the world a green place, full of playful dogs and caring people who loved you more than themselves. How so very proud we are! I wanted to scream at myself. So very proud. I was proud, thinking that my troubles were the only thing that was important right here and now. Cole was so very proud, so proud that he couldn’t look his own family in the face, couldn’t say he cared anymore. Couldn’t be there to protect me. The strange thing: I needed him to protect me, from himself.

I gathered all the random stuff from his apartment into two cardboard boxes. They were full of needles, aluminum foil, spent cigarettes, beer cans, and strange knick-knacks that Cole latched onto when he found them. Like a crab to a washed up soda can. I understood why he latched though. He was trying to find the old joy he knew; the joy that would no longer see his face.

I put it all into two boxes. And I threw them all away. This was not the Cole I knew. This was someone hard and uncaring, someone…who took the easiest way out as to not face the glaring wrong in his life.

I drove home, my whole body smelling of smoke. I was disgusted.

And all I could think on, all I could remember, was that vivid memory, the only one of us together, playing a simple board game. It was just how it was, not anything spectacular. But that was it. Just us, together. Playing nicely. And I didn’t realize the preciousness of that moment. Not realized that the ones I love would soon be gone. Not realizing that my life was a series of images. I was thrust into one of them, but so many more were coming. They started off backlit and beautiful, looking like flowing water from year to year. They then turned quickly into ash.

I could only pray that God would restore some color to my life; I could only pray that this hole in my heart would be mended in time; I could only pray that I could cut out the memory of this apartment that held your death, and replace it with those happy times we had; I could only pray for forgiveness.

Old Men in a Window Shop

She cheerfully giggled again.

“I know right! It makes him look like an idiot.”

“Awww, but he’s almost cute!”

“Yah right! I don’t think so!”

Those hateful, scarlet words that poured out of their mouths, describing the pair of earmuffs that covered the scars; that aching pounding that wouldn’t cease until they were gone; finally, ended.

If only they could…no they wouldn’t ever. They wouldn’t ever understand what it felt like, at least, for now. Age is a hilarious thing to the fools who are right now aging. It nearly made me laugh through the pain. The thought that these pretty girls would someday be sitting where
I am now. Friendless. Without a family. Alone, in hospice.

These young ones always thought themselves so clever. They immediately would recognize…my…disability, then scandalize it as if I had any choice. As if I had any possibility to somehow regain my hearing. To somehow make my own mouth spurt words wherein none could come. A well that dries up, only that could understand me now.

It was picturesque in a way though. Dried up. Dried up like the prunes I was forced to eat, what made me blush from the crassness of the thing. Dried up like the land outside of my hospice window. Dried up like my withered old life. Dried up till there was no water, then left to scald and die. Wither. Fade. Then extinguish.

But the fact that so many had to scorn me, me, in my dumbness. In my sense loss. But little did they know my gift. The gift that allowed me to not only see what they are saying, but to See what they were saying.

I could see that young man’s mouth move when he read those poems outside on the gathering lawn. I hid behind my window for hours, watching, as he waited. He always waited to see her, knowing that she could neither see, nor hear, nor feel him. He was reading as if to someone. Practicing. Practicing to recite it to that shriveled old woman who would not hear him. I wished he would visit me secretly. But I knew there was no chance. The nurses here did not know my gift, and I wasn’t about to tell them. They treated me like a dog, a dumb animal that couldn’t understand its master.

I could picture him in there every day, reciting like a school-boy. Unoriginal and afraid, he came off with so much awkwardness. It was strange, put so much effort in to talk to a living corpse.

Yet as he sat there now, there was no awkwardness. He recited believing. His mouth moving distinctly, his words pouring a fountain of Minty greens and Placid blues. They mixed together with the lawn and sunshine, and created a fairy garden for these never dying poems to reside in. I wished I could get out there and live with them too, discussing many dead poet’s poetry. To talk to the young man.

But I couldn’t…at least, not until 4:00 P.M.: walking time.

What was the use of walking time!? What was the use when I felt like walking all the time, felt like escaping this grey world that was now my home. I felt like walking. I couldn’t just sit around waiting till I was “allowed” exercise. Was I a prisoner in a prison camp?! I felt betrayed. How could my own family…another time.

The man in the Fairy lawn left because his grandmother died. She simply disappeared off the face of the world, like the engagement ring on his finger. His dedication, his earnest poetry was not enough. I never saw him again. But he left happy, because he believed his grandmother hear his words. And I believe it.

I do hope he listened to those poems, not only read them.

I missed hearing words, hearing gentle caressing. I missed the opera music my mother was so fond of, playing on repeat throughout the day. I smiled remembering her practicing in the basement when she thought others couldn’t hear. But, we laughed at her then. Hatefully.

What a blessing to be able to hear. I faintly remember that last week. I remember the sound of my mother’s goodnight kiss, the sound it made on my cheek. I remember my father working in the garage as I tried to sleep. Sharp banging, metal on metal. The snores of my baby sister. She was diagnosed with Leukemia the same month of my accident. I didn’t realize, I didn’t appreciate. My life, my family would change.

I was simply alone. No one stood between me and death, no compromiser, no physical hand to comfort. Just the cold fingers of the nurses, the nurses who had inch-long fake nails. My wife: non-existent. My kids: the same. I lived always alone. Now: I die alone.

Fitting.

And these young children try to harass me, without knowing. These living corpses that have their fun, then pass from memory. The children that try to bring my spirit down. But they don’t realize that you can’t get a spirit down when it’s already three-feet into quicksand.

Marked Walls

I walked past the wall. I stood near the wall. I leaned on the wall. I liked the touch of the wall. It’s differing rocks. It’s warmth from the sun.

So many stones made up the foundation. Some were cracked and chipped, rough, unshapen. Others smooth, white-washed, uncommonly perfect. None were extremely beautiful, but all were different. I liked that.

Behind each lay a vision, a bright unfailing memory. Of the past, of the future. Behind some was pain. Behind some was joy. And behind all were people.

Behind one that was homely, and rough, but clear and white: a boy with curly black locks walked under the wall with his mother, dropping his prized possession. His blankie. He doesn’t notice till later his emptiness.

If you wait but a minute:

A small girl, blonde perfection, also walks past with her mother. She picks up the blanket and claims it as her own.

If you but wait still another 20 years:

A beautiful wedding. Decorated with finery, bright lights expanding the purity, music blazing into brightness. A happy couple sailing around the room. Floating. They greet and hug, kiss and laugh. She, a perfectly blonde wife, he a curly-haired bright-eyed husband.

Two years later:

A baby. It’s present from mother: a tattery old cloth. It’s blankie. It had retained it’s color. Baby blue. It had retained it’s smell. Snuggle bleach.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Another stone, black and porous, stood out from the surrounding others. It did not give way on the first tug, but after a little work it gave way. As I pulled it from it’s rest a billowing cloud of smoke spat forth from the empty crevice. And a most horrific sound of wailing appeared through the smoke.

As it cleared, I could just see a woman bent over a lifeless figure, deformed and bloody. She too was blackened and I could tell was in extreme pain, from physical or emotional I could not tell. Her arm was broken. But with that broken arm, she nestled the young man’s head. The car had expelled him upon collision, throwing him into this wall. He had died instantly. His mother had been driving.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Yet another stone. This one was broken. Broken into many shards. It’s sight saddened me.

The person behind resembled the stone. Broken.

Her chipped nail polish: broken.

Her eyes: broken.

Her life: shattered.

She sat alone. In silence. In her own wasting away. Her pockets were full, her heart was empty. And she pondered the death of the world. She loved only one person. And she waited here to meet him. He told her he would be there. By this wall she waited to see if she could possibly feel happy. This moment would change her life. It relied on the man she trusted. Yet in her mind a black cloud covered hope.

He did not show.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I laid this stone in its place and walked away. I was weary of the broken stones. There were many more broken ones than whole and bright, and it made me cynical. I left the wall knowing that more stones would be added to it in time. But for now, I could no longer fathom them. I could no longer think of the pain that so easily found its way into every foundation in this city. I tried to think of the happiness here contained, but I could only see gray. I could only see through a magnifying glass, seeing only interiors, not angel-faced exteriors. It hurt too much. And what hurt more was looking into my mirror.

Dull living.

Dull sleeping.

Twilight.

Set-apart Times

This is a short story that I did for a good friend. Love ya Lily!

It may be a meaningless phrase, but I will say it here: Once upon a Time. For not only does this story happen to be in the measure of regulative time, but this story circulates around a place entitled “Times Square”. It was not unlike to a village square, with the exception that it was in the midst of a very dense city. It was surrounded by skyscrapers that reached the foggy clouds overhead, billboards that were visible a mile away that shined out messages and products, greasy men that sold greasy hotdogs from their carts, smoke rising from the depths of the city, and a constant hum of buses, cars, bicycles, and electric shavers. In fact, it was most distinctly opposite from a village square.

Although this setting may be very exciting, this is not where the actual story takes place. You may say, “But you said it did, you big bully,” but, in fact, I did not. I said the story circulated around it, and it certainly does. For there lived a girl (Louisa by name) in a shady meadow just outside the incredible city that held this “Times Square.” This Louisa loved the city, especially the square. It was certainly difficult to contain the dreams of an amazing metropolis when the magnificent buildings would peek their crowns from the fog on clear days. And what made it harder, Louisa could see them, and the tiny occupants, from her bedroom telescope. She imagined herself surrounded by strange people of many different cultures all buzzing about speaking in their different languages. And perhaps, maybe, she could understand a word, a phrase, maybe even a whole clause! that would somehow betray their native tongue, allowing her the authority that comes with the title: “International”. “International Louisa,” she giggled.

But these were only fancies, dreams that sprang up when her mind blurred the lines between herself and the girl she wanted to be. After every single daydream, she would come barreling back into the room where she sat on an uncomfortable chair, listening to Mlle. Jenoisprenouis (pronounce jhen-wee-pren-wah) speak boring old French to her class. She would blabber on and on about how France was the country of stately kings. On how she was once courted by one, and how she declined his offer for marriage because he only had three houses and twenty closets altogether, definitely not enough volume to contain her theatrical collection of 19th century opera costumes, especially the Viking ones. At this point the Mademoiselle would shake her head and wipe an imaginary tear off her rouged cheek. “Oh vel,” she would quickly snap, “I mooch perfer to leeve alone with my cats anyvayz.” The strange thing about it: Mlle. Jenoiprenouis was most definitely German. She spoke and taught only German in French class. She bragged over and over again on the greatness of Richard Wagner and continually sang opera whilst teaching. Poor Louisa. If only she could escape the many stories of Wagner greatness.

But one day, one that started like any other, ended like none other she would ever experience.

It was the class’ special trip day. And they were scheduled to go to the nearby mushroom factory to learn about a poisonous fungi, Tremulo molto Wagneros, named so for it’s…well, I’m not sure why it’s named after a German composer, but I’m sure it’s for a good reason.

Anyway, Louisa was ecstatic. She would get to drive through the Square. They might even need to stop for some gas, or to take a rest stop. She could feel the excitement blow through her hair as she stuck her head over the edge of the enormous buildings. The rush of warm air as buses hurried along beside her. The air hot and sticky with the strange wisps of smoke rising from vents in the ground carrying the smell of tobacco and hot dogs.

She was ready. Her bag packed. Her sunglasses balanced perfectly on her head. Her bus pass in-hand and her favorite road song on replay in her head. This was it. This was her day. She was going to be alike to that adventurous Louisa, the one who could speak foreign languages and know her way around any mazelike street.
You may be inclined to hope for the best, especially for sweet Louisa, which is of course a wonderful trait in any living human, but if there is one thing I have learned in this world, it is this: “Nothing happens as you may have planned, pictured, or expected to happen.” This was the case for Louisa. She didn’t go see the city. She didn’t get to hear the hum of subway trains, or eat food that tasted slightly of gasoline. She didn’t even get into an elevator.

What she did do? She sat across from runny-nosed Billy Blake for hours as the class was taught every intricate crescendo and trill of “Nachtmusic il Quando very Mechi Excontragoalini Horus Policimus,” the longest playing opera of all time. The field trip was cancelled because of a severe breakout in the factory of rashes due to the Wagner fungus. So instead, Louisa and class listened…and listened…and listened as the rain poured outside.

And during the twentieth act of listening, Louisa was struck by a thought. This miniscule,l little thing told her this, “What if all the sky skyscrapers are too high for comfort? What if all the people are just a little too gruff and the food a little too greasy? What if all the foreign talk sounded like a bunch of Pig Latin? What if she in fact hated cities altogether? What if dreaming about them is more enjoyable than being in one?”

Then she realized and found an inescapable truth, that your imagination is powerful, and more often than not, more delightful than real life.
And from that day on, whenever Lousia began to think or day dream about Times Square, she would think of how wonderful and clean, bright and happy it was.How magnificent the lawns were, how beautiful the birds. And I’ll tell you one thing…she never visited Times Square.. Ever. Yet she was happy.

Parks in Springtime

The sun reflected on the lake’s rippling surface. In the distant glass buildings of downtown. In the sunglasses of toned joggers. In the tricycles of small children. Light played all around me. It was enjoying the first beautiful day since winter.

Just like the neighborhood kids, pedaling into the light, on a quest to find the perfect day. Running through endless forests, fighting ethereal creatures. They almost found it today.

It is days like these that one goes outside, to stroll, to sit, to meditate.

Like the grown man who had large glasses and messy dark hair. Thirty years old, he sat and sat, feeding Canadian geese as if they were his only friends. As if they were the only ones who relied on him. Just like he relied on his controlling mother who sat behind him.

Some come there to be alone.

Like the teenage girl dressed in a black hoodie, reading the latest vampiric novel. She felt the darkness seep through her, become part of her. She would sit in the light for hours, hoping all the time that some passer-by would recognize her, feel her darkness, and take her away from her non-existent life to the sunshine that was her only hope.

Some came to be with someone.

Like the only other teenagers there. Two girls who leaned on each other with such force it looked like they were drunk. They laughed and screamed. Flirted and dissed. Funny thing though: they were seeking the same thing as emo girl. Someone to care.
Families also came to relieve their children’s anguish of not being outside on such a glorious day.

A mother walked while her two daughters rode their bikes. One on training wheels, the other weaving in and out of other exercisers. “HEATHER!” “STOP!” The mother’s face turned red for some other reason than the heat, some reason I couldn’t understand.

Another family was there to enjoy each other. They wandered here and there studying everything, examining the little things. And as the little ones were trying to catch grasshoppers or climbing a tree, their Mom and Dad watched on with pleasure and awe in their faces, strolling while hugging each other, their dream realized in their beautiful children.

Various others were there for various other reasons. The homeless composers, so they could play their instruments freely, walkers who just wanted exercise and to gossip about office scandals and incompetence, rollerbladers training for the coming roller derby, couples to bask in the light, both of the sun and their love.
Park days. They bring many people out of their solitude to enjoy the pleasant days.

It forces mankind together. It forces different types of people into camaraderie.

I don’t know to what extent, but these people have something in common. They all are flesh and blood. Whatever you see on the outside, whether it be ripped jeans, or a suit and tie, they still have desires and fears. The girl reading about the Edwards and Bellas will one day become like a jog/walker, or the man feeding the geese.
Another point I have learned. Don’t take a moment, A MOMENT, for granted. This is your life. A moment to be sinful human before eternal glory. Break free from your chains that keep you from encouraging, from talking, from introducing. Do not let this meaningless barrier prevent you from learning to care for others. Whether they are like you or not. They need you. And we need each other.

Uncontrollable Goodbyes

The lights inconsistently flashed, paining my eyes as they stared out the foggy glass. Two hours in the car with an emotional barrier between us all, the pressure started getting to me. My forehead bled for the coolness of the window to sooth the burning I felt in my stomach overflowing into my throat. It started tightening when
I thought of her form unmoving on the hospital bed: limbs stilled, heart rate slowing, breathing faint. If only the car could go faster.

At the same time, I (with all my will) wanted to escape, run to a warm bed to be comforted, knowing though that the stiff, chill wind would hunt me down. My mother was quietly weeping in front of me. I wanted to turn from the heartbreak.

Hope hurt even more. I wanted desperately to think that she would make it through and live for another twenty years. That she would see another Christmas, another grandchild, another summer. But my logicality knew better. Eighty. Lung cancer. Pneumonia. These words kept revolving like a merry-go-round in my head. Like my Dad when it was time to go, death was ready to end the ride.

Through all the sadness, despair, and premonitions, I felt a strange exhilaration. Thinking of the strangeness of hospital rooms, and the clean smelling hallways. The thought of that time when grandma helped me and my sister rake the leaves in the chilly, face-burning fall. These hand-in-hand inspired a strange calmness, a bubble of solitude. Near excitement.

That bubble ripped and turned into falling dust as soon as my Mom’s cell phone rang.

Five minutes away: “Sis, I’m sorry, you’re too late. She’s already passed.”

The hallways didn’t smell clean, but rather like putrid bleach. The rooms weren’t exciting, but dull and dead. Just like that body that lay where my Grandma took her final breath. Where Grandma’s soul left her body to meet her Saviour.

I couldn’t cry. It felt like I was dreaming. I was dreaming. This was a nightmare from which my Mom would wake me up; we would travel to Grandma’s warm home. She would sit us down with the feast she would always make (according to the unspoken rules of Southern comfort); no matter how much my Mom would argue. She would think of us as we were, kids running around the yard ten years ago. She would love us when we were unlovable; encourage us when we were discouraged.

It wasn’t till I sat in a room full of strangers and people I recognized but didn’t know; when my Dad started crying when he explained the first time he met Her; my Mom when she talked of her childhood; when I realized that not again in this world could I sit with her and dwell on her every word; when I thought of all the times I was a disappointment and she cherished me still; when I thought of all the times that I was too busy to talk to her, talk about her life, her feelings; then, I started to weep.

When they lowered her casket into the dirtiness of her grave; the clean perfect casket into the mud, I could almost scream for them to stop. So that I could breath magical breath into her nostrils and she would rise like a Lazarus. But I would have to be God. And He wasn’t going to raise her, at least for now.
I sat in my room again, hugging a pillow that wasn’t a replacement for Her fragile self, and hid from all the “Don’t worry, everything will be ok”s, and the “She’s in a better place”s.

I knew that, I believed it too, but right now I could only dream of the past. Tomorrow I would deal with this passing life. For tomorrow, or the next day, I would die too. And my grandchildren would mourn me.

Life is so short…but so precious.

All we can do is have a trusting HOPE.

The Prodigal Effect

Day, heaped with day. Month, on month. A life souring in the black, a soul rotting. Light in the semi-darkness. Then tar returns. Cole lit up again.

Getting high was the only way he could escape life for a moment, a moment that has lasted almost two years.

It wasn't his fault that he is like this, though. His father sent him away from their suburban home after finding a stock of cough syrup hidden in the box springs of Cole's bed. It was lucky his dad didn't look in Cole's pillow cases and find the 100 dollars of dope hidden there.

His Dad just couldn't understand. He couldn't understand the pressure, the weight of teenage life. People like him didn't have TV's, and if they did they probably gathered around to watch Leave It to Beaver. They couldn't understand the burdens thrust upon kids here and now. The feeling of dirtiness that couldn't be wiped clean. He hated his father for not understanding. For not giving him a chance.

And drugs were so good, so capable of clearing away everything, everyone.

Staring at the perfectly planed ceiling, the charcoal colored encasement, Cole thought of Lee's face when they found his stashed Robitussin. Three years her senior, it wasn't easy for Cole to watch the disappointment color his little sister's face. They had always been close. Sharing each other's secrets, talking about what life had in store for them. She was so...real. So happy and joyful in her life. Comfortable. Now...now they both knew what lay in store for them. For one denial, refusal, bitterness. The other held pleading, and more disappointment.

A backhoe shattered his reverie. If there was an upside of living by a landfill, it was finding useful stuff among the refuse. Partly broken TV's and ragged clothing were a common find. But the ultimate discovery was the inconspicuous snowglobe.

Inside the globe a child puttered around a perfectly crafted snowman. The child's face bore an expression of joy, half hidden in a tightly wound red scarf.

Cole always saw himself as the little guy. Joyously wandering about, finding hidden happiness around him. Procuring glee from the gloom of the attic nooks. Loving the snow. At least, he used to.

Lee said he was changed. He was not joyful. Not exhilarated. Maybe she was right. Maybe years of sloth have paralyzed him, making the thought of happiness unbearable.

That couldn't be true though. He was happy when he watched the styrofoam snow fall onto the hardened snowman. He was happy when he looked into the child's gleaming face. He was happy in this cold hard room watching the cold hard winter through his cold hard window. He was happy when he lit up.

A knock at the door missing its hinges. "Cole?" and anxious voice called out. It was Lee on her daily mission of proffered deliverance. In the two years of Cole's absence, Lee never missed her weekly visit. Usually they would sit on his grubby sofa and endeavor to think of a few chatty words to communicate to each other. And they always failed. It consistently ended with Lee bursting into tears and begging for him to come home, to escape this sty, to find their love. "I know Dad misses you. Your breaking his heart slowly and torturously. Mom cries every night and Dad can't comfort her because he feels the same way. Your tearing us apart. Why won't you just come home?" And Cole just stared with a slate face at her misery. "Is this what you get from your drugs? Ignorance! How can you do this to us!" And with that Lee would leave.

She, of all people who could, didn't understand. She was like all the others. She didn't understand how much hurt he felt. How he couldn't show it. How he didn't want to.

Again, the persistent knocking, now more insistent. "Cole? Cole! Open up. I know you're there. Cole!"

Not today. Not again. He would let her beautiful voice be disappointed.

Cole curled up on the dirty sofa and cradled his snowglobe. He stared at the shiny snow, the shiny painted face, the shiny happiness. He couldn't stop the shaking. So he tried to flow through the spasms by rocking gently back and forth. And soon, he could not hear the knocking anymore. The joint was completing is purpose. Absolute indifference.

"Cole! Cole, if you can hear me, listen to what I am saying. I'm not coming back. Ever. You did what you set out to do. Mom left. Dad's not talking. I don't know what to do. Can't you help me? Comfort me?" Her voice was more frustrated. More saddened.

Silence.

"That's what i thought. I came to say goodbye. I can't forgive you anymore.

I can't wait for you to catch up. I can't wait for you to break my heart, too. If it already hasn't happened."

With that, Lee passed a note under the door, turned, and never came back.

Cole peered at the little boy's face. He was unhappy. The snow had stopped falling. It was piled around his feet.

Cole shook the sphere, but the snow wouldn't fly up like it always did. He shook it harder. Then harder. Finally, with a shout of frustration, he lobbed it at the closest stony wall. It shattered into a thousand little specks of snowy glass and water. The snowman didn't survive the fall, but the little boy did. He lay on the floor staring at Cole with the little black dots that were his eyes.

He was angry with Cole.

"What! WHAT!! What do you want from me! What can I do!"

He rolled off the couch and stumbled to the child.

"I hate you! I really do!"

He crushed it under his shoe. Then started sobbing.

He crossed to the note his sister left.

It was written in big neat letters:


Cole,


I hope you are happy.


Happiness was not what Cole felt.

Emotional Evaluations

Emotions. Distilled in a jar, nicely placed and horrifyingly decent, looks like perfectness in its infallibility. Never extreme, but always UNemotional. COLD.

This is not human life. Is it bad to move, to be moved, to love, to hurt, to be scarred? Is it possible to be sinful when your first love has left you desolate and you cry out to God in your ashes and salt?

Look around and your reality will be shaken. No matter how big you make your structurally secured bubble, you can never engineer it to surmount the basic need for outlets. Fear, reassurance, sadness, inexpressible joyfulness, love. But instead try to murder it with a pre-manufactured facade, a facade filled to the brim with no emotion. No love, no joking, no happiness...but also no sadness, no desolation, no fear. In its place neutrality. A neutrality that is capable of sucking the universe into its fuzzy, unreal depths.

Seek reality! Please, seek reality. We live not in a plastics warehouse, but a world full of color, life, living and breathing people. You can't form it to what you want yourself, but what God has ordained. He ordained laughing. He ordained that moment, like a rollercoaster, when the world falls completely from your foot's grasp and sends you hurtling into infinity. But He also ordained a baby's birth. The pain, the tears, then the shining, beautiful eyes. The sudden growth. The tricycle accidents, the first bloody tooth tied to a doorknob, the puberty, the meeting a "sweet" guy, the marriage, the next birth, then death. Something we call life. Something that we have no control of. Something we cannot escape. Something that is good.

So before you decide to become that solemn monk, that no emotion escapes from except a hypocritical glance of scorn at others for their happiness, take a look at your little siblings, your children, your parents, and see God's handiwork. A bundle of emotions and child-like faith, but something God all-knowingly created, realizing our insufficiency, but creating us nonetheless. Praise God for being our God.

Singular Swinging

The frost gathered about his breath marks on the windshield. He had been sitting here so long. Waiting. Waiting for courage. It was slowly wielding itself, taking advantage of his adrenaline. His breathing was coming hotter and faster and it dissipated the frost. It was almost time.

He stroked his hair for the seventh time. It was beginning to stand on end, making him feel wild, strong. It concealed the little bald spot that was growing wider everyday he lived without her.

It was time for confrontation.

It hadn’t been long ago he would sit on his porch swing, watching for her to return. Waiting for her to breathlessly come and sit next to him. She was as steady and sure as any great woman is; she always returned at the same time. Jogging was her passion. He thought it was the steadiness, the surety, that every step and every next step could take you somewhere. Take you towards home.

He had waited. But this time she hadn’t come. Instead, as he sat alone, he heard the crash, the sirens...the silence.

He was ready. Especially with the shiny blackness in his pocket. It didn’t feel heavy. It was a center of strength; something that made him feel powerful. It felt deadly.

Now it was time to confront. Time to free himself. The man would pay. The man who cared only for his Coors and his happiness. Whatever made him smile, whatever made him laugh, was what he seeked. And the “accident” had only been a mere coincidence that would have to be paid for. In money.

But he had other plans. It would be paid for with something else.

Walk towards the multilevel apartments.

Take elevator to floor 3.

Walk into the dark hallway to room 34A.

Knock.

He reached into his deep pocket and readied himself.

Knock again.

That “man” opened the door.

I said nothing but gave him what I had been waiting to for so long.

I gave him the picture. The picture of us together on our honeymoon now ten years ago. The picture where her hair halfway disguised her face. The picture where we hugged in front of the run down motel where we stayed for an eternity. My personal earthly heaven: anywhere I could look at her. Anywhere I could find myself rationally from her ready mind.

We asked that homeless man to take it. And she was afraid he would steal it. This picture always made us laugh from remembrance. Our flimsiness, our foolishness about life, our happy naivety.

Now I have no one to laugh with. The grins are marked over with a grimace. I could no longer look to her for that mirthful, airy laugh I missed so much. No more could I smile.

I handed it to him, and ran quickly to escape his gaze.

A Letter from Al Qaadar

“If I told you never to forget my face right now, would you? If I told you never to forget this day, the little details, like the way you clinged to me whenever the whitewash blown by the sea breeze would wash the mist about our eyes, would you? If
I told you to remember our love, would you?”

It was an easy enough question. It wasn’t hard for her to answer. She would always remember the way the waves vibed against the pier’s beams; how they synced to her heartbeats as he held her hand. She would always remember reality; for right now, everything was real. In focus. Outlined. Positive. She loved him. He loved her. And he was leaving to die.

He was leaving for Al Qaadar, one of the most violent and dangerous war-zones. Only 95% of Americans live through Al Qaadar, the other wives told her. 95% was pretty good though, right? “Not when your husband is one of the 5%.” This fact shadowed her every thought.

Today was perfect, though. Beautiful ocean. Beautiful sun. Beautiful eyes boring into hers. She could forget for now. For today. And let reality cover her in warm folds like a bed’s sheets in December. Like her husband’s embrace.

But now she sat again on the dock. Alone. With the dirty white envelope in her hands. Right now, forever, she would remember this singular moment. She was alone. But in this moment, she was singular. Singular in the fact that he and she were made one and would always remain that way. Even in death. The wind gusted around her. It lashed her hair around her face, whipping the tears that streamed. She opened the note gently, softly. He had touched this note not a few days earlier.

“Bear with me, my dearest. I see the dustiness around me and think of our days on the pier. I see the blood-red sunset, and think of the blooming orange ones at home. I see the haunted faces of those who have lost so much, and I remember yours. I remember it clearly. Perfectly. The days passed by so quickly when I was with you. But now I relive each of them in earnest, remembering every angle of my day. Every angle in which I saw you. Every angle in which I plumbed the depth of your untouched mind. I wish to see you with my whole heart. And I know I will.

I now read and understand. ‘Love never fails.’”

Stained Soul: A Sequel to Stained Fabric

But it wasn’t so. She couldn’t come. She wouldn’t come if She were able to. She had escaped into life. Why would she come back to him who wallows in deadness? His loves were sinful and shallow, hers were pure and right. He was dirty. She was made perfect.

He strained the unhappiness out of his head and replaced it with the happiness she used to grant him with, though the wounds still bled deep inside of him. “Please, just let me die! I don’t want these people near, I don’t want friendship or love, or hate and bitterness. I just want numbness and the end of gravity.”

The unreal hollow voice above commanded boarding, but He didn’t want to anymore. He didn’t want anymore machines. Anymore unreal voices. All he wanted was to see her one more time and clarify the life that was a slave to hers. The voice kept calling, kept jeering. "SHE IS GONE! FORGET OR REMEMBER!"

Yes, it was her body in that plane, it was her wrinkled face, those were her perfumed clothes. They were all going to her subterranean home. But it wasn’t her. It wasn’t the lithe form that he held in his arms every night for 40 years. It wasn’t that face that smiled upon him sarcastically when he knew he made her laugh on the inside. It wasn’t the perfume of their love on a frosty fall day in the park. She had vanished.

He didn't want to remember her. He wanted to kiss her. He didn't want to forget her, he wanted to explore the world with her. He didn't want to leave her. He wanted to share her warmth in the chilliness of earth.

He swiftly rolled himself out, past security to the bus, still in the airport’s wheelchair. He rode to that park where they had spent their infrequent Sunday afternoons. Where they shared their loves and cares. Where they explained their failings.

He hobbled with his retractable cane to the rusty bench.

He sat down.

He looked at the infinitesimal letters that were their names carved into the winding wooden armrest.

He lay down and wept for an eternity.

Ode to a Love Forgotten

I met the dear Ophelia

Upon the western stair

Through some columns of transport

Into the wild air.


The whipping wind blew thru her hair

While her eyes were infused with joy

But like a flower withering

Her heart did black employ.


“Save me from that death!” she screamed.

“The forlorn death of a lover,

For upon the wakening of the sun

Flies forth, that plumed plover.”


“My heart soars away,

My lover in madness wrought.

Forever gone from my bosom.

To fall, to die, I ought.”


I opened my mouth to comfort her

But not a sound progressed.

And with the rising of a sun,

Her protests did arrest.


And with a scream of agony,

She disappeared and was gone.

And her cry was not of pain,

But because the madness of one so fond.


I saw the girl Ophelia,

Upon the western stair.

Her lovely face was happy ever,

But only with sweet Hamlet there.

A Heart of Snow

She escaped to the stoop. It was time like these that she felt relief from the indifference inside. She knew they didn’t care for her. How could they. It had been years since her foster parents were enlightened from their artificial familial affection into compassionate disregard. She would often overhear them on the phone to their friends, “Yah, Poor Terri. She’s going thru another “rough” stage. Imagine all your family abandoning you, having no friends, and some random family to live with!”
Once again, no one understood. Once again, no one cared. This was her life. To them, she was a doll in a dollhouse. Moveable. They could incur all THEIR emotions onto her, and not realize what hers was. After she would hear them chatter, squawk, she would hide here. In the cold. But not alone. There was the snow.
She watched the snow fall like down feathers from the grey pillowy sky. She watched as the drifted this way and that. The wind would catch them and hurtle them towards danger then back away from it. Like her, the snow was passed from one house to another.
A few snowflakes landed on her hands, hands that were worn and chapped from the dryness. And for a second, they felt refreshingly numb. If only numbness could reach the heart.

Wayfaring Thru Life

The towers surround you, the inky blackness too. Looking to yourself, you huddle deeper in the fleecy jacket. Thick enough to protect against the bitterness, thin enough to allow the seeping cold to make you shudder. This is how I like it. This is how I live. Walking past towers, walking past men. Walking through life.

Observing and departing. Observing an individual that will never be noticed again. Noticing for once someone’s goodness. Noticing again someone’s wickedness. This is how I like it. Walking past youth. Walking past elderly. Walking past life.

Then a stare. And another. More like a glare. Those distinct faces now face me. I, observed?! Start running. Start hiding. Don’t be noticed. Don’t be seen! This is how I like it. Hiding from looks. Hiding from others. Hiding from life.

Fire awaits. A snappy, pure journal also. A kettle too, but that takes time to heat. This is how I like it. Now away from others. Seeking refuge from aliens. Soaking in life.

Crowded Solitude

Sin. It’s what covers as a second skin. Unremovable. Implacable. It is us.

Sin. It’s what makes us human…together.

A “people person.” A person who doesn’t feel. A funny joker not to be taken seriously. A joke.

Broken. Hurt. Depressed. Angry.

This characterizes the same person.

Yes like you, he feels. Yes like you he bleeds, internally.

Bloodless veins, empty from disuse. Like tears, blood dissolved to nothing, leaving emptiness, hopelessness. Pin pricks in the heart, small enough to be invisible, deep enough to make you crumble.

Physical needs, hunger, wants, leave you separated from yourself. Thought and conviction, human and sinful.

Wanting happiness for others, wanting comfort from other’s happiness.

Laughing, taunting, others “know” you. Laughing, taunting, you die.

Laughing, taunting, they write you off. Laughing taunting, you write yourself off.

Goodbye foolish world, full of empty hate and lust.

Hello foolish world, full of kindness and inseparable love. You need others.

They need you. Inseparable bonds.

Let us run together our empty races with endurance. The finish line is in sight.

Goodbye pain.

Hello eternal rest.

Gasoline and Miracles

“This’ll be 6.59.”

Sorry dude, I only have six bucks...Can’t you use your spare tip change?

No problem. Here.

OK.

And he left.

Omar removed the last few pennies in the cigarette tray that was his tip jar. He looked at them one by one, felt their edges. He hated coins. They always made your fingers smell like metallic filth. Nevertheless, he dropped them one by one into the cash register.

5

10

20

21

22

23

24

25.

He had one penny left which he put in his jacket pocket. He decided which lottery ticket he wanted then put that away with the penny.

He gathered his few belongings, and trudged the five blocks home. He worked 5 in the morning till 1 at night seven days a week, and this walk was his vacation. A vacation from all the rudeness, all the looks. So many faces, so many of them hard. He needed this walk to remind him that life was real.

Alone. Unwanted. Him and his ticket. His lucky ticket.

He felt for the penny and the slip. He found them both and applied them vigorously, as he walked. He could feel himself losing control as he scratched number 2. Why was he like this?

It was so simple match one pair…just one pair. A fictionalized coin surfaced. Now one more…should it be number 1 or 3? No, 5 will do, he was the fifth child, he was born on the fifth of March. It must be. He hated himself for this addiction.

So for the thousandth time he scratched numbers 2 and 5…and once again he lost. He dropped the ticket next to the hundred others and turned towards his silent home, with the smell of soured pennies in his nostrils.

The Pained Child.

Her supposed friends abandoned Her, Her hands were dirty, and the tea-set was broken. She hunched over the last shards, Her fire-hair aglow in the setting sun. She cupped Her hands under Her chin as She scanned the broken fragments and frowned at the disorderliness. She liked things in their place. And now it couldn’t be. Not only that but Her best friend had said that She was still a little kid. She played with stuffed animals. And she was right. Then the tea cups broke. Once again, her best friend ranted that Her parents didn't have enough money for real glass. Just cheap plastic. And she was right. Then they all called Her a loser and ran away. Were they right?

She started to cry.

The sun lost its grip on her sunflower dress, and a shadow took its place. He was there. She looked up into His dark eyes, He looked into Her bright eyes. All was going to be OK, because Daddy was here. He looked at Her mournfully, but with a look of future happiness.

He pressed his oversized hands onto her face.

He dried Her tears.

He took the shards.

And He fixed them.

Stained fabric.

The hearty youth wheeled Him over to the cool glass. You knew it was cold because in between the layered glass, the frost created intricate snowy puzzles. He longed to touch it, to feel the chilliness spread to his interior, but that blasphemous child was still there. He would have to wait.

The college-aged ‘elderly affairs’ officer stooped close to His face with his disgustingly suave and oily face with that smirky smile and said, “Do you need anything else?”

“Me, need anything else! Why I didn’t need you to save my antagonized wretched life beforehand, but I do feel a heart attack coming on,” He felt like scoffing. Instead, He said, “No.”

“All right. Well, just tell that young lady over there in the red suit if you do. Her name is Jenny and she would be glad to help you.” With a satisfied smile, as if he had changed yet another life, the adolescent left to save another old soul.

He sat staring out over the tarmac. It looked scorched and dry. Like Himself.

He grew tired and stared at the ground, not possibly without thinking of Her.

The carpet was stained too. Stained red.

He wished He felt the worn carpet, the rough ridges pass through His shriveled toes. He wished Her’s next to His. He wished He could remember Her face as it was twenty years ago.

He wished…

Your Inner Gargoyle.

You sit quietly in the corner. You hold your warm latte to keep your hands warm and make yourself an unnoticeable goyle. Holding your breath, you watch as they pass. Those alien creatures commonly called…”humans.” You make sure you are inconspicuous. You listen and watch as they cling to life; living it, breathing it. You know they are alive, you feel their presence. And it makes you breath.

This earth is filled to the rim with foreign people. No, not in the, “Your from Azerbaijan?!” way. But in the individual, different way. People who are different because of their experiences. And if we LOOK and OBSERVE, we can learn from their lessons learned.

So when you are in a random Starbucks, or an ocean cove; maybe a Opera, or a pizzeria; a park, or a karaoke bar will do; just Look, Learn, Listen, and you’ll find humour, frustration, joy, and anger in the world around you. Here will be found several short fiction or true relations found and inspired by observations in my life. Hope you are inspired to observe!