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!