Love.

Her life had been reduced to sitting in a wheel chair, looking up at the ceiling for nine hours a day. The bed was pointed towards the windows in her small room with all the furniture and decorations designed to have a certain look and feel to them to make the occupant feel more at home. All of them having a cabin feel, something homey and likable about them. In reality all these things did was make her feel like she was getting farther and farther from home the longer she stayed here. In her mind she’d made peace with the fact she wouldn’t see the place she called home again. She’d never say this out loud. She’d never admit to coming to this conclusion and being strangely alright with it. This was where she lived now. Her real home, not her house, had left a few months prior. This was what made not seeing her house alright. Although she missed it; the carpet, the furniture, the pictures on the wall; it wasn’t her home.

This had all started when she had decided to get her hip replaced. This was something that had bothered her for some years now, it was late in life to be having such serious surgery but it was worth a try. If it went well it would mean that she would be able to walk with relative ease again. It went well at first. She was making a full recovery until they found what appeared to be a staph infection. If left untreated this could eventually travel to her heart and kill her. More operations followed. It became about saving her life instead of trying to make her walk again. The more operations she had the more her quality of life was forgotten. She spent most of her time so doped up on pain medication that the person her family knew and loved wasn’t present. She’d become the shell of the person they once knew. Her husband was constantly at her side while all this was happening. The hospital they had chosen was an hour away from their home and he made the trip everyday to see her, just to spend time with her. After all, she was his home. Sleeping alone at night was something he hadn’t done in fifty-some-odd years. Visiting hours was a term that didn’t apply to him, it didn’t matter that he was 84 and couldn’t stand on his feet for more than 20 minutes at a time. There was no other option. The person he called home was lying in a hospital bed unable to speak most of the time, but still awake and alive enough to know when he held her hand that it was him.

“I don’t know what to do. I can’t help her and it’s killing me. I want to take her home. I need her home with me.” He told me once, while going to get her some more ice and something soft to chew on.

I didn’t know what to say. I’d never seen love and dedication like this in my life. Nothing real, nothing I could feel in my heart as the real thing. Every other example of love between two people had failed, or wasn’t something I that felt like I could reach out and grab it with my hands. In a time where the institution of marriage failed just as often as it succeeded, when most couples who weren’t already divorced seemed destined to cross that bridge soon, it was strange to see something so solid. Something so tangible.

My own parents divorced when I was 10. I had watched my father remarry again and seem happy, while my mother went through relationship after relationship that all seemed doomed to failure. There wasn’t anything solid about any of them. Maybe what I should say is, that from a young age I’d learned that love fails. Love is not something to set your watch to or take to the bank. I was fine with this, because it was the way it always was for me. It wasn’t until I saw the way that my grandparents were so willingly and lovingly dedicated to each other that I discovered what love could be. What love could do to people. How, for some people, it truly was something to trust, something you could count on, regardless of what was happening to the other person. Love worth fighting off death for.

After her numerous surgeries to try to rid her body of the infection, my grandma’s leg was all but useless. She did get to go home but, because of condition she had to sleep in one of those electric hospital beds, separate from her husband. He adapted though. In their room they had a big reclining chair that he had used to watch TV in. His solution to my grandma being in a separate bed was to move to her. The chair was put right next to her bed. This became my grandpa’s bed while my grandma was able to live at home. Her days at this point were spent watching television with my grandpa, visiting with people who would come to visit and check to see how she was doing. Eventually the infection returned. What made it different from the first time around was that this time they had also found cancer. They found lumps that had developed all over her body.

The chemo started right away. Back to the hospital again. This time it was more serious. It was something that couldn’t be cleaned out with a series of surgeries. Her once full and white hair had begun to fall out. This broke my heart. I had spent a lot of time with my grandma. When I was younger she used to take me along with her to the neighborhood hairdresser where all the older women in the church got their hair done. She had gone once a week, it was something in her schedule that had to be done. She had the nicest hair in he group. It was perfectly white and was always well maintained. Always in the same shape and appearing to never change. It was something I loved about her. Her hair hadn’t changed since I was old enough to notice it. In my head, my grandma was the most lady-like and refined women I’ve ever known. There wasn’t a crass or uncultured bone in her body. When I was 12 she sent me to an etiquette class. When I was in junior high she insisted that I take ballroom dancing so that I could learn how to dance, because this is a skill that all cultured men should possess. Even when she’d lose her temper because of something that I was doing, she was never actually able to lose her temper. It was something I had to fight laughing at because I knew it was something that was so forced for her. I took it serious because I knew that it took a lot of anger and annoyance to push her to this level.

“Shit!” She’d say, like she was trying to pronounce a word in some foreign language for the first time.

Lemme guess, some sort of team sport...

I love it the way that you love a distant relative. Someone you met when you were too young to really understand what family is and how it molds and shapes who you are. There's something magical about it. The way the field is leveled, the grass perfect, the players positioned perfectly throughout the expansive green that is the outfield. Barely watching the pitch, I hear the crack of the bat against the ball. Standing out of instinct, my head tilted toward the sky searching for the tiny speck of white, trying to gain some reference by watching the rest of the crowd. Finding the ball just before the loud snap of it finding it's unwanted home in the outfielder's mitt. I watch as the players move as if attached to strings, propelled by some grand puppeteer, moving as one into the perfect positions to cut the long toss to second off, perfectly aimed, throwing the ball 200 feet like it was nothing. Reaching it's destination, second base swings his arm which is propelled by the energy of the ball down to tag the runner trying to make his way back. It all plays out like some sort of mythical play. The way that nature seems to have a designer; it all works too well together.
Double play. The inning ends and it's time for the seventh inning stretch. Fans stand, stretching mostly out of tradition than any real need to stretch their legs. The game had been close enough to keep everyone in their seats instead of wandering around buying hot dogs and beer. The combination is floating through my head, and oh, what a combination. Nothing in this world can make you feel so good and as bad in equal measures. Standing up to participate in the tradition that has no traceable origin, I lift my arms above my head and feel the soft and cool breeze in the early September evening. The crowd is chattering and waiting for the obligatory take me out to the ball game to begin. As expected the chords begin to pulse through the loud speakers that are attached and placed through out the ballpark. There's no point in resisting and hell, who would resist singing the national anthem of baseball?
Waiting for the last lines I turn, announcing that I need a fresh beer and ask if anyone wants anything.
"I'll get a dog with some relish and onions please."
"Alright, I'll be back in a second."
Lifting my legs I make my way up the stairs to the main concourse. I see the food stands placed throughout like the gauntlet thrown before someone trying to just make it to their seats with their kids still attached to their hip. I hear the usual excuses given to small children when asked if they can get a hot dog or some cotton candy. I hear all the things that I remember being told by my parents. One hot dog a game, maybe a coke if I was lucky. The memories flooding back and filling me with happiness that has to be shaken from me like dew from a blanket laid on grass in the evening.
I'd been waiting in line, so drunk with season's memories past that I didn't notice I was next. I hadn't prepared myself properly to bark my orders clear enough. I knew I was going to be one of those people who fumbles nervously and takes too long when all you want to do is get your food and back to your seat in a timely manner.
Sure enough, I was that guy. Mumbling, being reduced to just pointing to what he wants as he walks down the line. Handing over a $10 bill for my 6 dollar hot dog, I head to the beer vendor next. This is a lot easier than ordering the hot dog. It's a simple, generally two-word order.
"One, please."
Balancing my food and full plastic cup of beer I start the long journey home. Trying not to drop the hot dog or pour my drink down someone's shirt as hard as I can, I make my way back to my seat. The inning's just started and I haven't missed much. First pitch, the familiar crack and slap of a pop-fly, hit and caught. It's amazing to me the way that sound travels. It had always been something I craved. The sound was so familiar, so apart of the fond memories that it could put me to sleep. You could play just the sound of a baseball game in my ears at night and before you knew it, I'd be sound asleep.
It had always been this way. The green of the grass, the stiffness of bolted down seats, the smells all mixing to create the potpourri of baseball.
My seats and friends are just where I left them, some not so intent on the score and some rubbing those one's faces in it. It was all here. There was nothing outside of this park that life could need.

No Answer

The computer screen flickers bright and clear. Saturday afternoon has become saturday night. The short nap in the afternoon sucked all the time I counted on having. It was perfectly clear. I'd done this to myself. There was no avoiding or passing the blame. Waking, I found my phone on the bed next to me. Only three hours. Only three hours for a nap that I had planned on spending a half an hour. It was the difference between waking up and finding something to do and waking up and going to 7-11 to buy tea and food to last the night. The bare essentials to survive a night at home spent watching movies and sitting on social networks wishing I was out with the rest of the world.
My feet rest square on the rug jutting out from beneath my bed. I rub the sleep out of my eyes and try to refocus on the task at hand. Baby steps. Baby-step, stand up. Baby-step, go get a glass of water. Baby-step, have a cigarette. Visions of Bill Murray inside his tiny cramped apartment talking to his fish and the mental anguish that plagued his character flash inside my brain. Could this be me in 10 years? 10? Who am I kidding, with the way tonight turned out it's likely to be five. Oh, well. Such is life.
Baby-step, find my keys. Baby-step, find my shoes. I could see myself doing this for the rest of the night. Wandering around my apartment completing baby-steps to an end goal that didn't even exist. Insanity, they say, is doing the same thing and expecting different results. I don't know why this comes to mind right now, but it makes perfect sense.
They say that dissent into madness takes time. They say it is a slow and meandering process by which a person finds themselves at the end of path they didn't even know they were on. I know that my dissent into madness was short, it was something I saw, a path I knew all too well that I was on. My dissent into this so-called madness began on a certain day a little over a year ago. It was the point from which everything that I am spins off of. The center of the insanity that is my universe. I'd been on this path for what seemed like an eternity. I know I just said it had only been a year but that'd be putting too much blame or credit depending, into one thing.
The cigarette calmed my wandering mind a little. Still thinking about all the possibility that had been thrown away and the disappointment that followed. I open the door to my apartment and walk down the halls to my room and find my bed once again. All I crave is contact. All I want is some sort of human interaction. I find my phone again. Baby-step, find someone. Baby-step, make contact. Baby-step, get out of this apartment. Baby-step, evolve. Baby-step, be the solution instead of the problem. No answer.

As we know it...

The world was falling apart, but we didn't care. Everything around us falling down around our feet, but we didn't care. There was more than enough to go around. Each time our lips met and parted and met again the world seemed to fade farther and farther away. I couldn't remember the last time I cried. The last time I felt alone. The last time I pictured myself as an old man, alone and trying to remember some long lost love from his youth. Your hand moved from my arm to my neck, twisting my hair between your fingers. There was nothing between us. Nothing to hold back. I spent hours holding you close to me, hoping I'd never have to endure a world without you again. You mirrored my every move, back and forth we'd play, the danger growing more and more, but we didn't care. I felt like a child inside. I felt small and loved and whole. Finding a lost toy, hugging your mother, or taking a bath in the kitchen sink. Minutes turned into hours and hours into days. It could never end. I was positive breathing was pointless if you weren't close.

"I'll always love you. There's nowhere I could be without you."

I couldn't muster a single word. The words I had once spun through my mind like a twine wrapped around barbed wire were lost to me. Scrambled somewhere inside the chemical reaction forming in my brain. Dopamine traveling from one synapse to another, I knew I loved you too. Your hair hanging down in your eyes, I see nothing but your mouth, nothing but everything. Each strand clinging perfectly to the one next to it, forming each perfect lock hanging in your face, meeting your skin so softly. I brush it away, I need to see those dark brown eyes staring back into mine. I need the windows to your soul open and clear.

I hold you close, I sleep. Deep and dark and complete. In these dreams I'm trapped. My dreams are not dreams at all. I can't move. Like I walked into wet cement and decided to wait around until it dried. I watch you leave. I watch you leave me standing there. Alone again. The fear already building in my body, I feel the adrenaline begin to pulse, my hands begin to shake. Darkness. In and out. I see you huddled below me. Darkness. Pure and complete.



My dreams fade faster and farther from me these days. I wake up in this place, not knowing where I am and wonder: how did I get here? How long have I been waking up here not recognizing these people surrounding me. I'm 89, I live with people I don't know, and I love a woman I haven't seen or touched in 65 years. It only lasted one night, but how could something so real last any longer than that? It wasn't love that allows for anything else. It didn't allow for kids, a lawnmower, and a golden retriever. Nations have been built and destroyed by less than what happened then. I don't expect you to understand. I don't even expect you to care. I know I'm close now. I know I won't be around much longer and I've made my peace with that. What I do want you to understand is that these things you seem to care so little about and treat so frivolously can haunt you. They will haunt you. I promise. I wake each morning crying, not fully understanding why. My dreams fade faster and farther from me these days. I know you don't understand. I know you probably don't even care. This couldn't possibly happen to you.

After all these years I'm not entirely sure it even happened to me. I welcome sleep, seeing her as I once knew her. I see the possibility in her eyes and all the love I couldn't possibly contain. I rise every morning remembering the way I left her. Remembering the way the blood trickled down her chin landing softly on her breast. The love her eyes had been filled with changed to horror and disbelief. I'm 89, I live with people I don't know, and I love a woman I haven't seen or touched in 65 years.

In our society.

"​We'​re desig​ned to be hunte​rs and we'​re in a socie​ty of shopp​ing.​ There​'​s nothi​ng to kill anymo​re,​ there​'​s nothi​ng to fight​,​ nothi​ng to overc​ome,​ nothi​ng to explo​re.​ In that socie​tal emasc​ulati​on this every​man is creat​ed.​"

-​David​ Finch​er

Don'​t worry​.​ We'​ve done this to ourse​lves.​ The path of least​ resis​tance​ is now the mothe​r of inven​tion.​ You proba​bly won'​t even notic​e the world​'​s been rotti​ng away from under​neath​ you until​ they take away your wal-​mart.​ Just give up. Let the world​ destr​oy itsel​f so we can rebui​ld it. Why fight​ to save somet​hing that'​s broke​n and beyon​d fixab​le?​ Is it worth​ it to destr​oy yours​elf to save somet​hing that will,​ in the end, destr​oy you anywa​y?​ Let it go down the drain​,​ quit delay​ing the inevi​table​,​ quit grasp​ing at straw​s.​ Give up. Wait for the chanc​e to build​ somet​hing new. Somet​hing worth​ savin​g.​ I'm no excep​tion to this rule.​ I like my super​marke​t just acros​s the stree​t and I like my overp​riced​ cloth​ing desig​ned to infla​te my overl​y sensi​tive ego. The key is knowi​ng that event​ually​ you'​ll be force​d to be a human​ being​ again​.​ Trust​ me, it won'​t be long.​

There's nothing left to save. Our society is so broken that any attempt to try to right it will be futile, like throwing rocks at bullet-proof glass. Like trying to empty a lake with a teaspoon. Our society coddles those who aren't willing to take care of themselves and rewards stupidity. We work against nature. We work against the very forces that allowed us to make it this far. We're so worried about being politically correct and making sure no one is left behind that we've begun to reward and even value the one's who, if nature took it's course, wouldn't even still be breathing. Don't say it's a lack of compassion. Let's face the facts. When you begin to punish the successful in order to reward the weak, what have you got? What do you encourage? The fatter, slower, dumber you are, the more you get. This thinking is broken. If we were still living in the conditions we were designed to we wouldn't even be having this discussion. This would be a non-issue. Don't tell me we're better than that. We're not. We trick and fool ourselves that this is what is 'better'. I pray that one day it all goes down. It all goes down the drain and we're dependent on our own skills to survive. How many of these people who are too fat to leave the house would survive? How many? None. It's the way of nature. It's not greed, it's not cold heartedness. In other species of animals it's common practice when a member of the herd is weak, sick, or disabled in some way to kill it. Birds will peck a fellow bird to death.

This is reality. This is the way the world is designed. We work against it every time we think otherwise. Be stronger. Be smarter. Be better. Survive.

Untitled.

My legs feel heavy and I want to go home. My ass is numb, and I want to go home. Alcohol and nicotine pulsing through my brain, and I want to go home. I wonder if anyone's ever overdosed on nicotine. It seems unlikely but not impossible. I've been sitting on this curb for 3 hours, trying to sober up, and I want to go home. People still shuffling in and out of the house from where I'd just come, still trying to reach the mystical plateau. That tiny cliff at that top of the giant hill that is just enough but not too much. Everyone chasing the light while hanging out in the dark. Everyone on the same fabled conquest of substance; trying to get it without letting it get you. Isn't it funny that we all go out and push, push, push to get to the point that I'm at now, and then all we want is to go back down, walk backwards down that hill so we can get back to the familiar? I vaguely remember calling a taxi a few hours ago but hadn't been able to convince myself that it was time to go, it was time to stop doing shots, time to quit doing lines in the bathroom; but I'd missed my chance. I'd probably missed my only chance to get back to the only place I wanted to be right now. Safe and warm, curled up on my bathroom floor. I hear car doors opening and closing. I hear engines starting. Why am I not friends with those people and why am I not leaving with them? Lying down might be a good idea, the spins have taken hold and mixed with the taste of what must have been 100 cigarettes and whatever I'd been drinking in there, it all begins to blur.

We all tell ourselves while we're punishing our bodies to free our minds that it'll be a good story, it'll be something that will make our friends laugh, regardless of how awful the things we did were to get it. Right now, I don't give a fuck about my friends or what they're going to say when I tell them about how awful I feel. I don't give a fuck because I can't; I'm focused too hard on not freezing to death. I start to think about the snow on my back, and the cold burning feeling on my skin. If the snow was still melting on my skin, I must be alright. The house behind me is still full of people. I wonder if they're ever going to stop. The sun will come up soon. It has to. I wonder if that's the signal everyone inside is waiting for. The sun is up, we have to leave now.

I sit up because my back is soaking wet. The cold had felt good when I first laid down in it, now it was just another reason I needed to leave. I try to stand but decide it's a bad idea and sit back down. My ass feeling like it was separated from it's long lost twin and then reunited. Inside may have been the better option. Thinking about it now I don't know why I came out here. Did I think that if I just came out and sat down that somehow, through some sort of magic, someone would come and take me home?

I can't breathe all that well through my nose, it's gotten worse as the night has worn on. The lines I'd done with that girl in the bathroom weren't helping my current situation. She'd led me in there holding my hand. I thought I was going to get laid. The reality of the situation was completely different. At the time it had all been about pushing the limits, I was fine then. Barely drunk. What's better than a pick me up? What I know now is that it wasn't a pick me up. It wasn't what I had thought it was at all. I ended up doing a small line of Oxycontin on the bathroom counter. This doesn't mix well with the amount of booze I had been drinking. I knew this wasn't the best way to keep the party going, but I couldn't help myself. Oh what I'd do to go back in time. My legs feel heavy, and I want to go home. My ass is numb, and I want to go home.

The house is surrounded by tall pines in all directions. I know this because when I wandered out to piss earlier I'd almost gotten lost on my way back in. It's funny the details that don't transfer over from sober to inebriated. I walked up the front steps and noticed the tall pines and hell, I'd even driven through them on my way up here. I mention this up because I've already thought about just walking out of here, but I'm almost positive I'll end up as one of those people you laugh at on the news who is found 50 feet from a highway frozen at the bottom of a tree. My subconscious is trying to kill me, and I want to go home. I feel disconnected from everything, and I want to go home. The sky over the mountains is turning purple, cold darkness is giving way to light. The sun is making it's way west. The lights on the fronts of the houses are fading, no longer the only thing providing light in the infinite darkness that is this night. I feel my stomach beginning to figure out that it's only sifting through different types of alcohol and maybe some jell-o from those terrible jell-o shots. I'm almost certain that it's getting ready to break free of me and find a better owner. Someone who takes care of it.

It seems like things have gotten quiet. I can barely hear the music inside. I was almost positive that someone would call the cops and I'd be waking up tomorrow in some county jail with ten other drunks standing around waiting to be released back into the wild. I'd almost welcome it right now. A night in the drunk tank for the ability to still feel my fingers. I want to stand up. I want to go back inside. I know I could at least find a small corner somewhere to lay down and just sleep all this off. I am soaked to the bone, the curb I'm sitting on isn't getting any softer, and I want to go home. I can barely feel my legs anymore and my only thoughts are about my bed and how warm my house must be, and I want to go home.

There's no sound now. There is nothing I can see moving around me. I feel my eyelids begin to feel heavy. I want to sleep. I want to just sleep it off. I'll wake up in a couple hours and be sober enough to get home. I'll be sober enough to be able to know where I am. I just... want... to.... sleep.


"Tonight on Fox News at 9, a young man found froze to death outside of a home in the Park City area. We'll have more about that and much more for you later in tonight's broadcast..."

twenty three. 23. veinte tres, vigniti tres. twenty fucking three.

It's a milestone. Something I was almost certain I'd never be. The last year of my life is something that, sitting here now, almost seems like something I watched on a bad TV show. One of those reruns AFTER M.A.S.H but before the infomercials take hold. It's been tough, I'll admit it. There were points that I was positive tomorrow would be a day I would never see.

What have I learned? What have I taken away from this last year? I don't know and I can't really put it into words. I guess I'll try though. The most important thing I've learned in the last year, and am still learning, is that life goes on. Life never ceases because it seems that it can't get worse. If we lived our lives this way we'd never know the inherent beauty of triumph over adversity. The feeling that we lived through it, we made it, it may have seemed like there was nothing left to give but we kept breathing and through some miracle, here we are. Another thing that's been important for me over this last year is finding the beauty in everyday life. Finding that one thing that makes you smile, makes you so happy it almost brings you to tears. You know what, fuck it. Finding that one thing that actually moves you to tears. Be it, a sunset, an overwhelming song, watching people be nice to each other for a change. Whatever it is to you, find it.

Family. I never truly understood what family meant to me until this last year. I know this sounds terrible, and it is, but I never fully grasped how important family is to the human soul; how these people around me are imperative to my happiness. I'll never understand how I thought I'd be alright without them. I'll never be able to make it another day without them again though. That's a certainty.

My final thought, because I don't want to keep writing this pseudo-motivational garbage, is this: Never waiver. Never give in. Never fail to see the world for exactly what it is. Never fail to see each new day for what it is. A new day. Another chance.

the end.

Personality, or the lack thereof. (and the bear for brian.)

He had always lacked a sense of general direction in his life. For as long as he could remember he had been open to suggestion, too open. There were moments in his life he could point to when he had formed what he considered convictions. There was a base he could refer to, some sort of general belief system, but it was broad enough to be able to adjust to any situation. There had always been an envy in his heart about people who didn’t waver, never giving in to another’s point of view; someone who knew what they believed and stuck to it.
There were moments that this had gotten him in situations he knew were going to hurt, were going to be painful, and wrong. He had picked up habits this way, habits that controlled his life in one way or another. He felt he lacked a personality. Picking elements of every other personality that he liked and could see the charm or a sense of genuineness that he craved so badly and applying it to himself. He had always wondered where this had come from. Why he felt he needed to make certain adjustments to fit the company he was with, fit the personalities he was surrounded with at any given moment. Could it be the divorce of his parents, something that had forced him to be one person with his mother and one person with his father? Could it have been earlier than that? Having many different types of friends when he was younger, did he learn that in order to be everyone’s friend he had to be many different people in order to make everyone happy? “There’s just no way to know.” He thinks to himself. He wondered if maybe everyone was this way to a certain extent. Could it be that he was so self-aware that he understood what he was doing more than most people.
He had heard a television program once about something called “ high self moderators”. These are the people who are so aware of what other people’s personalities in a certain group of people or even one on one that they could adapt themselves so well that you would never know that they weren’t at all similar. On the surface this isn’t a problem, in fact these people tend to be very successful because they are able to sell themselves, able to make most people like and generally trust them. The problem comes when these people find themselves alone. They don’t know what they like and enjoy themselves. They’ve always borrowed everyone else’s personality traits. Essentially there is no “them”, no “you”. If there were no one around to pace or borrow from, who would they be?
This had always been the problem with him. He melded well with all different kinds of people and felt safe when they surrounded him. The problem came when he was alone. He’d sit and try to think up a personality to be, all the likes and dislikes that a certain personality would have if they were so and so. It had always been this way as long as he could remember. This presented a problem in relationships that required him to have a personality that wasn’t just on the face of things. When dealing with romantic relationships everything could be taken to a certain point, then he sensed that they were able to get the idea that the entire time that they had been courting that this was just a sales pitch, that he had been adjusting his personality to their needs and likes. Once this was realized, all of these relationships ended. There was nothing inside to love or even hate. Most people think they want to find someone like himself or herself in a romantic relationship. He knew that this wasn’t true. If it were, he’d be the ultimate catch being that he became the person he was with. And then the bear came.

A weekend...

Bugs swarming from every direction, his hand swatting and waving at just air, trying to get his hand through as much of it as possible, the idea that the bugs being so small they won’t be able to move out of the way. Carpet-bombing in the world of insects. The stream in back of the cabin moving slow and lazily down it’s path, still bearing the scars and pockmarks from summers uncountable that kids had built dams to try to make a hole large enough to sit down in or maybe even swim. Sitting in his chair made by a local craftsman who chose to make furniture out of saplings and small twigs. The chair is surprisingly comfortable and inviting. “How often looks deceive.” he thinks to himself and lightly chuckles. The bugs have either learned their lesson or gone home, having had their fill or decided to cut their losses and head for the hills. The beer in his right hand is cold and sweating in the warm evening’s breeze while the cigarette slowly burns in his left. The air seems to hang suspended in time and space by strings attached to a puppeteer’s hands; someone whose only task was engineer perfection on earth. For a moment he thinks, “Maybe this is heaven.” Time seems to slow, he barely remembers being on the porch, made of stone all the way to the streams edge. The only thing that matters now is sucking this moment for all it’s worth. The rest of the world has ceased to exist. His new job and the new responsibility, the bills sitting unpaid on his desk, the relationships nagging at his thoughts, all into the ether. Into the gap between what matters now and what matters in the long run.
“Hey, you need a beer?” Brian asks, holding the screen door open.
“Nope, I’m still milking this one, thanks for asking though.”
The cigarette is nearing it’s end and even though he said he was fine, the beer is warm and almost not worth finishing at this point. Snapped back to reality but he doesn’t mind. He stands, stretching his travel weary arms and legs out and yawning at the same time. Breathing in hard he smells the bar-b-que chicken cooking on an open grill, the smell of moss and cold fresh water, and smoke exiting from a chimney somewhere. The smells mixing in his nose and in his mind, bringing back memories of his childhood, times before the stress of the world had been placed squarely on his shoulders.
“Hey, dinner’s on the table. I grabbed you another beer, that one looks pretty well worked over.”
“Yeah it’s about that time, thanks man.”
He stumbles up the short path to the cabin’s back door past the small porch with the old wicker love seat and small coffee table made out of what looks to be an old Indian drum. The screen door pulls open easily and slams surprisingly hard behind him as he walks inside. He steps up to the sink in the kitchen and washes his hands. Washing the smell of stale cigarettes off his hands, he smells the hand soap next to the sink. Vanilla and brown sugar. He always thought it was strange to take things that were mostly remembered for their taste and turning them into memorable scents. He turns the hot water off and dries his hands on a towel.
“Tyson, I made you a plate, it’s already out on the table.” Brittany says as she passes him, moving quickly out the back door. His eyes hardly had a chance to see her pass by. If she hadn’t said anything he wouldn’t have even known she had been there at all. He looks around the small kitchen trying to find anything that might have been forgotten in the rush out to the table. The kitchen floor had been redone since he had been here last, brick pattern linoleum covered what he remembered as a strange orange colored linoleum that seemed to be as old as time. Pushing the screen door open he takes in the full breadth of the back porch and patio. The loveseat and drum-shaped coffee table to his left, to his right a smaller portion of the deck that had been used for storage since he had been coming here and what he felt must have been a very, very long time. The wood porch beneath his feet bends and pops and creaks under his weight. There is a small path that slopes gently down to where a small dock had once hung over the stream. On either side of this path are patios that are elevated above the path that divides them.
He walks down the small cement sidewalk to the old metal table where Brian and Brittany are already sitting, waiting to begin eating until he gets there. The new beer has already begun to sweat onto the table, leaving a perfect ring of water on the dusty table. Sitting down at the table he picks up his fork and steak knife. The chicken looks perfect, like something you’d see in a cooking magazine you were bored enough to read while waiting for a plane at the airport newsstand.
“Well, quit staring and eat.” Brian teases
“I don’t know it looks a little too good. I don’t wanna ruin it, I might feel bad.”
Dinner doesn’t disappoint. Its every bit as good as it had looked. His stomach full, it’s time for another smoke. Fingering a cigarette out of the pack in his pocket he lifts it and briefly leaves it there while he searches through his pockets for his lighter. The air, which had been warm and inviting, is now crisp and rejuvenating. The cement beneath his feet still warm but getting colder and making him wonder if it’s time to put his shoes back on.
Earlier Brian had retrieved his fly pole from the truck and decided to try to catch something in the small stream. When Ruca, a Newfoundland mammoth of a dog, had decided to go for an excursion in the front yard, something off limits, Tyson had been given the pole. Removing his shoes and stepping into the cold water he began to flick the pole back and forth, releasing enough line to get the momentum required to cast to just the right spot, to put the fly exactly where it would make sense for a fish to be minding it’s own business. The rocks mossy and slippery beneath his feet, the water cold but not numbing. There doesn’t seem to be any fish to catch but that’s hardly the point. Fishing to him had never been about the catch; it had always been something to get lost in. To lose the madness in something that was all about rhythm and required every bit of concentration and focus you have available. There doesn’t seem to be any fish but in the cool of the evening, the briskness of the breeze and he last vestiges of sun peaking through the green quakie leaves, there’s not much to be disappointed with.
“Ruca! Get here!”
Silence.
“Ruca! Get here!” Brian says patiently, a hint of anger coming through.
Casting. He keeps casting until, snag. He’s caught something but it’s not a fish. Looking over his right shoulder he sees what he’s hung up on. A branch about 25 feet up in the air has his fly and about 2 feet of line wrapped firmly around it.
“Mother fucker. That’s a lost cause. That’s never coming down. Ever.”
Reeling to one side and then the other, jerking the pole in hopes that he’ll jiggle something free. This goes on for about 5 minutes. The tree, the fly, and the pole: nothing escaping the wrath of his verbal assault.
“Awwwwe godddamned mother fucking piece of shit. Could I have gotten that any further up in the tree?”
Pulling hard enough to make him think that either the line or the pole was about to snap he relents, wondering which would give first, his sanity, the pole or the line. Brian comes around the corner grinning wide and trying not to laugh.
“What’d you catch? Looks like a big’un.” He says mockingly.
“Sure is, we shoulda just set me free with this earlier, we would’ve been eating well for weeks.” Tyson says with a huge chunk of sarcasm attached.
Brian was always wearing sandals. Most people you think the opposite. When you see someone in sandals it’s usually the weekend or some sort of vacation. Tyson could count the days he’d seen Brian in normal shoes on both hands.
Hopping down into the river Brian snatches the pole away. Laughing he begins pulling the reel side to side. Pulling with more force than Tyson had dared.
“This way, if something does break or I lose the fly, I can’t be mad at anyone but myself.”
“Yeah, that sounds fine to me.” Tyson says although he still felt guilty for getting the line stuck in the first place.
After a good solid 10 minutes of wrangling, the line finally snaps. The fly still lodged somewhere inside the tree branch.
“Whelp, that’s the last of that.” Brian says, trying to assess how much line he’s lost and probably wondering which fly he had on there and how much he had actually just lost.
Tyson had already started heading back towards the rocky bank of the creek, stepping lightly, trying to avoid the sharp edges of rocks that hadn’t been at the bottom of the creek long enough to be worn round by the passing water. Reaching his destination he realizes that he’s gotten the bottom of his shorts wet, something he was desperately trying to avoid. The air had gotten much colder and even crisper. He pauses momentarily trying to think about what he had packed and where his jacket was. Realizing he had left it in his car, which was a good 600 miles away, at home tucked safely away in his garage he quickly forgets the idea and decides to just tough it out. It was just barely cold enough to need one anyway.
Sleep came easy that night. Dreams filling his mind with better times and ideas and feelings never brought to fruition.
Waking the next morning, the cold of the night before still fresh on his skin, he rose to the smell of fresh coffee and feet moving across the wood and linoleum flooring. Sitting upright in bed he waits for the haziness of sleep to fade and clarity of mind to take hold. Rubbing his eyes and curling his toes he sits, trying to possess the carelessness and happy-go-lucky feeling that filled him. No work, no stress, nothing in this moment to cause him any grief. Standing he walks to the mirror hanging in his room above a dresser he looks in the mirror.
Scruffy. This is the first word to come to mind.
He hadn’t shaved for at least four or five days, the hair on his head standing on end in every direction. He had decided not to wear a shirt to bed the night previous so the marks from his hand being tucked underneath his chest while he slept on his stomach were still bright red and clear enough to see from a distance without his contacts in. Leaning over he finds his contact case and puts them in one by one. The scene is even worse than he had originally thought now that he could see clearly. For someone who normally based his entire self-image and confidence on his image and appearance, this didn’t bother him in the slightest. He wasn’t here to look good; he wasn’t here to care about how he looked. This trip had been about rest, relaxation, and the time he’d spend with his friends that he’d had since he was young.
Friends he’d watched grow from young highschoolers who dyed their hair black and based their entire existence on punk rock to mature adults. Working more than full time jobs, buying new cars and houses, living and loving each other. With life being so damn busy all the time he’d seen less and less of them. It was the natural order of things he’d told himself. How many people are still friends with people they knew in high school? Not many, of that he could be sure.
Throwing on his t-shirt from the night before and a pair of basketball shorts he walked into the living room. Normally he could count on someone being there to greet him, even if it was just the dog. Not a soul in sight. He still smelled the coffee, a sign he hadn’t been abandoned and left at the cabin for sleeping too long. Walking through the living room he makes his way to the kitchen. Sure enough, there was just enough coffee for one more cup. Next to the fridge was an old cupboard with glass doors that held all the plates and cups. Opening the door and looking through all the coffee cups, he tries to find the one that would best express the way he was feeling that morning. It’s a funny way to express yourself but sometimes a coffee cup can say a lot. Finding the mug that had a fish painted on the side whose tail continued out and formed the handle, he pulls it out and fills it with fresh black as night coffee.
“Lots of cream, lots of sugar.” He says aloud, to whom he’s not entirely sure.
When you spend as much time alone as he had become accustomed to you learn to entertain yourself. Quoting movies that you know you’ll recognize because you’re the one saying the line is surefire way of getting a chuckle.
Pouring some french vanilla creamer into his coffee he closes the cap and places the bottle back inside the fridge. He faintly hears Brian talking, of what he can’t hear well enough to guess. Opening the screen door to the back porch just enough to stick his head out.
“Morning, sunshine.” Brian quips.
“Gooood morning to you sir, and you as well madam.”
“Mornin’.”
Pulling a cigarette from his shorts and thumbing his lighter he lights the morning’s first smoke. There’s something holy about that first one, an admission of a coming day. Giving yourself time to process the day ahead of you and what could happen and what you’ll be doing.
“Well how did you guys sleep last night?” Tyson says, taking a drag from his smoke and exhaling while taking a sip of the coffee that was still extremely hot.
“Good, and how about yourself?” Britt asks.
“Pretty well, had some crazy dreams. The ones where you wake up and find yourself relieved that it was only a dream. I have way too many of those ones, but I guess it makes me more happy to be waking up.” Tyson explains.
“Ha. I know allllll about those.”
“So what’s on the menu for today?”
“I think there’s a pancake breakfast because of Labor Day we could hit up if you’re interested.” Brian says.
“Yeah, I’m down. Whatever’s clever. I’m gonna go take a shower and get ready.”
He heads into the house after finishing his smoke. In the bathroom he takes another look at himself in the mirror. The scene not much better than before but at least his eyes were open all the way. Turning he drops his shorts and boxer briefs in one foul swoop and removes his shirt. Walking to the shower he opens the small glass door and pulls the knob out. At first just cold water, then warm and warmer until it was just a tad too hot. Turning the knob slightly until the water is just the right temperature he realizes that this will be his first hot shower in over a month. About a month ago the water in the apartment he was renting with his roommate’s gas had been shut off which meant no more hot water. At first the cold showers had been refreshing as it was just too hot outside still to take hot showers anyway. When the temperature outside had begun to drop, being that it was the end of August, he craved nothing more than a hot shower. A giddy feeling now filled him. Hot water.
It never occurred to him how strange it was that he would be so thankful and excited for something so simple as a hot shower. Stepping into the small shower that was all one big, molded piece of plastic framed by 2x4s that had likely been there since the cabin was built in 1914, he feels the warmth of the water covers his body. He doesn’t have he space to move around and slowly get used to the water. The shower is only about two feet wide and the same length across. He washes quickly and pushes the shower’s knob in. He steps out of the shower onto the mat on the floor. Drying himself with a towel he quickly pulls on a pair of black briefs and an undershirt.
The plan that night was to go out. It was the first time all of them had been out of town together since Brittany had turned 21 two months previous. Whiskey Jacques was the name of the local bar that seemed like the place to be on Saturday night. He found his favorite pair of Diesel jeans and a pair of dark socks from his backpack and pulls them on. The shirt was going to be the hardest part. First he pulls on his favorite green t-shirt that was admittedly overpriced but it gave him confidence. Finding that the shirt made his belly seem bigger that option was out. Next he put his blue and yellow flannel button up that he had brought because he thought it would be funny to wear a flannel to a country bar. The next option was just a simple v-neck. This would end up making the cut.
“You two ready?”
“Ready when you are.” –Brian
“Let’s head out then.”
Luckily the way that Ketchum is laid out, the bar is only a 10-minute walk away. The idea is not only appealing because of how close it is but because there’s no chance of making the wrong choice and deciding to drive home drunk.
“Alright Ruca, you’ve gotta stay here. You have to be a good boy.” Brian says in a childish voice to the dog.
Leaving the dog inside the house the trio set out to the bar. Having never been to a bar like this they have no idea what to expect. All having different ideas of what they want and what they’re expecting to find there. Walking through the streets Tyson lights a smoke, trying to get it out of his system so he could enjoy a drink with his friends before having to excuse himself to do it then.
“So how stoked are you guys? What if it’s just a redneck bar? Country bar I can deal with, hell, I could even have a good time,” Tyson says, “if this place is just packed with rednecks, I’m gonna be pretty upset.”
“Nah man, it’s supposed to be pretty rad. It’s in all the ski mags as a place to go when you’re in town. I think it’ll be a good time.” Brian says.
They get to the bar and walk inside; right away he notices that it’s a non-smoking establishment. He wonders if this is just because the owners want it this way or if it’s something forced on them by a city ordinance. They show their IDs to the doorman and pay the five-dollar cover charge to get inside. The doorman isn’t overly friendly and gives the impression that he’s been doing this for quite some time. They each get a stamp on their hands and walk up the couple stairs and find a table not too far from the bar. There’s music playing through thru the bars system but it doesn’t feel like something that would be played here.
“Hey, what are you drinking? I got the first round.” Brian asks.
“ Rum and coke. You sure?”
“ Yeah it’s totally fine. You’ve got next though. Alright, I’ll be right back.”
Brian comes back in a few minutes with the drinks and sits down at the table.
Over the next fifteen minutes or so most of what they’re doing is watching the local girls come in the entrance. He’s surprised by some of these girls. Tonight could get very interesting he thinks to himself.
It’s been about 25 minutes by now and his rum and coke is now just melting ice.
“Alright, second round coming up. You guys just want more Jack and cokes?”
“I’ll have a Maker’s Mark on he rocks actually.” Brian says
The club had begun to fill up at this point and a live band had taken the stage. Reading lips was about as clear as it got now.
“What?”
“Makers Mark, rocks!” Brian shouts next to Tyson’s ear.
“What about you?” Tyson asks, pointing at Brittany.
Leaning over the table to try to make this whole process easier, “Ask them if they’ll do a Salty Dog.”
“Is that real or are you just trying to make me look like an idiot?” Tyson shouts back.
“Ha. It’s real. If they won’t do it just grab me another Jack and coke.”
Walking up to the bar he’s already sizing things up, trying to get an idea of the size of this place and the people who are filling it tonight. It’s about 10:30 now and it’s starting to fill up. There’s people on the dance floor, spinning away to the live band that’s playing covers of musicians like Steve Earl, Sublime, and even some Johnny Cash. What surprises him is the diversity of the bar’s patrons. Like the bands that are being covered the locals seem to be just as diverse. Hipsters there with their fake, thick rimmed prescription glasses, sports fans there to watch their college football team on the numerous TV screens all over the place, country music fans in their tight wrangler blue jeans, button ups with leather vests and overly pointy cowboy boots. Finally making his way through the people standing next to the bar he waits to get the attention from one of the two bartenders.
“What’ll it be?” one of them asks after a few minutes.
Relaying the order, he watches as the drinks are made trying to see if the pours are metered like back home where the separation of church and state is almost non-existent. No meters, the best of which is Brian’s Makers Mark. It’s a glass full of ice, which surprises him at first because most of the time when you order a whiskey on the rocks it’s just a few cubes, next the bartender pulls the bottle and pours for a solid four seconds. Filling the small rocks glass almost to the rim. Now he waits for the price. Back in Utah that drink would have had to be poured over at least three or four doubles.
“That’ll be 15 bucks.”
“Here you go man.” Tyson says as he hands the bartender his credit card.
“You just want to leave this open?”
This had always been Tyson’s weakness. An open tab meant that he could get drinks whenever he saw fit, which was usually too many, without ever having to hand anything over except on the first order.
“Yeah. Just hang onto my card.”
Picking up the three rocks glasses he heads back to the table. Maneuvering with all the concentration he can muster he weaves his way through the people still waiting to get a drink. He spots some girls that must have gotten while he was waiting. Surprisingly, they seemed to be looking just as much at him as he was at them. He reveled in the thought of going up to them and maybe introducing himself. As he walked by he thought about the missed opportunity or the bullet he may have just dodged. This was the bane of his existence. Never knowing if he had just missed the chance of a lifetime or possibly preserved the little sanity he had left.
Returning to the table he sets the drinks down on the aged and worn wood that looked like it had been the side of a local barn for 100 years before someone decided to make a table out of it.
“Holy shit. Is that mine?” Brian asks with his eyes wide.

Stare not long into the abyss...

The cameras rolling, her on her stomach, the bright lights penetrating every thought. Thoughts about her childhood are streaming from somewhere, somewhere she's tried to run from and fuck away. "If I just put enough of the good between the then and the now, it'll finally be gone. It'll finally leave me alone." The sweat dripping from above, falling on the small of her back. She wonders if any of her family have stumbled on any of her work. If her little brother, late at night been looking at websites he knew he shouldn't have been and thought, "Holy shit, that's Victoria, that's my sister." The phone calls had stopped a long time ago, from both ends. The shame and disgust from her father and her mother's nonchalant denial of everything that had happened to her. Rolling over, the man above her asking, "You like that?". She remembers when she started doing this for money and how it seemed to hurt to have to lie. More memories from somewhere deep down inside flash inside her eyelids, her eyes clenched shut and only getting tighter. "Why would someone do that to a little girl? Why did it have to be me?" She wonders if someone watching this could tell that she was fighting off tears, if they could sense that she didn't want to be there; like a murderer on trial, televised for the world to see. Head down, arms folded, waiting for a verdict to be read. She bites down hard on the gum in her mouth, she tries to focus on something, something not inside her, something not painful, something that meant her no harm. The man finishes, the evidence streaming down her face, onto her naked body. She just wants to be somewhere else; maybe not so much away from here but sometime else. Before her innocence had been taken, before she felt unsafe in her father's arms.

The water from the shower fogging the glass in the bathroom at the studio. She wonders how much semen has been washed down this drain, how many girls sat in this shower and wondered if this would be all they ever knew, questioning if they've got a soul left at all? The tile beneath her feet is cold and somewhat refreshing after how hot the shower had been. She walks to the mirror and uses two fingers to wipe the steam away just enough to see her eyes. She looks for a moment but turns away before she's forced to see the person looking back at her. The only person left in this world who knew any better, who knew what she was capable of, who knew who she was. She pulls on her clothes and walks down the hall, collects her paycheck and walks to her car. Noticing that she's out of cigarettes she walks to the gas station across the street and walks inside. The attendant gives her a look reserved for people who've spit in your face as she walks to the counter.

"Can I get a pack of Marlboro Lights?"

"Sure, but you can't pay with fuck money, whore."

She walks away without her cigarettes. "I should have known better. I shouldn't have come here." She'd heard the stories about the owners across the street, she'd heard about the horrible things they'd said to girls who came from where she'd just left. "I don't know that I would have said anything different. I don't know that I blame her for what she just called me. In the eyes of someone who's looking in at me, I am just that. A whore." The world had become something different, something hostile. In the two years she'd been doing this since she turned 18 she wishes she'd kept track of the number of people she'd been with. She felt used up, like the little engine that couldn't. She felt life before she came here, before she read the ad in the paper, before she stepped off the bus was something so far away, something so unfamiliar and strange to her that she didn't believe it had ever happened. If you asked her, she couldn't remember where she came from. Who her friends were. Where she was born.

She always asked that she didn't know the names of the men she slept with. She figured that it wasn't real, she wasn't doing anything wrong if she didn't know them. It helped if she didn't know them, if she could look the other way and not ever see them again. Forcing herself not to create a memory of them. Keeping them out of your consciousness and more importantly, your subconscious. If she saw them again on the street, she could honestly say she'd never met them before; there was no recognition. Nothing that could tie the now to the then. It's comparable to drug addiction in the way that if you are a recovering addict, the last thing you want to see is a syringe full of heroin walking around waiting to bump into you.

21st century lover boy.

His phone vibrates in his pocket, the messages all cute, sweet, and short. In our age the sweet little nothings that you would have whispered into your lover's ear when our grandparents were our age are now text reading across a small cell phone screen. It's the same feeling washing over you, the same simple idea, the same rush. The only difference is that it's easier to misread a situation, easier to not take something the right way, or not even hear what's being said. The death of everything simple. The death of everything genuine. There is no recovery, no going back to when love was love and it was as simple as that. No text messaging, no trying to interpret vague or overly neutral messages, no guessing.

It makes me wonder if its ever been simple. If there's always been this massive disconnect between what a woman says and what she means, between what a man is told and what he hears and wants to believe. I know that in my personal experience, it's always been this way; but then again I'm only 22 years old. Who knows how it was 50 or even 100 years ago. Was it exactly what was said and that's that; or have men like myself always been second-guessing and torturing themselves with every possible angle or meaning that something could have? I guess we'll never know. Ultimately, its debatable at best. My reason for asking these questions is that lately all I seem to be doing when it comes to dating or "hanging out", depending on who you're talking to and what they're comfortable with saying that you're doing together, is interpreting actions, phrases, body language, and all kinds of other things that will single handedly destroy a man's soul and confidence.

How are we ever supposed to be able to 'fall in love' if we're constantly saying things with hidden meanings, testing the water, or not saying what we mean? There's no hope for something that requires ultimate honesty when we do this giant, extremely pointless, and retarded dance around what we're actually feeling and going through. We're all so afraid that all these things could go wrong, rejection, appearing needy, or sometimes finding out that the person feels the same as you.

I'm not sure that there's anything to get out of any of what I'm writing. My advice? Learn to let things be simple. Learn to let things take you where you might not have expected. What's the worst that could happen?

Something sweet...

His words hurt even when he's trying to be nice, when a compliment turns into a jab, when a kind word turns into an insult. It's just too late to take anything the way it's intended tonight. Making trips to 7-11 at 3am for cigarettes and something to try to scare away the hunger growing inside. The poison pulsing through their veins, a slurpee might just hit the spot.

The track marks hiding under sleeves pulled and stretched long, just to hide the scars of the recent past. The doors swing closed behind, walking down the aisles, eyeing the chips and candy, false filling, sugar and corn starch. Picking up a bag of fritos, a pack of gum, and the biggest cup of iced sugar water possible, walking together to the check stand.

The attendant has seen this a million times before. "If only I could say something, say that one thing that would get through to them... but I can't." They scrounge for change and crumpled dirty dollar bills, finding just enough to pay, having to leave the pack of gum behind. The disappointment and embarrassment that would be felt by most patrons is no where to be found. So used to having to make larger and larger sacrifices to feed the habit, to continue down their path; what's a pack of gum?

Making their way into the night, even though it's somewhere around 3:30, it still feels early. When your days run into weeks and months into years, days are a measurement of time that are no longer real. Walking down the empty street, filled with potholes and cracks in every direction, water left behind by a late night rain. The air hot and muggy, making their clothes heavy, sticking to their skin. She looks at him, wondering what she's doing here, how she had ended up this way, why she'd stayed so long. Thinking that this must be what people are talking about when they say it's like the train wreck that you can't look away from. She'd been with him before the devil's counterfeits had taken hold. Before the daily fix was the most important thing to him. Before she'd bought her ticket to ride on the train headed for disaster. She knows that it wasn't wrong to love him back then. She knows that there's nothing she could have done to make him see what he was eventually going to give up, give away, and sell just to make it through one more day, to one more fix.

She knows that eventually, if she wants to make it out alive, she'll have to leave. He was headed nowhere, way too fast. She'd always figured that there would be the brick wall he needed to hit before he'd anything clearly. Before their lives had turned into one sad joke after another she'd thought that they'd be together forever, settle down and have kids of their own, lives of their own.

She vaguely remembers what she had pictured their home looking like, two cars in the driveway, kids toys scattered over the lawn, bikes on the driveway. Her husband coming home from a long day at the office, loving his family, loving her. Snapped out of the day dream by the sound of the screen door to their small dingy apartment slamming closed.

They lived in a tri-plex off of one of the main side streets downtown, the streets you would take if you were trying to beat traffic on the freeway or drive on the way home from the bar, trying to avoid the cops. The furniture filling the house looked like it had been there 10 years too long, although she remembers buying it not more than a year ago. The carpet more a series of unstained patches than the alternative. The kitchen was filled with spills, dirty dishes fill the sink and have begun to stink. She doesn't remember the last time she used a clean plate or fork.

Sunset

Sandstone beneath his feet, each step grinding down to it's original form. The sand working its way between his sandals and skin. The walls of stone reach above him on either side to where his eyes can only see a strip of sky. He pushes on the walls with his arms outstretched, as if to try to move these mountains farther apart. Pools of water fill the deeper parts of the canyon, stuck there until they either evaporate or seep somewhere farther below.

Walking further the canyon's walls open into a clearing, a dried riverbed filled with stones moved along during rainstorms and flash floods; they find a place where the force of the water just couldn't move them any further. Sitting on one of the larger stones he watches the sunset. Bright orange and red hues fill the sky in front of him. It's almost too much to take in, the red of the rock and the red of the sun mixing and almost become one. If he hadn't been told long ago in school that the sun was so far away, he would've believed that the sun was part of the rock. Making its journey from one side of the canyon to the other and settling in between the grains of sand in the sand stone. Like the way water seeps into sand, but fire instead. The canyon grows darker and darker still. What had once been beautiful and comforting now becomes sinister and untrustable. The walls dark now and climbing around him into the sky. No escape in sight. He finds higher ground and lays down. The rock beneath him offering no comfort. His eyes finally close, and sleep finds him.

He dreams of open pastures, clear paths, and rivers running freely. In these dreams he finds himself running to the bank of the river and drinking until he can't swallow one more drop. He stands next to the river and looks around at the green of the grass, the moss that has grown on the rocks in the shallower parts. He turns and walks away, walking through the tall grass in the evening. No walls of stone in sight. He finds pleasure in walking in any direction he pleases. Turning off the path and walking as far as he wants. The ground beneath him solid, no sinking feeling of sand. The dirt brown, nothing red or orange. Finding a soft bed of pine needles he lays down, his eyes finally close, and sleep finds him. Before he can think how comfortable he is here, his eyes open.

Walls of sandstone on either side of him. He stands, finding he has barely enough room to stretch his arms out wide. The strip of sky above him already blue and full of heat beaming down on his forehead. Never a sunrise, never the cool of the morning, never the beginning of a day. He readies himself for the endless journey of the day ahead. He tries to count the number of days he's woken up this way. Realizing he's lost count and that it's pointless to count days in eternity, he begins to set one foot in front of the other.

"If only," he thinks to himself, "I didn't know this was hell."

It kind of feels like...

"I want you to know," he thinks to himself, "I wanted to say these things but just...". The line on the other end of the receiver clicks. The cell phone is flipped shut and shuffled away into a pocket somewhere. The idea is that if you reach the ultimate low, if you ultimately don't care about yourself at all, someone will come along who cares about you more than you do.

The phone vibrates in his pocket, he's had enough of that particular emotion tonight. He sits down on the curb, the street hot and dirty. There's nowhere to hide from the heat, so you might as well try to enjoy it. The only relief you get from the sun is when darkness fills the world, when night falls on the city. Even with the sun hiding on the other side of the earth there's still not much change. A couple degrees here or there but you have to be thankful for something. Looking down at his shoes and the scars left on the asphalt by someone else, someone sitting exactly in this spot. Someone who was no doubt, going through something at least similar.

The sun heats the tar filling the cracks; unknowingly he's put his shoe into the middle of this mess. The shoe comes out but but it takes some forcing. When his foot finally does lift there's an exact imprint of the sole of his shoe left in the melted tar. He knows it won't last, but the idea that he's left his mark, even if it as something as small as this is the something positive he needs to just keep breathing. He wonders if this is a metaphor for the human condition. Everyone leaving temporary footprints in everyone else's tar. Staying just long enough to be noticed before the heat of the sun returns everything to how it was before you put your foot there.

The flutter of possibility

He nervously smoked a cigarette at dusk, before he had to take a shower at his brother's home. The ground beneath him is black asphalt, covered in leaves and cigarette butts, some of them his, some of them not. Leaning on the hood of his car he lifts his hand and inhales, holds, and exhales. The smoke thinning and finally disappearing as it is carried by the light breeze. Thoughts about the girl he was going to see soon, the possibility, the hope, something pure.

The strange coincidence crosses his mind that the date would occur almost exactly a year after the last girl had left him. He shakes the idea off his mind and returns to happier things. Possibility. Hope. Something... pure. The cigarette sparks and bounces on the asphalt before being smothered under the sole of his shoe. He paces the parking lot, continuing to think about the girl. He thinks about the life he lives, how it won't mesh with hers, but the attraction is undeniable. It's funny that this is even happening, being that not just five or six weeks ago she was in a strange relationship, all her own. A boyfriend who was technically an ex, but was still around constantly and also had a problem with her seeing other guys. This being the reason it hadn't happened back then, but that wouldn't be entirely true. They had already gone on a date, but there was the ex, something that neither wanted to really deal with, or talk about.

He glances at his phone, the time he counted on having had slipped from him. Walking quickly across the parking lot to the condo's front door he brought out the ring of keys from his pocket. Gently jingling the three or four rings attached to the main ring, he notices that there is actually only one key. He laughs, wondering who thought they needed to have so many rings for one lonesome key. Entering the condo he notices his brother's roommate sitting on the couch, watching TV, probably the history channel or something. He climbs the stairs to the second floor.

To his left his brother Chris's room, to the right the bathroom and shower. He strips, putting his left foot in the shower he remembers that he should probably shave. Standing there, naked, he shaves his face. There's something strange and unfamiliar about standing in front of a mirror completely nude, shaving. The shower is hot and refreshing, the familiar smell of the fragrances in the shampoo, soap, body wash. Smells he was pretty sure had just been recycled since the beginning of time. Labeled as things familiar or comforting. Exiting he towels himself dry and walks into the room down across the hall. Pulling on his jeans and pulling his white undershirt over his head, then the olive green t-shirt. His skin still moist from the heat of the shower, a mix of water evaporating and sweat. The phone on the dresser blinks and vibrates, the flutter of butterflies in his stomach.

Faith?

Thoughts spill from my mind, in an unstoppable ramble. The one constant that is always at the front of all these, or at least somehow connected to all of them? "What comes next?" Where does my consciousness go? My body dies, but does everything that is me go with it? All the things I've learned, pondered, connected, and disconnected in my soul. Is this really all there is? The idea of God has always seemed silly to me, but not in a laughable silliness. Something like the way you laughed at your friends when you were younger for saying that they were superheros, believing that if they so desired, they could do all the things they imagined, with the flick of a switch. As I get older, I find that this thought isn't so much silly, as terrifying. I've always had 'the feeling' that there was something bigger, unknowable, and untouchable out there. Nothing good or evil, just a force that was somehow connected to every living being. Necessity? Maybe, maybe not. Faith? Not likely, but just as plausible.

The only way I can describe what this feeling might be or who, depending on what you believe, is the way it feels to see a loved one that you haven't seen in years; or the way the first day of spring feels after a long winter. Hands shaking nervously, happiness seeming to emanate from inside you, your heart beating faster and faster as this loved one's face comes into focus or; warmth washing over your pale and cold skin, unable to keep the smile from crossing your face.

Childhood

The night comes smooth and quickly, the cement beneath your feet still warm from the sun's love and kindness. Pebbles, sticks, and leaves stick to the soles of your feet. The sharp pain of these reminding you that you're still alive, able to feel, even if it is pain. Walking around the side of the red brick, two level home, to find an average neighborhood, full of people stuck together; forced to live out their lives near one another. Like a flower who grows under a tree, who's only misfortune was that the wind didn't blow it's seed far enough, just to see the sun. People sitting in their yards, playing with their children, enjoying the cool of the evening and the breeze who's temperature has dropped to something tolerable, even soothing. The blades of grass massaging their weary feet, moist and cool. Children running and playing, throwing toys and laughing. Knowing joy without pain; happiness without sadness. Their parents looking on, staring with wonder at the miracle known as childhood. Joy without pain, happiness without sadness. Envy fills their hearts, but never crossing to resent their flesh and blood. The one phrase crossing their mind without them knowing, subconsciously repeated over and over? The one thing that I dare say comforts them?

"They'll know it soon enough."