Tag: fiction

The crate beneath me trembled. I was too heavy, but God, I needed to rest. My feet were killing me. I’d been walking for weeks, sleeping in alleys and doorways along the way. My mind was as burned out as back of my neck. I could have chosen the fall or spring to set out, but my patience had worn thin. I needed to do it now.

The ledge above me would only keep the sun off of me for another hour. I took a pull of my flask and leaned back against the brick. It felt like the back of an oven. It took a few moments for the warm whiskey to settle me swimming.

I remembered her face. She was only three years and four months old when I left her and her momma. Back then her hair was short, almost like a boy’s. The way her momma dressed her, in pants and all, she may as well have been. I never liked what Norma’d been doing with my baby. She didn’t want a kid like I did. She wanted something to distract her cause I sure as hell wasn’t enough. Always angry, always fishing but never catching. Can’t live with a woman like that. It’s just not possible.

But I know, alright? I know I shouldn’t have left my baby with her. I’m making up for that now, even if I die doing it. Lord gives every man the choice of penitence.

There’d be another long walk on Highway 20 and then no more. Almost home.

I got to thinking about what I’d said when I left.

You crazy? What makes you think you’re keeping her? She’s mine, you crazy bitch. I take what’s mine.

No job. Barely enough to get out and even look for work. I never should’ve left. I would’ve had to live with that crazy woman, but by God, I’d have her. I’d have her.

I needed one more thing. So I got up, seeing as the sun was on me anyway, and got to walking. My jeans were dusty, but I didn’t want to spend on laundry. I probably smelled, too, but I couldn’t tell. I needed the one more thing before I got going. My baby needed them.

I walked into a supermarket and found a nice corner where no one’d see me. Someplace cool. God, that cool after that heat. I wrapped my hands around the metal poles of a Wonderbread stand and held on like the plane was going down. It was the feeling of forgiveness on my skin. Things were going to be good real soon. They were going to be so good. I mean, really, people change with time. I’d been doing my penitence. Maybe Norma’d gotten some sense in her head. She’d treat me right, like her man and the daddy of her baby. She wouldn’t keep me away from her and would call the lawyers and stop it all. We’d be happy. I felt it in my fingers.

Cookies and crackers were in aisle 6. I walked up on one side and looked at all the boxes and bags. They all shined under the lights, but none of them were right. I walked along the other side and found a lot more I didn’t need. They must have had them somewhere else.

I found someone, a redhead about high school age. She was stacking soda bottles.

“Excuse me, miss?”

She looked up at me and made a kind of nose wince. Her nametag said Heather. “Yes how can I help you,”  without so much as a pause.

“Well, I’m looking for animal crackers. I can’t see them over with the others.”

This Heather looked at me like I was a picture, studying features and things. Her face was as red as raw meat.

I finally asked what she was looking at.

“We don’t have animal crackers here.”

“Really?”

“Yup, Sorry.”

“Well, alright then. Thanks.”

That didn’t seem strange, at first. Then the other big store in town didn’t have them either.

“Not a one?” I asked.

Not one damn box.

I figured it’s a small place. Maybe they just had no use for them. I’d have to pick them up in Idaho Falls instead.

The walk out of town led me to an island just before the exit out onto the highway. It was empty, and they had a market. It couldn’t hurt.

Inside was a big market and one lonesome old Chinese man, or Korean. He was sitting in a card table chair.

Before I even looked I just asked him.

“Oh, I’m so sorry. They don’t make those any more.”

“What?”

“They don’t make animal crackers anymore. They’re gone.”

I didn’t understand. “No, no, I know they still make them. They always make animal crackers.”

“Not always.” His hand crept across the counter, finger over finger the way a spider walks. I glanced down and winced at the sight of his dirty fingernails. They were coated in a green liquid. Then he lifted it and pointed. “They don’t make them for you, mister.”

“What is this?” I looked around, searching for a camera or hint of some trickery. As I backed away he stood and kept his pointing finger on me.

“You,” he said. “You may not have animal crackers. You do not deserve animal crackers.”

“Fucking hell…” I didn’t know. I had nothing to say. I was walking out when he reached under the counter. I thought he might have been going for a gun or something but he came up with what you’d expect after all that.

“You do not deserve this.”

He had a small red box sitting on the glass, on top of the taped lottery tickets. The string handle was pulled loose. Right there, like they were calling to me. I could see a lion, bear, gorilla, and elephant, kind of blurry from being on the front of a crusty old box for so long. All I had to do was go over and take it, and I wanted to like it was all I had to do. It was simple. It was right there and it was as simple as walking to it.

“I lie in the blood of you. I am God.”

The “blood of you” made no sense to her, like it made no sense to me. It seemed like a thing to say and I had been drinking vodka.

“I am God, I am so God. We need to lie down naked.” So she lied down naked and I lied next to her. I ran my fingers through her hair and felt the hairspray coat me, licked it off. If I moved my tongue into her mouth she would have tasted the chemicals. I thought of the baths I took as a child in the old porcelain tub. The rings marked each time we forgot to drain away our filthy soup.

“Is God so special?” I asked.

“You are to me,” she told me.

“I understand Him, you know. I understand how overwhelmed He is. He’s not sitting on a cloud, He isn’t watching. The heavens exploded and now I am God, with you.”

“You’re so God. I’m God, too. I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” She said it again and again and whimpered. I whimpered with her and we said sorry for all those things that we fucked up and hated too much to talk about.

The next day, I made scrambled eggs before she woke up. They were so bright and yellow, like a brand new sundress, I swear.

“I lie in the blood of you. I am God.”

The “blood of you” made no sense to her, like it made no sense to me. It seemed like a thing to say and I had been drinking vodka.

“I am God, I am so God. We need to lie down naked.” So she lied down naked and I lied next to her. I ran my fingers through her hair and felt the hairspray coat me, licked it off. If I moved my tongue into her mouth she would have tasted the chemicals. I thought of the baths I took as a child in the old porcelain tub. The rings marked each time we forgot to drain away our filthy soup.

“Is God so special?” I asked.

“You are to me,” she told me.

“I understand Him, you know. I understand how overwhelmed He is. He’s not sitting on a cloud, He isn’t watching. The heavens exploded and now I am God, with you.”

“You’re so God. I’m God, too. I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” She said it again and again and whimpered. I whimpered with her and we said sorry for all those things that we fucked up and hated too much to talk about.

The next day, I made scrambled eggs before she woke up. They were so bright and yellow, like a brand new sundress, I swear.

A ghost white and sickly does roam along the desert sands. Its flowing black tendrils wave silently in the breeze. The glimmer of ethereal scales casts a glow of beauteous ruin from which the ghost cannot escape. Chains of a life too far removed from memory and yet evident in the invisible scars of dreams that were far too real for any ghost they mark its form as a warning to any who should cross the path and heaven forbid run in parallel for any length of time. It is bound by its beauty to remain in misery and grief forever wandering from dune to mountain river to ocean in search of an end to an existence too wonderful for any being to bear.

The sands do not shift nor do the scant skeletons of life move as the ghost passes over them in the place where all things live and burn brightly through into the end of time. They float in tormented happiness as fires that have burned from the ancient times of being and even now not understood but only complicated and mused about and yes even wished upon by the more foolish.  The ghost passes the lights in its quest for an end which will not come.  By the withered trees of forests past and only beneath slivers of shadow can the ghost wander forth in search of what it seeks that is to say that which it cannot find for it does not know it looks for it.

As it comes to the end of all things and beginning of others the ghost finds a stone pillar at the edge of a plateau. The stone sits silently seemingly staring out from the top of its rounded form into what it is possibly a canyon but too obviously a canyon so a canyon it cannot be. Howls and sounds of void do not deafen nor indeed make a sound in a place from which the origin of sound is within. Faint breezes simply resonate off canyon walls to create the ever-present drum of thought as it resonates in the bones of not those who are dead but those who are lost and unable to secure the path.  The tree bones which littered the landscape’s ink are no longer present.  The ghost dares to step out along the barren sands lurking carefully.

It is a rounded stone pillar unmarked in the middle of dark deserted sands.  Such a thing is unheard of.

It begins by watching from afar.  First from one side then the others in an attempt to understand the thing’s purpose or if it not be then what it could be.  A decoration of some sort perhaps that was long ago erected as a means to mark the world in a special way.  If not decorative then its purpose may have been functional used by ancient deserters as a pounding stone against which their meat could be placed and softened by mallet strike.  Then perhaps it is an object of true chaos having been formed in a place and over a period of time unfathomable by thinking beings.  Many possibilities for such a stone but none apparent enough to make it understood.  There is a lack of differing colors save the smooth gray slightly lightened by the faint shine of the ghost’s streams of skin as it draws closer with each passing.  Out beyond the canyon unlike a canyon there is a persistent thrum and the ghost’s ears learn to bear it for as long as it is able for the call of the stone is that alluring to it.

The passage draws it ever closer as the few shrubs and rocks are left behind the area around the stone forming something of a half circle of emptiness.  The ghost’s thickly bound hair drags along the sand as the ghost itself stops and listens to the ground taking larger and bolder crawling steps towards the stone pillar listening for possibility of surprise yet nothing occurs.  It is an encouraging sign that the ghost does not ignore digging its toes into the sand as it nears at last the base of the great pillar.  Upon closer inspection the seemingly perfected form is shown to be comprised of a series of small cracks and holes that would not be visible to a ghost’s far-seeing eye.  How strange that a stone exposed to corrosive winds and sands would be so minimally scarred and still stand tall.  And upon nearly reaching the great elongated stone itself it is most surprising to feel unusual warmth emanating directly from it.  The ghost is at first frightened back again to feel the unnatural presence of warmth in this coldest of neverending.  It is impossibly inviting and unpleasant and altogether irresistible.  Within a short distance of time it has crawled back to the base of the stone where its warmth is noticeable and yet not at its strongest.  The point of heat would appear to be coming from the top of the stone where its rounded peak remains invisible against the black sky.

The ghost is wary of warmth still but the curiously strong draw of the great thing becomes impossible to ignore and so the ghost stands and begins to lightly examine the stone’s surface.  Up and down and all around does it reach so far as extending its head out over the illusion of a canyon’s abyss in order to explore the side of the stone that faces out beyond nothing and much to its surprise finds two great round holes perfectly symmetrical and parallel whereby giving the impression that this great stone has two great eyes staring not at the familiar sands and shrubbery of the desert but out into the black and frightening beyond.

The ghost finds this interesting but is drawn to the heat atop the stone once again.  Beginning with a palm it feels for the warmth of the stone and begins to remember the feeling of warmth.  It is a feeling of familiarity from a time when a skin was not as scale but smooth and pleasant for lovers and children of lovers to touch out beyond the other end of the sands in the world of the living. Life was warmth and light as shields against overbearing darkness that some fought and some embraced but none so devotedly as the ghost. It remembers the child and the man and the older ones and younger ones. It feels a thing unfelt since life. The draw is strong and heartness fails when the touch of the minutely scarred surface grazes its long dead surface. Broken thing to broken thing it creeps closer and feels the warmth pierce the cracks. It presses itself against the stone with eyes that stare out across beyond the fathomless beyond of possibility and hope. Dry frigid breasts ebb and flow as it encircles the stone eyeing it hungrily and with great sadness as the memory of heat becomes stronger and its temptation too great for a ghost alone and without guidance to resist.  With each press of scale on stone the ghost feels itself embolden and reach for cracks and holes with which to firmly grip its treasure at the edge of the sands.  Its back and arms stretch wide and long as the ghost reverts from its hunched and pitiful form and muscles not since used begin to ache and groan yet find comfort in the strengthening heat radiating from within.

The desperation of the ghost allows it to find places in which it can hold with precision and so it begins its ascent drawn ever farther up the seemingly smooth but secretly and essentially scarred thing. The effort expended is lost forever as it nimbly reaches for holes in which to hold itself and climb ever higher where the warmth is hottest and the distance to the ground farthest. Withered toes and finger tips it digs and breaks fragile nails struggling to get higher and farther along a path that will not end. It feels more than is felt before. Its body is withered but will not fail. Every outstretched arm a snap of a tendon and every scrape a loss of fossil cells down into the empty air and the endless desert of the wastes. The heat’s slap across its gaunt face sizzles beneath the surface of the bones and into the empty rattling wearing away the loose connections and urging it to hurry as there is no going down or side to side but up to top where the surface begins to turn inward and the climbing continues in possibility until.

Then it is there and it is fire. The dome looms beneath its dusty thighs and try as it may to cry the moisture long since dissipated into the living dirt unlike the sands of the cursed world and fire consumes it enveloping like memories of mountains of blankets and warm flesh and pulse. It wants to fall in deeper in farther in and die again inside the fossil core the pulse is there it pulses up and in and it slides and slides across the stone and wants to dive into the being be one be it be the final point of existence rubbing its dried lips as mimic of kisses its hands as loving caresses its thighs and crotch as godless lust it rides the stone it flails wildly cat like in wild abandon losing flakes and then patches from its skin hair flying to the wind looking on into the void.

From atop the stone it sees into the world. The ghost has found a warmth unparalleled a warmth waiting. It needs the warmth to which it is unfamiliar. The stone’s being breaks through scales and callouses deep into the core and down along the hips of the ghost’s damned soul where it hides the secrets of happiness. Oh the sensation it wants to say but not for its mouth sealed in death’s memory. The stone’s heat rises and allows chained freedom bound to the earth via stone and the stone bound to the moon via ghost the endless roil at last is ended.

Unable to remain rooted against the assault the stone is loosened. The ghost places its bones onto it holding it close and pulling back in vain. Each pull a push forward closer into the chasm from which return is impossible. The ghost holds close. Its arms tremble as the stone begins to separate from it ever further ever consuming. Ever deeper into the unknown.

A ghost white and sickly does roam along the desert sands. Its flowing black tendrils wave silently in the breeze. The glimmer of ethereal scales casts a glow of beauteous ruin from which the ghost cannot escape. Chains of a life too far removed from memory and yet evident in the invisible scars of dreams that were far too real for any ghost they mark its form as a warning to any who should cross the path and heaven forbid run in parallel for any length of time. It is bound by its beauty to remain in misery and grief forever wandering from dune to mountain river to ocean in search of an end to an existence too wonderful for any being to bear.

The sands do not shift nor do the scant skeletons of life move as the ghost passes over them in the place where all things live and burn brightly through into the end of time. They float in tormented happiness as fires that have burned from the ancient times of being and even now not understood but only complicated and mused about and yes even wished upon by the more foolish.  The ghost passes the lights in its quest for an end which will not come.  By the withered trees of forests past and only beneath slivers of shadow can the ghost wander forth in search of what it seeks that is to say that which it cannot find for it does not know it looks for it.

As it comes to the end of all things and beginning of others the ghost finds a stone pillar at the edge of a plateau. The stone sits silently seemingly staring out from the top of its rounded form into what it is possibly a canyon but too obviously a canyon so a canyon it cannot be. Howls and sounds of void do not deafen nor indeed make a sound in a place from which the origin of sound is within. Faint breezes simply resonate off canyon walls to create the ever-present drum of thought as it resonates in the bones of not those who are dead but those who are lost and unable to secure the path.  The tree bones which littered the landscape’s ink are no longer present.  The ghost dares to step out along the barren sands lurking carefully.

It is a rounded stone pillar unmarked in the middle of dark deserted sands.  Such a thing is unheard of.

It begins by watching from afar.  First from one side then the others in an attempt to understand the thing’s purpose or if it not be then what it could be.  A decoration of some sort perhaps that was long ago erected as a means to mark the world in a special way.  If not decorative then its purpose may have been functional used by ancient deserters as a pounding stone against which their meat could be placed and softened by mallet strike.  Then perhaps it is an object of true chaos having been formed in a place and over a period of time unfathomable by thinking beings.  Many possibilities for such a stone but none apparent enough to make it understood.  There is a lack of differing colors save the smooth gray slightly lightened by the faint shine of the ghost’s streams of skin as it draws closer with each passing.  Out beyond the canyon unlike a canyon there is a persistent thrum and the ghost’s ears learn to bear it for as long as it is able for the call of the stone is that alluring to it.

The passage draws it ever closer as the few shrubs and rocks are left behind the area around the stone forming something of a half circle of emptiness.  The ghost’s thickly bound hair drags along the sand as the ghost itself stops and listens to the ground taking larger and bolder crawling steps towards the stone pillar listening for possibility of surprise yet nothing occurs.  It is an encouraging sign that the ghost does not ignore digging its toes into the sand as it nears at last the base of the great pillar.  Upon closer inspection the seemingly perfected form is shown to be comprised of a series of small cracks and holes that would not be visible to a ghost’s far-seeing eye.  How strange that a stone exposed to corrosive winds and sands would be so minimally scarred and still stand tall.  And upon nearly reaching the great elongated stone itself it is most surprising to feel unusual warmth emanating directly from it.  The ghost is at first frightened back again to feel the unnatural presence of warmth in this coldest of neverending.  It is impossibly inviting and unpleasant and altogether irresistible.  Within a short distance of time it has crawled back to the base of the stone where its warmth is noticeable and yet not at its strongest.  The point of heat would appear to be coming from the top of the stone where its rounded peak remains invisible against the black sky.

The ghost is wary of warmth still but the curiously strong draw of the great thing becomes impossible to ignore and so the ghost stands and begins to lightly examine the stone’s surface.  Up and down and all around does it reach so far as extending its head out over the illusion of a canyon’s abyss in order to explore the side of the stone that faces out beyond nothing and much to its surprise finds two great round holes perfectly symmetrical and parallel whereby giving the impression that this great stone has two great eyes staring not at the familiar sands and shrubbery of the desert but out into the black and frightening beyond.

The ghost finds this interesting but is drawn to the heat atop the stone once again.  Beginning with a palm it feels for the warmth of the stone and begins to remember the feeling of warmth.  It is a feeling of familiarity from a time when a skin was not as scale but smooth and pleasant for lovers and children of lovers to touch out beyond the other end of the sands in the world of the living. Life was warmth and light as shields against overbearing darkness that some fought and some embraced but none so devotedly as the ghost. It remembers the child and the man and the older ones and younger ones. It feels a thing unfelt since life. The draw is strong and heartness fails when the touch of the minutely scarred surface grazes its long dead surface. Broken thing to broken thing it creeps closer and feels the warmth pierce the cracks. It presses itself against the stone with eyes that stare out across beyond the fathomless beyond of possibility and hope. Dry frigid breasts ebb and flow as it encircles the stone eyeing it hungrily and with great sadness as the memory of heat becomes stronger and its temptation too great for a ghost alone and without guidance to resist.  With each press of scale on stone the ghost feels itself embolden and reach for cracks and holes with which to firmly grip its treasure at the edge of the sands.  Its back and arms stretch wide and long as the ghost reverts from its hunched and pitiful form and muscles not since used begin to ache and groan yet find comfort in the strengthening heat radiating from within.

The desperation of the ghost allows it to find places in which it can hold with precision and so it begins its ascent drawn ever farther up the seemingly smooth but secretly and essentially scarred thing. The effort expended is lost forever as it nimbly reaches for holes in which to hold itself and climb ever higher where the warmth is hottest and the distance to the ground farthest. Withered toes and finger tips it digs and breaks fragile nails struggling to get higher and farther along a path that will not end. It feels more than is felt before. Its body is withered but will not fail. Every outstretched arm a snap of a tendon and every scrape a loss of fossil cells down into the empty air and the endless desert of the wastes. The heat’s slap across its gaunt face sizzles beneath the surface of the bones and into the empty rattling wearing away the loose connections and urging it to hurry as there is no going down or side to side but up to top where the surface begins to turn inward and the climbing continues in possibility until.

Then it is there and it is fire. The dome looms beneath its dusty thighs and try as it may to cry the moisture long since dissipated into the living dirt unlike the sands of the cursed world and fire consumes it enveloping like memories of mountains of blankets and warm flesh and pulse. It wants to fall in deeper in farther in and die again inside the fossil core the pulse is there it pulses up and in and it slides and slides across the stone and wants to dive into the being be one be it be the final point of existence rubbing its dried lips as mimic of kisses its hands as loving caresses its thighs and crotch as godless lust it rides the stone it flails wildly cat like in wild abandon losing flakes and then patches from its skin hair flying to the wind looking on into the void.

From atop the stone it sees into the world. The ghost has found a warmth unparalleled a warmth waiting. It needs the warmth to which it is unfamiliar. The stone’s being breaks through scales and callouses deep into the core and down along the hips of the ghost’s damned soul where it hides the secrets of happiness. Oh the sensation it wants to say but not for its mouth sealed in death’s memory. The stone’s heat rises and allows chained freedom bound to the earth via stone and the stone bound to the moon via ghost the endless roil at last is ended.

Unable to remain rooted against the assault the stone is loosened. The ghost places its bones onto it holding it close and pulling back in vain. Each pull a push forward closer into the chasm from which return is impossible. The ghost holds close. Its arms tremble as the stone begins to separate from it ever further ever consuming. Ever deeper into the unknown.

Frayed seams won’t come loose unless we pick at ‘em. This old seat, blue vinyl as cracked as my daddy’s feet, it’s our sea. Road’s lookin’ dull as a swamp, air hazin’ up. She likes it, the heat, just not the dry kind. Likes the sweat of it, you understand. Her head’s been on my shoulder since Truth or Consequences. Her legs are up next to her butt, curled like a crawdad. She’s got her toe nails done up in gray shine. Even got a pretty red dress on.

It’s tirin’ to my head. This drivin’ hot at night. We been coastin’ free since Santa Fe but it’s gonna get tough, gonna get real bad. In Mexico, if you ain’t dead you’re free.

Phoenix’s got this thing about lights. They don’t turn ‘em off at night, but they do somethin’ to make the stars shine brighter’n most big cities. It’s like the deserts all around there. I wanted to go there, find us a nice place to stay, somethin’ near a green park wasn’t all dried out. Took a bit of talkin’ for me to see that would be a damn dumb thing to do. Too many people, too many cops ‘n robbers. We ain’t bad, we don’t mix in right with any lot. Not the good folks, or the bad folks. We’re folks lookin’ for a little peace, somethin’ right in the world. Killin’ a man is like the way nature had it planned for us. You kill someone if you got to, steal if you got to, run if you got to. Deserve’s got nothin’ to do with it. It’s on us, my girl ‘n me.

We’re runnin’ to Bisbee first. Quiet, way out on it’s own. We saw it on the map ‘n I remembered the name from an old movie. I didn’t say which because it was a cowboy movie, but hey, a place is a place. We’ll need to get situated a bit ‘n get ready for Mexico. Says she ready for it, but I don’t know. It ain’t no cake walk down there unless we got money, ‘n there ain’t much in that sad little purse of hers. Got all scraped up so it looks like an animal took to it. She’s got our lives in that purse, I’ve got our lives in this car.

If it ain’t the right thing to do, it’s the only thing. I’m gonna see us through the desert ‘n to the ocean where she won’t be worryin’ so much. I might find us some nice little jobs, un poquito bueno. See, my Spanish ain’t so bad either.

It’ll be alright. Gotta speak that way in some circumstances. It’ll be alright.

Frayed seams won’t come loose unless we pick at ‘em. This old seat, blue vinyl as cracked as my daddy’s feet, it’s our sea. Road’s lookin’ dull as a swamp, air hazin’ up. She likes it, the heat, just not the dry kind. Likes the sweat of it, you understand. Her head’s been on my shoulder since Truth or Consequences. Her legs are up next to her butt, curled like a crawdad. She’s got her toe nails done up in gray shine. Even got a pretty red dress on.

It’s tirin’ to my head. This drivin’ hot at night. We been coastin’ free since Santa Fe but it’s gonna get tough, gonna get real bad. In Mexico, if you ain’t dead you’re free.

Phoenix’s got this thing about lights. They don’t turn ‘em off at night, but they do somethin’ to make the stars shine brighter’n most big cities. It’s like the deserts all around there. I wanted to go there, find us a nice place to stay, somethin’ near a green park wasn’t all dried out. Took a bit of talkin’ for me to see that would be a damn dumb thing to do. Too many people, too many cops ‘n robbers. We ain’t bad, we don’t mix in right with any lot. Not the good folks, or the bad folks. We’re folks lookin’ for a little peace, somethin’ right in the world. Killin’ a man is like the way nature had it planned for us. You kill someone if you got to, steal if you got to, run if you got to. Deserve’s got nothin’ to do with it. It’s on us, my girl ‘n me.

We’re runnin’ to Bisbee first. Quiet, way out on it’s own. We saw it on the map ‘n I remembered the name from an old movie. I didn’t say which because it was a cowboy movie, but hey, a place is a place. We’ll need to get situated a bit ‘n get ready for Mexico. Says she ready for it, but I don’t know. It ain’t no cake walk down there unless we got money, ‘n there ain’t much in that sad little purse of hers. Got all scraped up so it looks like an animal took to it. She’s got our lives in that purse, I’ve got our lives in this car.

If it ain’t the right thing to do, it’s the only thing. I’m gonna see us through the desert ‘n to the ocean where she won’t be worryin’ so much. I might find us some nice little jobs, un poquito bueno. See, my Spanish ain’t so bad either.

It’ll be alright. Gotta speak that way in some circumstances. It’ll be alright.

It is the middle of the afternoon, about three o’ clock. Two students are walking along a wooded path.  It is a twisted path, leading this way and that, and is a popular place for people from the nearby college to spend hours ruminating over the mysteries of school, life, and the universe.  The two students walk side by side and the woman on the left is shorter than the other.  That one wears a pair of pink sweat pants and a yellow t-shirt.  The taller woman has dark chestnut hair, long and tied back over her gray shirt and matching shorts.

“Hey Julie,” says Robin in the sweat pants.

“Yea,” says Julie in the shorts, then adds, “what?”

“What do you suppose that man over there is doing?” She points to the pond sixty feet away under the far-reaching limbs of the poplar trees.  Their branches are ripe with a year’s worth of foliage, drooping low and ready to burst before the arrival of the autumn season. Leaves are reluctantly dying all around, settling on the surface of the water.

“He appears to be fishing,” says Julie.  Robin and Julie slowly walk by the pond, both of them looking at the man sitting on the fallen tree on the far end of the pond. His shoes are absent and the sleeves of his shirt are also notably missing. It is difficult to see his face as he is looking downward toward the water with great intensity.

“He looks to be in thrall. Are people mesmerized by fishing?”

“It’s possible.”

They approach the man and eventually stop, lightly catching their breath so as to not appear to need to breathe.

Julie is the first to regain her voice, and asks, “What are we doing?”

“I don’t know. Watching a man catch fish?” says Robin.

Julie looks at Robin and shakes her head. “Well, he’s not catching fish. He’s just sitting there.”

“So we’re watching a man sit, then,” says Julie.

“In a manner of speaking, but look at his hands. They are sorrowful hands.”

“He does seem despondent. Perhaps he intends to jump in.”

“Because his lover left him. Yes, I see it in the slump of his shoulders. He needs human sympathy. A sign that he is a member of the human comedy.”

Julie smiles and says, “Yes. Let’s inquire.”

They approach the young man sitting on a fallen tree alongside the pond.

“Excuse me, sir?” says Robin. The man turns to look at the two women standing behind him.

“Yea?” he says.

“May we ask, what are you doing?”

The young man looks forward again, then lowers his eyes to his pole. He turns back and lifts his fishing pole higher

“What’s it look like?” he says.  They shrug.

“Contemplating suicide?”

“Grieving?”

He looks at them, turns back to the water, and points.

“I lost my shoes.”

Robin chuckles. “Goodness, we thought you were despondent over the loss of a woman.”

“I’m alright with that,” he says. “I just don’t see why she had to go and throw my shoes into the water.”

It is the middle of the afternoon, about three o’ clock. Two students are walking along a wooded path.  It is a twisted path, leading this way and that, and is a popular place for people from the nearby college to spend hours ruminating over the mysteries of school, life, and the universe.  The two students walk side by side and the woman on the left is shorter than the other.  That one wears a pair of pink sweat pants and a yellow t-shirt.  The taller woman has dark chestnut hair, long and tied back over her gray shirt and matching shorts.

“Hey Julie,” says Robin in the sweat pants.

“Yea,” says Julie in the shorts, then adds, “what?”

“What do you suppose that man over there is doing?” She points to the pond sixty feet away under the far-reaching limbs of the poplar trees.  Their branches are ripe with a year’s worth of foliage, drooping low and ready to burst before the arrival of the autumn season. Leaves are reluctantly dying all around, settling on the surface of the water.

“He appears to be fishing,” says Julie.  Robin and Julie slowly walk by the pond, both of them looking at the man sitting on the fallen tree on the far end of the pond. His shoes are absent and the sleeves of his shirt are also notably missing. It is difficult to see his face as he is looking downward toward the water with great intensity.

“He looks to be in thrall. Are people mesmerized by fishing?”

“It’s possible.”

They approach the man and eventually stop, lightly catching their breath so as to not appear to need to breathe.

Julie is the first to regain her voice, and asks, “What are we doing?”

“I don’t know. Watching a man catch fish?” says Robin.

Julie looks at Robin and shakes her head. “Well, he’s not catching fish. He’s just sitting there.”

“So we’re watching a man sit, then,” says Julie.

“In a manner of speaking, but look at his hands. They are sorrowful hands.”

“He does seem despondent. Perhaps he intends to jump in.”

“Because his lover left him. Yes, I see it in the slump of his shoulders. He needs human sympathy. A sign that he is a member of the human comedy.”

Julie smiles and says, “Yes. Let’s inquire.”

They approach the young man sitting on a fallen tree alongside the pond.

“Excuse me, sir?” says Robin. The man turns to look at the two women standing behind him.

“Yea?” he says.

“May we ask, what are you doing?”

The young man looks forward again, then lowers his eyes to his pole. He turns back and lifts his fishing pole higher

“What’s it look like?” he says.  They shrug.

“Contemplating suicide?”

“Grieving?”

He looks at them, turns back to the water, and points.

“I lost my shoes.”

Robin chuckles. “Goodness, we thought you were despondent over the loss of a woman.”

“I’m alright with that,” he says. “I just don’t see why she had to go and throw my shoes into the water.”