“Up to this point, all I knew were beaten paths, tattooed with footprints, and I had come to the understanding that they were not much fun to travel because so many people were waiting for you at the end, wondering what took you so long.”
-Kevin Wilson: Tunneling to the Center of the Earth

Thursday, September 3, 2015

She once wrote something about your eyes. Something that made you want to love her and tear yourself away at the same time. You felt dangerous. Eyes that take you somewhere. Eyes that if you look into them for too long, you'll loose yourself in a dizzy uncomfortableness and won't ever come back.
You pull yourself off your bed and look at the clock. 12:51am. You walk over to the mirror squinting in the darkness trying not to trip over the odds and ends strone about. You weren't normally messy. You stand there in front of the mirror staring into your eyes, trying to loose yourself. It never did to you what it had to her. God, you loved her.
There was a lunar eclipse tonight so you grabbed your shoes from the door - the only thing unpacked from your apartment - and went down the stairs.
Outside, the air felt and cool, but somehow heavier than the air in the mid west. When you were traveling, you'd lay on the roof of your car and stare up at the starts littering the sky. It made you feel like you were trapped under a black sheet and had poked billions of tiny holes in it, trying to find light. Just enough had come through that you could lay down and breathe again. Just as long as there was light.
You wonder if you should stand on the street or go into the park. As you walk to the park, you pass a woman standing in front of Collingwood Heights, one who had been watching you before. She stood against the brick building, cigarette in one hand, coffee in other.
"Evening," You say.
"Morning..." she corrects you.
"Oh.... Right."
You reach the entrance of the park and see the balloon man laying on a park bench. You would have never thought he was homeless. Maybe he wasn't, maybe he just wanted to sleep outside and didn't feel like dragging out a mattress. His bag of balloons was on the ground next to him and various colors of rubber had fallen out beside it. You walk up to him, careful not to make noise and gathered up the scattered balloons and place them in the bag. You consider leaving money there too, but you don't. You're not good at giving charity. Once, while in New York City, you bought a cheeseburger for the fattest homeless man you could find.
Walking farther into the park you see the bulletin board and go up to it.
"Lost Bra," the sign read. You look to your right, to the middle of the park where the statue stood, illuminated in the moon light. The bra was gone.
Realizing now that you wanted nothing more than the statue to be Attica, you walk over and climb up onto it's shoes and face it; looking into the face of the 18th century war hero, trying to see Attica. Her eyes were beautiful too, although when you told her she never believed you.
But now all you saw was stone - dark and depth-less, cold and dead. You sigh and step off, lay in the grass surrounding and wait for the eclipse with what you wished was Attica.

2 comments:

  1. I really want to interact with your character. I don't know how or for how long but I reaally want our characters to interact.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sure! I'm down. Ideas? Sorry this is so late...

    ReplyDelete