The End

"It's not you," she begins, hesitantly. Silence. She doesn't finish. Instead, she grabs the latte, still steaming, takes a sip and then, wincing as the liquid burns her mouth, stands gracefully, turns slowly, calculatedly, and exits.
He sits, left behind, left alone. He sits and sighs. And then he grabs her uneaten danish and, taking a bite, turns the page of the newspaper sitting in front of him and begins to read.
There will be another. He swallows the bite of danish.
She's watching him through the window, hoping he won't look up. Hoping he might. But he doesn't. More bites, more page-turning. A sip of black coffee, no longer steaming, cooling as the minutes pass.
She realizes she might look like it really was her and so this time her turn is definite and abrupt. She turns into a man passing by, whose arm catches her now-cooled latte and upends it.
And thus it really is her and she really is soaking wet, covered in the cup of coffee she only bought to buy another few minutes of futile frustration at the end of a benign courtship.
His lips curl up, but barely.

Fictive Evening.

I took the book and ripped it. Shredded that shit to, well, shreds. Torn scraps of paper littered the ground at my feet. I looked down at them. I stared at them. They didn’t move. A gust of wind flew through the window, swirling the bits of paper around, and around. Blow me, I think. It’s a thought directed at no one in particular.            

            But all thoughts are directed somewhere, aren’t they?

            Where, I think. Nowhere.

            The little letters remained intact, even as I shredded, shedding onto my fingers, coloring them. It’s not a color, though. Black ink, white fingers.  My stained white fingers, black now. Black but still white.

            I close the window. I’d prefer that the scraps stay put. I’m not into throwing away perfectly good literature. When I’m done with them, done staring, I’ll sweep them into a jar where they’ll join other novels, great literature that I’ve read and then kept. For posterity.

            No wind, no motion, stagnant, just the way I’d like to keep it. The jars fill the space at the top of my cabinets. Sometimes I leave the novels in wine bottles. I like the way the type looks in the dark green glass. Perfect.

            The bottles cast gentle shadows on the walls behind them. Shadows are oddly comforting. They are transient beings, not really being, but they are, just because something else is, was, will be. They are dependant on the light.

            Am I dependent on the light?

            Ouch. The sharp sting of soft paper tears my flesh, a tiny slice near my thumb. I recoil. Damn paper, I think. Goddamn the writer who made those words. You don’t make words, I chide myself. You use them 

            Use them. Make them your own. Throw them away.

            Or don’t. But you probably should. You can’t keep words; they were never yours to begin with. 

Apologetic, I Promise

As much as I'd like to preach productivity and responsibility to your readers, alas, I cannot.
We are coasting in to the last week of regular classes and then after that, the week of finals and then I feel as though my life can begin again.

Exhaustion is the tip of the emotional iceberg at the moment. Other than that, it's as though someone threw every emotion that it is possible to feel into a blender. That was a horrible metaphor.
Everything and nothing, all at once.

So I will be back soon enough, stealing time to write things. Hopefully during night class tonight I will be able to get some stuff done.

A Pedestrian Glimpse of Chicago

The train pulls into the station slowly as passengers stand and progress toward the doors. We wait patiently, or not so much, either standing stoically or tapping their feet in time to unheard music. The very second the doors slid open, they burst from the train, turning right toward the stairs. The stairs are where everything becomes streamlined, a steady progression of down, down, down, down, but a careful one. Metal bars that were once painted white but now show spots of rust provide access to the street. Turn, turn, turnstile, the people slowly beg. They don't stop moving, not for a single second as they wait their turn to exit.
And then we disperse, a silent collection of lonely individuals on our way to better things.
I walk past the chain link fence that holds the trash and equipment, past the dark alley, past the crumbling building bearing barely used storefronts. I see a nearly homeless looking man with a cane, wearing baggy cottons and a hat limp out to meet a dark Escalade, parked glittering under a street light. The rims on the tires gleam, winking at me. They shake hands, a quick exchange, and then the car pulls away and the man limps toward his companion.
I smile to myself, staring at the school bus ahead of me unloading a soccer team home from a late away game, staring into the tree-lined, dimly lit night and think, I'm going to miss this place.



I arrived home and found a long-awaited piece of mail: Simon's registration tags. I am no longer on the run. However, I have waited longer than two weeks to contest this ticket, so that shall be first on tomorrow's agenda. Oh dear me, let's please fast forward until May 7th. That is when I shall be done (for the most part) with my undergraduate career.

Graduation party will be held at Maddie's house in their backyard area at 11am the morning following my graduation. We will be doing a Costco run to get the necessities and such, so don't expect anything too lovely or wild. But it should be quite communal and pleasant.