Short Stories
My Reason
As they slid into their bed's Jackson asked, "Where did you and mom go last night?"
"We went down town to watch the sunset," I told him.
"Why?"
"It's kind of a long story."
"That's okay," Ginny interjected, suddenly interested.
"I don't know... It's getting pretty la-"
"Tell us!!" they demanded in unison.
"Fine fine fine. But it's eyes shut once the story's over though, okay?"
Simultaneously, "okay."
"Well, in the middle of my last semester of college, everything started slipping away from me. Or I guess I started slipping away. In search of, I suppose, reason, I lost myself and created a vast distance between myself and the world around me. It didn't even feel like I was alive sometimes. It felt like the world existed around me, without me. Like I was trapped in a foggy bubble while my life was happening outside of it."
"Around that time, I had been getting in the habit of taking the 6:07 train into the city every day after class and doing... well... things I probably shouldn't have been doing with people I shouldn't have been hanging out with. My 18 minute ride was usually spent talking to Mickey, a homeless guy who always called me kid."
"Mickey chose to be homeless and was a consultant of not only mine, but many of my peers. He was basically famous around these parts. He was respected, well liked, and his wise words and intellectual insights made him seem more than out of place on the floor of that train. Ask anyone of my college buddies who the smartest man they ever met was, they'd say Mickey."
"It was Mickey that introduced me to the skyscraper one spring evening. At this time it was still being built. All the framework was done, but the inside of the building wasn't yet operational, so Mickey stayed there quite often. I remember he said to me as we rode into the city that evening, 'you see that building their? The one on its tippy toes, reaching for the clouds? You ever get the chance, you climb up to the roof of that building. You bring yourself a girl, some wine, you get up there by, ohh, about 7 o'clock, and boy, lemme tell you, you ain't ever seen a sunset til you seen it kiss the horizon from up on top of that building. A sight like that'll give you reason to wake up every morning.' And that's what it became. My reason."
"That evening, when I left the station, instead of doing those things I shouldn't have been doing, I decided to go watch the sunset from this skyscraper. As usual, Mickey was right. It was incredible."
"There wasn't a single day throughout the two months leading up to graduation - other than two evenings when thunderstorms threatened to uproot the city - that I didn't watch the sun sneak behind the earth, or the light of an overcast evening turn to blackness from that rooftop. Those beams and girders became just as much my brothers and sisters as the nuisances sharing my bedroom. I'd dance with them. I'd sit with them. I'd ask them every question I had. They never answered. I'd tease them and myself by hanging from them off the edge of the building, putting my life in their hands. They never let go. And believe me, there were days I wanted them to. Days I thought to myself, 'this time is the time.' Days that I said to Mickey, 'today is the day, Mick.' But I always found them waiting at the edge to talk me out of it. I hated them for it. Now, I love them for it."
"The first time I went up on the roof of that building I had hopes of being mesmerized by the evening sky. The last evening I will ever spend on that rooftop was last night. This time I took your mother and a bottle of wine, just like Mickey told me to. The building is fully operational now, but I made it a point over the last few years to become friends with the maintenance crew, and they were nice enough to let me revisit the roof."
"I don't know what it was about it, but I have never seen a sky like the one I saw last night. It was painted with shades of red and pink that reside only on God's pallet. And let me tell you, the way the sun was lighting up the world didn't even compare to the way it lit up your mother's face. And you know what? That's why I want to wake up tomorrow. That's my reason now. And so are you guys."
"Those cold, metal girders were my siblings. That rooftop was my home. Those sunsets were my reason. I genuinely believe that Mickey sending me there that one evening saved my life. He and that rooftop are the reason I am here right now, so really, they are the reason you two are he-" I turned to find that I hadn't even realized they'd fallen asleep. I kissed them both on the forehead, pulled their covers to their chins, and told their unconscious ears that I loved them. I walked down the hall to find my beautiful wife fast asleep as well. She is now the rooftop that I stand on. Those gorgeous children down the hall are my sunset. This family is my reason.
Purgatory
Last I knew I was lying in my hospital bed waiting for my parents to return from the cafeteria. I was tired, struggling to keep my eyes open. Now I stand alone, and I have no idea where I am. It's bright, but not uncomfortably. An old man is walking toward me. "Am I?.." "Yes," he answers. I take a deep breath, "So is this-" "No, not exactly," he interrupts. "Unfortunately it doesn't exist." Beyond confused, I sit down, legs stretched in front of me, eyes fixated upon feet that once walked with undoubted faith.
"We were all pretty disoriented," he began again. "Some of us let down, some of us pleasantly surprised." 'We were all'? Who the hell is he talking about? "All of who?" I ask. "Everyone. This is where we all went. Where we all go." On the verge of panic I stand and begin pacing, my fingers dive into my thick hair and clasp tight. "No! No no no!! This isn't.. I can't be.." "Relax son," he intervenes again.
"I've been here for quite a while myself. I've been in charge of welcoming newcomers for some time. As far as anyone can tell this is as close to what we thought purgatory would be. Just a place, for lack of a better term, where consciousness continues." I heard what he was saying, but I wasn't really listening. My fingers tugged at my hair as I sat questioning an entire lifetime. I lived a life based wholeheartedly on the faith that God would be awaiting me on my death bed, and now this? An old man trying to convince me everything I've ever believed was wrong?
He continued, "I see you're still subconsciously applying Earthly constraints to the idea of consciousness. That hair you seem to be trying to pull out of your head? Yeah, that's not there anymore. Me, this body, you've created it in your own subconscious to project my consciousness to you in a familiar way. All you are now is a consciousne-" "We've got a pulse!!"
My chest feels like I just got kicked by an angry mule. Nurses surround my bed as I notice one walking away with a cart, on it those death defying paddles I've only ever seen in movies or tv shows. My parents are staring in the window, crying. I can tell that the tears have suddenly changed from terrified to overwhelmingly joyous. My dad wraps his arms around my mom as she buries her head in his chest, sobbing. He looks up and I see him mouth "thank you." The nurse nearest my heart monitor turns to me and says "someone up there must really be looking out for you." I fake a smile. Eventually, the nurses all leave. My parents are told not to come in until I'm completely recovered and stable. The television is on, but again I sit, confused, just staring at my feet.
Untitled Beginning of Story
Sure I smile. I laugh. But I ain’t no stranger to pain. No, I know pain very well matter of fact. See, what people don’t realize about pain is, it ain’t really it’s own thing. What pain is is having something taken away. What hurts ya is the emptiness that’s left when you lose something like comfort, or happiness, or love. And believe you me there ain’t nothing that hurt quite like losin real, passionate, unyieldin’ love, ’cause it’s so damn hard to find in this life.
It was almost 50 years ago now when I first saw her walking out the coffee shop across the street from my grandmas bakery. I remember it was the fourth of July, because it was just a little while after the parade that morning. Must’ve been about noon ‘cause Mr. Wagner had just left, and he always stopped in around then everyday, rain or shine, for a half dozen of his favorite donut. Chocolate cake, chocolate icing, chocolate sprinkles. Guess the fella liked chocolate.
I remember I was pulling a batch of glazed out of the oven (my favorite smell in the world) when I saw her walk out those heavy wooden doors of the coffee shop. She had on a red blouse with shiny red shoes to match. Ones like the wicked witch’s, but not quite as shiny. She had on a blue hat with a white ribbon that would’ve ended up two streets down in Mayor Mckinnick’s hedges had some bald fella not been there to catch it when the wind swept it off her head. She smiled and said “thank you” to the fella, and at that moment there wasn’t a man I envied more in the entire world. She brushed her wavy blonde hair out of her eyes, put her hat back on her head, and gave it an adorable reaffirming tug to make sure it stayed put. Then she looked around town like she ain’t have no idea where she was gonna go next. And let me tell you what, she was just a smilin like she ain’t have a care in the world. Well, maybe “like she aint have a care” in the world ain’t the right way to put it. Maybe it was more she was smilin like she understood the world. And I swear, a tiny little sliver of sun was shinin through the clouds just on her. I wasn’t nothin but a squirrel in a snare at that point. Helpless, and at the mercy of my captor.
Before I realized I was standin’ there like a shmuck, starin, probably droolin on the fresh batch of glazed I was still holdin, she started strollin’ ‘cross the street and toward the bakery. I swear I nearly fainted. I set down the batch of glazed, took off my oven mitts, and with all the time I was spendin with my hands in and around an oven, I’ll tell you they ain’t never sweat like they were sweating right then. With every step she took toward the door she got a bit more beautiful and I got a bit more nervous.
You know that scene in the Godfather, where Michael Corleone has to kill those two fellas in the restaurant, and all he can hear in his head is a train? Well damn it if that train wasn’t running through my head when she walked in the door, up to the counter, and started talkin to me. I couldn’t tell you if she was orderin donuts or danishes or even speaking English for that matter. I was lost in her eyes like a kid in an amusement park.
Poetry
The End
Life is a book and the covers are worn.
Your story begins the moment you're born.
Some pages stay empty, some pages get torn.
Sometimes it's tough just to write anymore.
You think you're the author, but never quite sure.
And you never quite know what you're writing it for.
You're story's one of many that end tragically the same.
With a white blank page only two words can claim.
You don't decide when these last words are penned.
But you hope when they are that your soul will ascend.
So you write and you write while you try to pretend,
That you like what you write, and you don't fear "The End."
Home
I wanted to go home.
Then you sat down next to me
and I was there.
Dreams
When your dreams die do you bury them or carry them?
Do you let the weight of a life unlived rest upon your shoulders forever, or are you able to shed the sorrow of unfulfilled fantasies and dream again?
Does a dream deferred equate to a dream disposed or merely a dream postponed?
Tonight's dream is not necessarily tomorrow's, and tomorrow's not yesterday's.
Dreams, like anything else, live and die.
True desire to fulfill a dream is the only thing that keeps it alive.
With little attention, a dream will wither and wilt and turn to dust.
For some, that dust trickles into their pockets, weighing them down, and with each deceased dream they are dragged down more and more.
Some are able to brush the dust of broken dreams off their shoulders and fall immediately into new ones.
Some never dream at all.