It was the time of year when the temperature starts to drop. Well, it does where I’m from. I was in my basement messing around with some of my belongings when I saw what looked like a young girl run past the window. I thought nothing of it until it happened again. I decided to walk outside and in my front yard was a girl that must have been about 12 years old. She had no color to her skin and hair and no substance to her voice.
Her first question was “Do you see me?”
Her second question was “What do I look like?”
Her third question was “Have you ever set a stone?”
I answered all three honestly. I saw her. She was in black and white. I had never set a stone. For the few seconds I had to think, I’d probably unset quite a few.
She then took my hand and asked me if would go with her. Instead of asking where, I agreed. She looked confident. In a flash I was in a foreign place. It was colorless and dry. I had always felt pretty comfortable with myself. I always accepted or part of a group. It was different here. Everything was uneasy.
The girl and I went for a walk and she asked me about my friends and their secrets. I avoided direct answers, but it made me think. My best friends had kept secrets from me since the day I met them. It made me curious, but I swore I would never ask them to reveal any secrets. I never want to rob that bank. I never want to unset that stone. I don’t want to know.
As we walked along some street that I’ll never remember the name of, I glanced over at an old man smoking a cigar and reading a newspaper. The date said 1956. In that second a flood of realization spread over me. I finally took in what was going on around me. There were old cars, old signs, and old voices everywhere. I knew what made me feel so uneasy. Everything and everyone that surrounded me was oozing innocence. I wasn’t from this place. My home is jaded. I was an alien to this feeling.
The more she questioned me the more I exposed about myself. I felt like we had a pretty interesting conversation going, but as soon as I asked about her personal life, she disappeared. But I stayed there, frozen in amazement. The old man came over and asked me if I was lost. Before I could reply he started telling me about how diamonds are cut.
We started walking and he wouldn’t stop talking about diamonds. He wasn’t wearing any. I don’t think he could afford them. I think he was so interested in diamonds because he never had any. Like his whole life was built around the idea of being successful and rich enough to own diamonds, to buy them for his wife that he became obsessed. In place of a diamond watch or ring there was nothing. He was a failure in his mind. He had failed and others had succeeded. He never bought his wife a diamond necklace.
Maybe at some point during his childhood he had seen that stone somewhere it became stuck in his head. I can understand completely. I think we are just looking for something that drives us. I am thankful that I haven’t found what drives me yet.
The man and I walked into a cafeteria and had lunch together. We both got up to go to the bathroom when we reached our crossroad. I began walking the same direction as him and he got angry. He said nothing. He pointed at a sign that read “WHITES ONLY.” He then pointed at another that read “COLOREDS ONLY.” Everyone was laughing at me.
At first I didn’t understand, but when I looked at my shirt it was still blood red. My jeans were still blue. I was the outcast. I walked into the coloreds only bathroom and I was alone. When I came out, the man was less angry. I never got his name. Once I came out of the bathroom I realized that he was glowing with diamonds. He had a diamond watch. A diamond bracelet. He thought I knew nothing of high society.
At that second, I knew the difference between rain and snow.
The man disappeared and in his place stood a friend of mine. What was strange was that my friend was in black and white. He wasn’t supposed to be from here either. He handed me a sheet of paper and in his handwriting was a sentence that I knew only came from his mind. It said “for every dollar I earn I’ll give you a hundred pieces of copper so what you have will not burn.” I didn’t understand. This wasn’t for me, so I gave it back. Electricity flowed through my veins and I was back in my basement.
I never asked him about that piece of paper. A few days later we were out at a convenience when he asked me to borrow a couple of dollars for a drink. I took out a dollar bill and started to burn. I went to my car and got him enough change to buy the drink. The change worked. The trees were on fire. But the copper still sold high at scrap yards.
That night it rained. A lot of people hate the rain. The next week it snowed. A lot of people love the snow. People hate the dark. They hate the change. They hate change. People hate change.
Diamonds can only be scratched by other diamonds.
I never spoke about what happened to me that day. A few weeks later, I took a girl out to dinner. It wasn’t a real fancy place. We had a good time. For some reason, the waiter put the bill in front of her. I said “how much is it?”
She said “$19.56.”
I pulled out my card and put it in the book.
I pulled out my card and put it in the book.
As we got up to leave she said “oh no, its raining. I hate the rain.”
All color was flushed out of me as I said “you would probably be happy if it were snowing.”
I don’t think she really ever loved me. I don’t think she was really even there.
I dropped her off at her house and kissed her goodnight. As I was driving home I pulled up to a red light and looked to my left. A car was there. I looked ahead to check the light. I looked left again and the car was gone. I drove when the light turned green and out of nowhere the car that had just been on my left hit my car head on.
I got out to inspect the damage. The other car was a mess of splintered metal and glass. My car didn’t have a scratch.
William Wallace
Merry Christmas
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Friday, November 28, 2008
Watch What Was Strong Turn Weak
I'm sorry that your best days have passed.
I'm sorry that I'm wasting my youth.
Happy Thanksgiving.
I'm sorry that I'm wasting my youth.
Happy Thanksgiving.
Friday, November 21, 2008
Midnight Oil
The decision was final. It was time for war.
It had gotten to the boiling point. I don’t think sitting back and taking it was an option anymore. Our community was fairly small, but it was shrinking. The landscapes that we once roamed were slowly disappearing and we had had enough.
We are not predators, but we are sly. That is how we won a lot of our battles. The generations that came before ours used to gather in an open plain to discuss general community decisions. So that was were we decided to make ours.
Unfortunately, this area had been overcrowded by the ones that were pushing us out. From the time the sun came up until the time it went down, they stalked this area. When we watched from a distance it seemed like they were mocking us. But we are creatures of the night.
So we decided to have our meeting in that open plain and at night. We ran there like thieves in the shadows. Everyone agreed that a war was inevitable. We started preparing.
It was early November, the time of year when the trees are burning and the ground is on fire. It has been the same in this area for years. Everything is so colorful in the fall. It’s like the plants are giving one last show before they die.
This year was different. Instead of vibrant colors, everything was cold. Everything was brown and gray. The leaves just died and fell. The trees were naked and unforgiving.
As we prepared for our attack the sun was going down. On the night of the revolution we fell like dead leaves. We turned brown and died.
William Wallace
Coming soon... "The Difference Between Rain and Snow"
It had gotten to the boiling point. I don’t think sitting back and taking it was an option anymore. Our community was fairly small, but it was shrinking. The landscapes that we once roamed were slowly disappearing and we had had enough.
We are not predators, but we are sly. That is how we won a lot of our battles. The generations that came before ours used to gather in an open plain to discuss general community decisions. So that was were we decided to make ours.
Unfortunately, this area had been overcrowded by the ones that were pushing us out. From the time the sun came up until the time it went down, they stalked this area. When we watched from a distance it seemed like they were mocking us. But we are creatures of the night.
So we decided to have our meeting in that open plain and at night. We ran there like thieves in the shadows. Everyone agreed that a war was inevitable. We started preparing.
It was early November, the time of year when the trees are burning and the ground is on fire. It has been the same in this area for years. Everything is so colorful in the fall. It’s like the plants are giving one last show before they die.
This year was different. Instead of vibrant colors, everything was cold. Everything was brown and gray. The leaves just died and fell. The trees were naked and unforgiving.
As we prepared for our attack the sun was going down. On the night of the revolution we fell like dead leaves. We turned brown and died.
William Wallace
Coming soon... "The Difference Between Rain and Snow"
Friday, November 7, 2008
The Woodwork
wood·work
n
1. U.K. See woodworking n.
2. items made from wood: items or components made from wood, especially the interior parts of a building, for example, the frames of windows, staircases, and doors
What started out as a promising day turned into a disappointing one pretty quick. Three of us traveled down a beaten path to a little spot off of the river where kids jumped off the water fall and took turns on the rope swing.
We were obviously not the only ones with that idea on this particular day. It was mid-summer and out of the three I was the only one who was a repeat visitor. We were all pretty excited to take what would have been a pretty blasé summer day and turn it into something of an adventure.
We made our way down to the creek and walked over to where the rope swing had been. The tree had been cut down far enough to where the rope that hung on the branch was irrelevant. The wood was scraped and torn and I actually kind of felt bad for the tree. It was once useful and adequate but was cut down to a size that made it extremely ineffective. We all jumped off of the waterfall once. I went first due to my prior experience. The other two jumped off as well in front of a small audience. Once another crowd of people wandered down to the river we decided to make our way to the bridge and abandoned factory.
Wandering down a not so beaten path, the voices of three nineteen year olds reverberated off of the surrounding wood. After a couple of minutes we made it to our destination. The bridge was higher than the waterfall and the water underneath was definitely more polluted, and although I had made the jump before, the unanimous decision was to just walk across the bridge. We crossed the bridge leaving foot marks on the wood panels. We explored the outskirts of the factory, then ventured inside. The weakest link of our little brigade was paranoid about getting caught so we didn’t stay very long.
Whispering to each other, the decision was made to head back to the bridge. Once we got there we noticed that the sun was starting to go down so we started our march back to the car. The parking lot we left the car in belonged to a state park so we just decided to take the designated trail back.
Walking along the trail we reminisced about high school stories and glories. It started to get a little darker, and I started to get a little claustrophobic. I felt like the trail was closing in on us. The wood that earlier seemed so inviting started to look a lot more threatening.
Woodwork - crawl or come out of the woodwork to appear suddenly and unexpectedly in large numbers (slang)
What seemed like an hour passed. The look of concern started to set on each of our faces. With confidence I told them that the parking lot was just up ahead, but the night was also setting in. Within minutes, the last gasping breath of light was squeezed out of the woods and our lungs. It was dark.
We used our cell phones to provide light. The trail was gone and underneath our soaked feet was nothing but confusion and emptiness. It’s hard to find comfort when your comfort zone has been ripped away. They say every photograph tells a story. We weren’t taking pictures.
Without any direction, we marched on as soldiers do. They came out of the woodwork. We couldn’t see ourselves surrounded but we knew it because we stopped in unison. Fear quickly replaced confusion as the emotion that gripped us. It froze us. I thought this was the end of our journey. A voice said to us “The next time you open your mouths don’t let words come out. Are you proud?” The question hit home harder than a hook from Mike Tyson. I wasn’t proud, so I remained silent. I knew the answer was the same for my two friends because no words were left hanging.
Weakened knees and cold hands intact, we continued to march after this faceless crowd dispersed. It became day again. We kept marching. The sun set. We kept marching. Our cell phones died. We kept marching. The trail reappeared. We kept marching and marching and marching. And instead of being afraid or hungry or tired or thirsty I felt nothing but inspiration.
We finally made it back to the car. In real time the walk was only an hour. But our cell phones were dead. And there were no photographs. And we left our pride splattered across the wood. And we had nothing to say and nothing to think so our mouths stayed closed and our minds stayed empty.
William "Braveheart" Wallace
"Midnight Oil" coming soon.
n
1. U.K. See woodworking n.
2. items made from wood: items or components made from wood, especially the interior parts of a building, for example, the frames of windows, staircases, and doors
What started out as a promising day turned into a disappointing one pretty quick. Three of us traveled down a beaten path to a little spot off of the river where kids jumped off the water fall and took turns on the rope swing.
We were obviously not the only ones with that idea on this particular day. It was mid-summer and out of the three I was the only one who was a repeat visitor. We were all pretty excited to take what would have been a pretty blasé summer day and turn it into something of an adventure.
We made our way down to the creek and walked over to where the rope swing had been. The tree had been cut down far enough to where the rope that hung on the branch was irrelevant. The wood was scraped and torn and I actually kind of felt bad for the tree. It was once useful and adequate but was cut down to a size that made it extremely ineffective. We all jumped off of the waterfall once. I went first due to my prior experience. The other two jumped off as well in front of a small audience. Once another crowd of people wandered down to the river we decided to make our way to the bridge and abandoned factory.
Wandering down a not so beaten path, the voices of three nineteen year olds reverberated off of the surrounding wood. After a couple of minutes we made it to our destination. The bridge was higher than the waterfall and the water underneath was definitely more polluted, and although I had made the jump before, the unanimous decision was to just walk across the bridge. We crossed the bridge leaving foot marks on the wood panels. We explored the outskirts of the factory, then ventured inside. The weakest link of our little brigade was paranoid about getting caught so we didn’t stay very long.
Whispering to each other, the decision was made to head back to the bridge. Once we got there we noticed that the sun was starting to go down so we started our march back to the car. The parking lot we left the car in belonged to a state park so we just decided to take the designated trail back.
Walking along the trail we reminisced about high school stories and glories. It started to get a little darker, and I started to get a little claustrophobic. I felt like the trail was closing in on us. The wood that earlier seemed so inviting started to look a lot more threatening.
Woodwork - crawl or come out of the woodwork to appear suddenly and unexpectedly in large numbers (slang)
What seemed like an hour passed. The look of concern started to set on each of our faces. With confidence I told them that the parking lot was just up ahead, but the night was also setting in. Within minutes, the last gasping breath of light was squeezed out of the woods and our lungs. It was dark.
We used our cell phones to provide light. The trail was gone and underneath our soaked feet was nothing but confusion and emptiness. It’s hard to find comfort when your comfort zone has been ripped away. They say every photograph tells a story. We weren’t taking pictures.
Without any direction, we marched on as soldiers do. They came out of the woodwork. We couldn’t see ourselves surrounded but we knew it because we stopped in unison. Fear quickly replaced confusion as the emotion that gripped us. It froze us. I thought this was the end of our journey. A voice said to us “The next time you open your mouths don’t let words come out. Are you proud?” The question hit home harder than a hook from Mike Tyson. I wasn’t proud, so I remained silent. I knew the answer was the same for my two friends because no words were left hanging.
Weakened knees and cold hands intact, we continued to march after this faceless crowd dispersed. It became day again. We kept marching. The sun set. We kept marching. Our cell phones died. We kept marching. The trail reappeared. We kept marching and marching and marching. And instead of being afraid or hungry or tired or thirsty I felt nothing but inspiration.
We finally made it back to the car. In real time the walk was only an hour. But our cell phones were dead. And there were no photographs. And we left our pride splattered across the wood. And we had nothing to say and nothing to think so our mouths stayed closed and our minds stayed empty.
William "Braveheart" Wallace
"Midnight Oil" coming soon.
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