Progeria

It was raining the day they told me he died. But by that day he'd been gone for well over a week. So for all I know, the day he went was sunny. Perhaps it was bright, and the air was warm and not a cloud was in the sky. Maybe that day was perfect. Maybe nature rejoiced in the newness of spring and the gentle March breezes and the tiny pink buds on our tulip tree. Maybe I made dinner and I went for a walk and the frogs and crickets sang at dusk. I imagine I may have been happy, but I cannot be sure because I do not even know the exact day that he died. I imagine many were happy that day because they did not know, like I, could not know, that such a small piece of the world was missing. I wonder if he'd have remembered me the way I remember him. For I am not unique as he was. I am normal, unmemorable, like everyone else. Our lives just crossed for a year, but he is easily someone you do not forget. I cry for him now, for the things that he'll miss; for a life lived so little, for a lifetime so short. I hope that though he was small, the life that he lived was big. I hope that there were people in his life unlike me. People who didn't float in and fade out. I hope that there were people who loved him; who made sure he wasn't lost in a world so much larger than he. I hope there were people who made even his short life a full one. I wish I had known not days after the fact that this someone so special was gone. I wish I could shake the sadness I feel for this someone I hardly knew. I wish I could say that on the day I found out he died it didn't seem right that it rained.
I wish I knew why and didn't feel it unfair, that though he grew old-- he will never grow up.

The Green Shoes

When one is slipping on a pair of green shoes with one hand while the other hand is skillfully holding a cell phone, keys, a wallet, and a granola bar against his chest, his body is somewhat bent and contorted in a way that he knows his orthopedic specialist would frown upon, if not warn against altogether. Green shoes on, he shuts the door firmly behind him, wiggles the handle to assure proper locking, and walks toward his car.
The concrete seems to scrape and pull at the faded black rubber soles, but this is nothing new. Not their first time being abused by the habits of man, being exposed to the elements, left to fend for themselves, only ever noticed in second glances and when selfish Sam happens to cross his legs on the subway before work. This particular attempt to cross his legs got selfish Sam into quite the awkward situation.
“You just put your dirty ass shoe on my dress,” she says loudly, drawing the attention of all around.
“My mistake. Won’t happen again. Sorry.”
“I’ll have to take this to the cleaners now. What did you step in? This is bullshit. And right before work. Damn it,” she swats furiously at the black scuff. It remained. Taunting and ever-present.
“Listen, take down my number, send me the bill. Completely my problem.”
An accident, thought the green shoes. A simple misunderstanding perpetuated both by an uptight woman’s bitchery and their owner’s codependent sissy-hood.
“That will not work. I have a meeting today. In fifteen minutes I have a very important meeting. With important people. Do you know any important people. You look like you don’t. Some of us have jobs.”
“I have a job. I’m going there now.”
“With important people? Do important people who have important meetings come into your place of work. Do they regularly come in and order pizza or whatever crummy food you serve?”
“I’m a writer,” he says, “and sometimes they do.”
As he jotted his number down nervously, but still smiling, the shoes tapped over and over on the metallic floor. One down, they thought, 6,658,246,550 to go.

Shoes Left Lonely

They lie next to the nightstand as though they are waiting for her to return. One of them points an expectant toe at the bedroom door. The other is upturned, loose laces draped over its side. They were no doubt tossed there by careless, weary feet who took it for granted they would don them again. A new pair of shoes enters the room and the feet within them pause to gaze sullenly on this hapless duo in the middle of the floor with their own feet conspicuously absent. His entrance feels intrusive to the wearer of the new shoes. The room is so fresh, so haphazard, so lived-in. At any moment it seems that she should trot through the door and slip on these shoes. But, she will not and this room must be emptied for someone who will. He begins at one end and works his way through, boxing up books, folding up clothes. And the shoes just look on; they watch every move. They do not change, because they cannot know. It takes less time than he anticipated to pack up her life and when the task is complete he feels exhausted- not in his body, but somewhere deep in his soul. He kneels down next to the shoes, the only two remaining objects still unboxed. They are so arbitrary, he thinks, yet so poignantly indicative of the way that he feels, for he, too, continues to exists now just the way she left him; nothing superficial about him has changed. But like the shoes he is empty; what once filled him is gone. He hesitates and sits simply breathing and watching the shoes. For a moment he considers leaving them there. To move them seems so final. To pack them away is to remove all of her from the room and to admit forever that she will not be coming back for them. He tips the fallen shoe so that it sits upright. He ties both shoe laces in neat, symmetrical bows. He lingers over them and clenches his jaw, fighting tears. Finally, he picks them up together and sets them in the top of an open box. They no longer look lonesome, he thinks as he lifts the box to carry it downstairs. They look prepared to move on- to wait for someone new.*

We Were

We were alive and it was good. We woke up, went to work, paid our bills, and did this everyday save for when we took breaks to pray and eat big meals and talk about the past. And you and your family did the same. And you liked it, even in the times when you thought you didn’t. And in desperate hours, usually right between midnight and three a.m., we gazed up at the empty ceiling and wondered if others were doing the same. And they were. Because we all did this together. Worried and argued and laughed and emptied packets of synthetic powder into expensive coffee.

A Rumination on Crying

I am crying and he is watching me.
"It bothers me the way you just let tears run all down your face, down your neck, into your shirt and your hair..." He says finally. Without looking at him I wipe some of the tears away with my hand. I smile.
"It bothers you?"
He looks at me sideways.
"It makes me itch." he says. I laugh at this and wipe away the rest of my tears. He has a way of ruining pivotal or emotional movie moments with random comments like this. He has never, however, commented specifically on the way I cry and I wonder for the first time what other observations he has made about me, but has yet to comment on. I do not bother to explain why I seldom thwart the flow of tears when I cry, not just because doing so would interrupt the remainder of this movie we are watching, but more so because I don't think he truly cares to know. When our relationship was newer, if ever he caught me crying he would look into my face intently and say in mock surprise, "Bud- you're leaking!" I find that if ever I am moved to tears I do, in fact, "leak" profusely and this is something that not only do I not mind, but that I've come to appreciate...even enjoy in a way. I've come to embrace intense emotion on the whole. It is so uniquely human to feel something deeply. How curious it is that extreme sadness, pain and happiness can all induce the same response- tears. In high school I wrote an expose on tears and why they are clear, in which I pose the hypothesis that tears are clear so that we can see through them to move on. This idea has no bearing on my current pondering about why I do not wipe away my tears. I think I don't wipe them away because doing so would render the emotional response incomplete and therefore unfulfilling. I believe weeping should be therapeutic, if not comforting, or the act becomes wholly arbitrary and a messy waste of water. I feel that tears should always be warranted, never random. They should result from some inner passion that can be released no other way; a feeling that bubbles up and overflows in the form of tears. That feeling, however painful, is also an exhilarating reminder of humanity, of the powerful presence, burden and privilege of a soul. I do not brush away my tears because I believe them to be more than just an outward expression of simply feeling. They are an expulsion of some sentiment which cannot otherwise be contained. It is like being bathed in warmth, swathed in a tangible form of extreme emotion, then relieved of it slowly as it flows down and away. The beauty of it all is that tears are as infinite as the soul, endless as the feelings they embody. Crying is something so rarely embraced and so often stifled its significance goes greatly underestimated, but it is something beautiful, something simply extraordinary, when the windows of the soul spring a leak.

We Share This Bench

We share this bench, you and I. We sit in comfort yet uneasy are we. Troubled with life, but pleased with it, too. Happy, indignant, content, and confused. Unaware, but informed. We are young, but we're old. Perfect products of the days in our years- slaves to our hearts and our minds and our peers. We are clad in our time, but in others as well- the times of our parents and times longer ago. Their mistakes we're to learn from, the lessons inferred. We're paying interest on the debts they incurred. We are stuck, yet we're moving so fast and so free and we're shackled with notions that no one can see. The two of us sit here so silent and still, screaming and running and grasping at air. We are looking for nothing, but we know it's all there. It must be, it should be, and we seek it alone, with eagerness, trepidation, fervor, and fear. What hovers between us on this bench where we sit are a million ideas, a thousand concerns, innumerable thoughts that swirl in our heads...all connected in space by a colorful thread woven through time by the things that we've said. Silly and lovely and burdened are we- foolish, enlightened, unable to see. Today is not ours, but it's all that we have. Tomorrow's unknown, but we know how it will be. The past we drag or toss far behind- set it up on a pedestal, lock it up in a box. This bench is merely a brief reprieve, we won't stay here long- we have reasons to leave. We will wake up tomorrow and we'll be the same, or perhaps we'll be different, but it will still be today. I know what will be here and wonder what won't. I will be me and you will be you but either or both of us may be stale or renewed. Even so, life will be pretty and ugly and good- and just and unfair and worldly and pure. Somewhere amidst it our ideas will be there and with them the worry that clouds up the air. I'll find within them that weaving of ours, that solid and vibrant, intangible thread. I'll hold to it fast and wherever it leads, I'll follow it back to the thoughts in your head.