Sunday, December 4, 2011

Lost.

Left foot...right foot...left...right...left...right...

Those were the most of my worries nowadays. Keeping one foot in front of the other, making sure I kept walking. I couldn't succumb. It didn't matter to me that I had a sleeve missing, or that I didn't have a home. I could always go to the shelter for food, and as for lack of clothing in this cold...I grew up on a farm in Minnesota. I could handle it.

Left...right...left...


I was walking. Walking where? I wanted to fool myself into thinking I had a purpose; there was somewhere I was needed, someone that needed me. Everywhere I looked I saw couples hand in hand, children laughing; there was a man with a briefcase waiting for the bus. He was moving his foot so to let the last of the sun's rays dance and reflect off his shoes, tapping it around in a way that must've made his mother scold him so many years ago. I remembered when I let Layla take my car because hers broke down, and took the bus in my suit, waiting with my briefcase just like this man was waiting. Why was he taking the bus? Was it because he sacrificed not just his car, but so many other things for the ones he loved? Or another reason?

I kept moving. I saw a woman with a baby...a baby with soft blonde hair, waving her little arms around, her chubby pink cheeks stretched wide in a laugh. The woman seemed to not notice; didn't she know what she had? She waited for the light to change at the corner of Madison Avenue. I approached the mother daughter pair, wanting to pretend for a second that it was Layla and Reagan, two ladies that had been so important to me, but had left. I pretended that I was going to cross the street with them, we were all going to go out to lunch. I could sense the woman's uneasiness...this was all too much like how Layla was, a couple months before she left and took everything I called mine. The woman reached into her purse and pulled out money; I hadn't had money in so long.

She stretched her arm over her child's head to give it to me. I stared at it. Why was she giving this to me? Had I done anything to help her, had I done her any favors? No. She didn't need to give me anything and yet here she was, shaking the bill with the face of Alexander Hamilton, urging me to hurry up and take it so that she could go, because the light changed.

I reached up and took it.

3 comments:

  1. Ugh, I love your writing style. I want to know more now, which is awesome. Great job.

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  2. Really liked it! Great job writing from the man's perspective, I like the point of view :)

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  3. Hi so I'm re-reading old blog posts of yours since I miss you and I love your writing, and you haven't posted anything new in a while *ahem*
    Jokes ^
    But yeah, I think this is pretty incredible.

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