|
|
|
A Short Walk |
| Written by Jake Newcomb | |
| Wednesday, 29 August 2007 | |
Before reading let me say...this is my first "story" ive typed...ive done it all one night in under an hour or so, im 18, have taken no writing classes and simply enjoy writing. Dont be too harsh if this is not "good enough" for you. It may also seem somewhat incomplete but I'd like to hear what anyone has to say about it...okay ill shut up now and let you read...
"Walk, don't drive" he said to me. Maybe the air will fill my lungs with inspiration for something, for anything. Maybe if I lengthen the trip by foot over wheels my mind will begin to uncoil from its tightened state. So a walk it was. My feet slightly dragged down the street I had become so familiar with. I've walked it countless times and overtime I have witnessed three different layers of tar cover its path. The wear and tear on my shoes was evident but I preferred it that way. Small drops and smears of white paint lay on each shoe. Fabric was split and torn at the seams ready to burst wide open. Like a thick blue water balloon on the verge of explosion, they, like me, had a story to tell. As I walked down the road sounds leaked out of every house, mostly driven from television sets or AM/PM radios. Each gap from house to house laid silent. But like rough waves of displeasure, electric noises crashed down on me from each and every window engulfing my head with needless and petty words. I found myself to be most content when I was in between those houses, inside those gaps of silence and almost wished I could stay in that neutral zone of nothingness for an eternity. "Each moment could truly be an eternity if I made it one" he told me. Too much Nietzsche in my diet I suppose. Every now and again my head would rise from the ground only to see windows blocked by wrinkled curtains. The glow from television sets colored the cloth in a mind numbing blue. A slight mist was in the air and dusk was on its way. I knew at the time and still know now that this world is exactly what you make it. But at the time I coudlnt help but see that street, that town and that walk as dead as a fresh corpse laying heavy on the side of a hot Texan back road. When I walked into the store my mood must have been written right across my face. The clerk, Debby (as it read on her red name tag), asked me a series of three questions as follows.
1)What can I get you?
2)Can I see some ID?
3)Why you so down?
The third question caught me off guard and snapped me out of my current state of self. I didnt know how to approach the question or have much care to even answer it so I simply forced a quick smirk and fidgeted my body around a little like a neurotic little insect trying to avoid the thumb. And this is when she said to me one of the most disgustingly outrageous things I've ever heard. "Whever you're feeling down hun, just remember there are starving children in Africa dying everyday" and smiled, as if that was supposed to make me feel better and make this world seem a little brighter. I walked out the doors of the store in a hurry as if that room was beginning to suffocate me. One more breath would have emptied my lungs and left me dead. I repeated what she said in my head a few more times and couldnt thank myself enough for buying those cigarettes. I was feeling sick inside and out and need to get home. At this point I was wishing I had brought the truck along, I dont know what I was thinking taking a walk.
The walk back was the same walk forward. Only in reverse of course. Except for one small alter that somehow, someway happened. Unconsciously my feet tagged along a slightly different route than I was used to. They ended up bringing me around a small street that emptied down to my house from a different direction. It was darker now and somewhat quieter than before, these houses did not have their TV's on and there was no sound to be heard leaking out from the windows. This is where I saw beauty in its pure form. On the yard of someones home lay a dead pick up truck. It was almost vintage looking, yet completely rotted. Every single tire was flat. Windows that were not smashed were cracked and rust decorated its entire body. The rust was so old I imagined it was being eaten away by something else unknown to man, being decomposed by a mysterious chemical yet to be founded or documented on our periodic tables. But that was only half of what caught me as what I called beauty in true form, what I saw creeping out of the trucks front end was a flower. A small yet vibrant flower peeking its tall stem outside of this rotten and decaying dead truck. This is as real as it gets he told me. Through death comes life and vise versa. I've read about it in countless books, heard about it in many myths, but there I was, without text in hand, being my own teacher. Now these clever proverbs have taken form and lay right in front of my eyes. And for a minute everything on earth became balanced as my eyes focused on the image of the truck and flower, other parts of me wandered off to some other place that can never be located, pinpointed, revisited or repeated for the rest of existance. Life and death, love and hate and all that falls between, the stars, the galaxy, human existance, mind, body, soul, the works, everything combined into one concrete substance I could comfortably feel and truly understand. It was as if I was transported to a space far beyond space where I could see how all functioned in one tight picture. I could see the simplicity of a complex system. And like a freshly oiled rig, the system ran smoothly. Copyright 2007 Jake Newcomb {moscomment} |
|
| Last Updated ( Sunday, 04 May 2008 ) |
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
via Email