I am trapped. There is a hot force keeping me here. I wish to leave, but the fire stops me. I don’t know why. It’s my life after all. I try and try, but I won’t budge. I hear her piercing scream. She is hurting and I want to help, but I can’t, I’m paralyzed. She screams some more, but I cannot leave. Her screams are louder and longer now. I’m starting to move with a burst of bravery and jump the fire. A force wants me to help, but I’m scared. I run faster. I’m moving, and things are getting scarier. I look down, my mom is dead and the murderer is gone.

As the drizzle makes its way gracefully through the ocean of blue, it falls lightly down, and down, and down-
And gradually makes it wetter. It bounces off the leaves and the red rooftops, almost silently landing on the gray pavement and yet you can hear through the darkness the drum sound in every drop.
Exploding in tiny droplets, the shattered molecules bounce one last time as they die.
These drops group into small puddles, each becoming a happy place for worms.
As the water evaporates the smoke-like substance takes form of a face..
A lone figure on the sidewalk looks closer; he realizes they are the features of his long lost grandfather. All of a sudden memories rush up to his throat, they have a strong acidic taste, and the salty tears that swell up against his will mix with the rain.
He remembers how late at night he would read him his own stories, the ones he wrote in his blooming days. They were stories by the candlelight about his youth, about the beauty of the nature, and the carefree days.
He realizes with a pang how the world has changed since then. People live at a faster pace; they run by their daily routines without noticing the small and simple pleasures of life. They rush by tall buildings, race through meaningless labyrinths of networks, get entangled in greed.
Submerged in thought, he hasn’t noticed the rain has stopped. The dark clouds had parted to reveal a pink and white sky. Soaking yet oblivious to it, his eyes land on the red sphere of light which with superior grandeur ascends behind the trees. Barely able to tear his eyes from its magnetic charms he dares to shoot a glance back to the spot on the pavement, but all image is gone. Instead are just a few last drops falling with a light “ting” from the wet leaves.
Slouching a little, he takes a few steps into the trees until the growing warm darkness engulfs him.

The wind whipped through the alleyway blowing the corners of the newspapers over my face, waking me to another cold morning on the streets of the city. I remember the days of waking up at 3:00 AM at the shelter and, after a breakfast of biscuits and milk, catching the white bus that took us laborers to the shipyard for a day of toil. The sullen faces of my co-workers looked the same as the faces of my street friends, forlorn and destitute, lost and forsaken.

The shipyard is located on the river, that mighty, peaceful river that flows to an uncertain end that carries off all of the debris and toxins away from society, making it a cleaner place for real people to live. I dream of that river, so massive and foreboding, yet so inviting. Today is the day that I will get one more glimpse of the shipyard and memories of my old life.

As I turn the corner at Toulouse Street, I see it – a bicycle, unlocked and unattended. I’m not a thief, but the temptation is irresistible and those wheels are just the thing I need. Like me, the bicycle is old and outdated, so surely it will not be missed much. With a push, I am off on my journey.

I have not been to the park by the zoo in a great while. How I must stand out like a sore thumb. I want to circle the park, but my destiny waits. So, I peddle towards the levee.

River Road is pleasant this morning. It is as though I have the road to myself. Suddenly, there it is. Over the levee, across the river, I can see the cranes of the shipyard.– my old place of employment, my old life. I’ll park next to this cargo container that I examine, out of habit, as a possible place to bed down for the night. The makeshift shelter is locked and useless – just as well, considering. I’ll leave the bicycle here. While atop the levee, I reminisce of the old days, when I was a real person. A jogger is coming; I hope I don’t scare her. Smiling, a young woman says to me in passing, “Good morning, sir.” “Morning, ma’am.” I feel more human when real people speak to me. She will be gone in a minute or two.

Traversing the down-slope of the levee to the water’s edge, I think of the river’s cleansing way of taking refuse to the gulf. The water is cold and the current is strong against my legs, but I feel a sense of welcome and relief as I step further into the depths. A few feet more and the chilling current will be over my head.

I wonder if anyone will miss me.

The news is not good. My wife’s treatments have failed. The truth is that Joyce is dying.  Pray, she says. I don’t believe in miracles. I’m a pragmatist.

“Life is something that is precious to us, and time is a gift from God. Remember the good days,” Joyce says to her daughter and husband.

“Alice, my precious daughter, life is a wonderful thing waiting for you to unlock its mysteries. So, do not fear losing me. I will always be with you in spirit.”

“What’s a spirit, Mommy?”

“Look at the wind, Sweetie.”

“You know that you can’t see the wind, Mommy.”

“Yoko Ono said that when the trees bow down their heads, the wind is passing by.”

“So, is the wind a spirit, Mommy?”

“No, but you can feel spirits around you, just like you can feel the wind.”

“Don’t go away, Mommy. I need you.”

“I have to, my baby. It’s my time.”

After the funeral, the doctor says that Alice will talk again, that her condition is temporary – a psychosomatic disorder.  She used to be a talkative girl, but since her mother died, she has fallen silent. Her toys are untouched, she refuses to watch television, her schoolwork is failing, and she will not eat. Her condition is dismal. Visiting the psychiatrist every Monday is not producing any positive results.  The loss of her mother is overwhelming, and her condition is worsening.

Three months later, Alice has to be committed to a treatment facility. Her anorexia is critical; a feeding tube and an IV are necessary to keep her alive. Frustrated at her lack of progress, her father is hiring a spiritualist to work with the child. The father reasons this out with the doctor and tells him that it cannot hurt his daughter at this point.

Sister Theresa used to be a Catholic nun. Her proclivity to the spirit world caused her to be excommunicated from the church. She is now a well-known spiritualist that makes appearances on various talk shows in the U.S.

Sister Theresa says, “I feel a strong presence around your daughter. Everyone please leave the room. Alice, I’m going to help you. I know what’s wrong, and I will make you better.”

Alice looks at her with distant eyes and thinks, “Who is this strange woman? And, how is she going to help me?”

“Your mother is very close by, Alice. You can’t see her, but she wants you to know that she loves you and misses you. She wants me to open the window for you.”

Opening the window, Sister Theresa notices thunder clouds looming overhead. Suddenly, a strong gust of wind blows leaves inside the room, swirling around Alice’s bed. Alice sits straight up and cries, “Mommy!” With considerable effort, Sister Theresa gets her to walk to the window and look outside.

Alice feels the wind in her face, and as she looks out at the trees, she says, “I see you Mommy. The trees are bowing their heads.”

Ralph was a big man. He was big man who taught. He taught small students. The small students made Ralph feel bigger.

He loved once.

She was a small woman. This small woman made Ralph feel bigger. She taught big students. She was a small woman who taught big students in the Big House.

She was killed.

Now Ralph teaches small students about his small wife who taught big students who kill small women in the Big House. Ralph was a big man who taught small children. Ralph made the children fewer.

He was fired.

Ralph is now without his small wife and his small students. Ralph is now among the big students in the Big House. Ralph is a man in the Big House among big students.

Ralph feels small.

Never have I seen a more perfect definition of love. No written piece, fact or fiction, had ever depicted what I now see in clear view. The truly innocent nature of it all is something I must confess has put a smile on my face.

Her hair was blond, and his a shade of brown. Both slim, their lightly bronzed supple skin demanded attention from passer-bys, as it has from me. Nothing of a mismatch in the slightest, they soot ensnared in the untamed vines of love.

I can’t make out what they are saying, but I make it up and mouth it softly to myself.

“Oh jack, I…”

I’ve hypothetically named him Jack.

“Oh Jack.” She says. “I feel as if I’m spinning. My mind is racing and heart pounding and this has been constant since my eyes fell upon you.”

“Jill.”

She is now Jill. Yes, Jack and Jill.

“Jill.” He replies. “And I too am feeling this way. The butterflies in my stomach are a sensation like that of which I’ve never felt before.”

My hypothetical dialog feels even to me as if it fell from a bad romance flick, but it’s my situation and I’ll say it how I please.

The breeze is soft, the air chilled and sun distant, which only enhanced the effect of two lovers. I know it’s wrong to watch anybody in such a way and voyeur is no title which I cherish, though one must do as he must.

Love from the true artist’s scope. How poetic, indeed.

A chill runs down my spine as I watch the two lovers passionately kiss. Hand in hand, they pull close and the world stops for these two individuals, for that moment nothing else exists.

It’s the epitome of splendor.

It makes one wonder how long this love affair in the form of a runaway train has been tearing up the rails of their one track minds?

Who knows and who cares?

The answer to this is frivolous.

The point is that they are where they are now, lost and in love. Truly blind, but blissfully so none-the-less, the world and its flaws go unnoticed when weighed against the sheer power of their desire for one and other.

How do I know?

Because Jack and Jill so straightforwardly and magnanimously tell me so, but perchance they reveal too much. Even from this distance I can see it all.

I see it in their eyes as they light up like the morning sun with every subtle glance, I see it in the gentle way they caress each other as if their loving counterpart might break to pieces with the slightest miscalculation of applied pressure, but most of all I see it in the things they don’t do. Regardless of the fact that they are in a fairly busy park, they don’t even as much as momentary look at another person.

Pedestrians and passerby’s mean not a thing to them as they sit on their little blanket spread out on their little patch of grass which they’ve staked their claim for a picnic. On a tiny hill under a tree they sit feeding each other assorted foods, laughing uncontrollably and living life as if there were no tomorrow.

To find contentment whilst trudging through the bleak monotonous triviality that is best known as the human condition must be like taking your first breath. It’s so pristine, so invigorating and most of all so inexplicably petrifying.

Itchy finger irks the mind.

I adjust my corrective lens from which I view these lovers, wipe the sweat from my brow and take a deep breath. The moment of truth is upon us. Time stands still for no one and though life may present such a feeling in the form of an illusion, the sands of time fall steadily for every man at the same pace.

Much like Cupid, I take my shot.

Their final grain of sand falls to its brethren.

I’ll cash my check in the morning.

David Two Bulls sat in the middle of the road and began to cry.  He cried for his dead father. He cried for his crippled mother. He cried for himself.

Wiping his tear-soaked face with the back of his chubby fist, the boy glanced down the road in between sobs. His chest rose and fell in an unsteady, off beat rhythm—a result of his sudden outburst of crying. People would come to take his father’s body soon. A van would come and take his dead body from the small, wood-plank house that David called home.

The idea of someone taking his father’s body upset him. The thought filled his eyes with a fresh volley of hot tears. He imagined his tear ducts as rusty pipes. Stinging from disuse, they constricted under the pressure of his tears. He had never cried at home. His father had never allowed it.

“Men don’t cry,” he had barked at David one day when the boy had received a bloody nose from a misguided basketball. The boy was five then. He had only met his father the year before. He quickly learned that “men don’t cry” was his father’s motto.

David had found his father laying in the front yard, face down, that morning. He was supposed to be face-up. the boy had always been told that when a person is dying, they turn over on their back. It was a natural human response, yet a spiritual act. His father was not a spiritual man. It was bad luck to die face down. Wakan Tanka would not greet his father now. His spirit would be trapped on the Earth to torment the living, no different than when he was alive.

The boy had flipped his father over on his back before he called for help. No one could know that his father had died face down. David cried as he thought about the punishment he might receive for his actions. He had played Coyote, the trickster, but he had no choice. His father had brought enough disgrace on the family. Only he and Wakan Tanka would know the truth.

David thought of his mother. She had been at her sister’s house over the weekend. He was the one who had called her, now that he was the head of the family. His aunt would drive her to the coroner’s office.

His mother had loved David’s father, the boy knew that well. Why else would she put up with his abuse? Why else would she let him hit her, while David hid in his bedroom closet?

“He isn’t bad when he’s sober,” she had told him a hundred times with black and puffy eyes. That was his mother’s motto. David loved his mother, in spite of her poor judgment. She had loved David’s father alone, even after he had disappeared during her pregnancy. He had missed the first four years of his son’s life. When he returned, he acted as though nothing had happened. No apologies were given.

Now his mother was in a wheelchair, crippled for life after a bad car accident. His father had been driving. He had broken his nose on the steering wheel, while David’s mother had had her legs crushed. She would never walk again. David’s father had been drinking that morning. No apologies were given. The boy was six when his mother had been crippled. He had been in school that day.

Squinting his eyes, David saw a speck moving across the hills. They were coming now. They would take his father away from this place. His body would be taken, but his spirit would linger. He had died face down.

David knew there would be no funeral for his father. His mother would grieve silently in their small, drafty house. She and her son would grieve alone. His father’s body would be cremated. That’s what he would want. None of the elders would sing for him. David could not sing. He didn’t know the words.  If his mother sang, she would sing silently. She never spoke above a whisper.

Wiping his eyes again, the boy stood up as the van came into view. It drove slowly, maneuvering around the ruts and potholes. The road that led to David’s house was one of many reservation roads in disrepair. Only the brave attempted to drive all the way up to his house. Most got out and walked the rest of the way.

A tall man wearing a blue shirt and jeans climbed out of the driver’s side of the van. Another man sat in the passenger’s seat, unmoving. Spotting David, the driver walked over to the boy. David held his breath as the man approached.

“Are you David Two Bulls?” The man asked as he stared down at the boy.

“I’m David Two Bulls, Jr.,” the boy answered as he looked past the man toward his house.

“Of course. Is your father inside the house?”

“The neighbors laid him on the table,” he answered quietly, shoving his damp hands into his pockets.

“Are you the one who found him?”

“Yes.”

“And the neighbors moved his body?”

“Yes.”

The tall man patted the boy on the shoulder before making his way up to the house. David stared at the man’s back, following him with his eyes until the blue shirt disappeared through the front door. A moment later, the man returned. He waved to his passenger, who opened the back door of the van, pulling a gurney out.  He walked up to the house, ignoring David.

The boy turned his back as the men brought his father’s body out of the house. Hearing the van doors close, David turned around. The tall man held his hand up before closing his door. The van turned around in the front yard before making the trek down the broken road.

The boy watched the van until it shrank into a tiny speck and finally disappeared over the hills. Exhaling slowly, he looked back towards the empty house. The house blurred as David’s eyes began to sting. Pressing his hands against his eyelids, he inhaled, quenching the tears that tried to escape.  He was the man of the house now, and men don’t cry.