Thursday, May 19, 2011

The Fountain

I run and run, my hands gripping my head in the pain of everything. My life. I had tried so hard to block it out, the pain of always being alone, the pain of always wanting something, needing something, until it had become just a habit, and I could forget why. I had self-imposed selective amnesia. But now, it was all welling up inside of me, threatening to burst out. I felt like I was gonna explode. If I stopped running, if I stopped moving, the energy would have nowhere to go, and that would be the end. So I ran.
I wasn't sure where I was headed. It didn't matter to me. I was blind with fear, with sadness, with emptiness. I didn't want to go back to my apartment. I didn't want to see all of the useless shit I had stolen just to fill the cavity in my dried up heart. Because it never would, truly.
My legs burned, my feet slipped on the wet ground. But I kept going. It was like all of the force inside of me was pouring out now, all of the frustration. I passed the gurgling fountain, then circled back around. And kept circling. Why was I drawn to this fountain all of a sudden? Wait. Wasn't it broken? Why is it working now? I watched all of the water pour out of it, and cleanse the dirty, broken stone. Then I understood.
I was just like the fountain.
Dirty, broken, old. Then all of a sudden, after many years in a drought, blocked up, sitting there useless, full of energy again. So I jumped in. When this realization came to me, I was ovewhelmed with the desire to be as close as possible to this wonderful thing, this pure thing. To be one with it. So I jumped in, and sank.
The water rushing down on me submerged me, pushing me under and keeping me under. As it pushed, I felt the emotions get carried away with it. I let them. I don't know how long I stayed there. Eventually I moved to the side and floated on my back so I could breathe. And all I was thinking about was my mother. How much I missed her. How I should have found her by now. Then the rain began to fall. I was surrounded by water now. Under me, in me, and now dripping on me. I let it consume me, overpower me, which was so opposite my nature I felt like a new person. Maybe I was a new person. Or maybe I've always been this person, I've just never let them be free.
So I stood up, and stepping out of the fountain gave me a new purpose. I needed to find her. She was the only woman I wanted in my life. I didn't need the girl with the cellphone, or pretty Bianca. I needed my mother. Only she knew me for who I really am, and by Jesus I needed to be me.
I started walking back to Watershed Heights, to collect my things and let them know I was leaving. As I walked along, I noticed a crowd of people standing around something. What is that? Ew, a smushed body. I wonder if that's what I woulda looked like if I'd stopped running back there and let everything explode out of me. I involuntarily shivered.
Entering my room with my new eyes shocked me. What had I been living in? With? I gathered everything up, and put it out on the front lawn of Watershed Heights. Tacking a sign in front, I put:
Sorry if I stole your shit. Take it back.
I was about to walk away, when I had an idea. I grabbed the meteorite, and walked back to the dead girl. Placing it in her mangled hands, I said, "Here's something beautiful that fell from the sky, just like you." Then I turned towards the bus station.
Maybe I would buy a blueberry pie, and finally give it to her. My mother.

Monday, May 16, 2011

The Memory

I was in the middle of an amazing conversation with the most beautiful woman I'd seen around town when all of a sudden the lights went out. Just my luck! As my eyes adjusted, the woman, Bianca, made a hasty farewell and left before I could get a plea to stay out of my frowning mouth. One moment I'm completely happy for once, and the next I'm left alone with no company except for the thickening smell of pie.
Wait, pie?
In the dark, I sit alone at a two person booth and let the smell overwhelm me. My eyes drifted closed as I slowly let my mind slip away. A distant memory was calling to me, one that I hadn't thought about in a while. There was a reason why I hadn't recalled it, an important one. All of a sudden, a huge amount of fear surged over me. I musn't continue to think, to remember, before it's too late. But it was. Because once you start a flashback, there's no stopping it.
I'm four, five, young. I'm standing in the kitchen of my first home staring up at the bustling woman hunched in front of the stove. The smell of stew fills my nose, and a harsh hunger swamps my thin frame. It had been too long since my last meal, but the important people were coming tomorrow. I knew they were important because everytime they came it was the same, very methodical. They would sit in our bare living room, talk to my mother, and then call me in. Then they would stare at me, telling me to turn this way and that, as if I were a pig ready for butchering. But I was the opposite. I was bone thin, a ghost. They would weigh me, and although I didn't grasp the severity of my state at the time, the people's expressions were always worried enough to let me know something was wrong.
So my mother, knowing that tomorrow was yet again the day, gathered up our last meager supply of food and started cooking stew. But it was only enough for one.
"Momma what are you gonna eat?" I asked as I stared up at her.
"I'll be fine, honey, don't worry about mommy. Just eat this yummy food once it's ready so that we can stay a family."

"What do you mean, stay a family?"
"Nevermind dear, don't worry. Just eat this." And with that she set down the small bowl on the table, so I ate it because I wanted her frown to go away. And it did for a while. But then we both heard her stomach growl.
"Mommy's gonna take a nap, now," and she hurried away before her stomach could continue to grumble. All this talk of remaining a family combined with my mother's hunger made my young mind start to worry again. What I understood later is that the important people were child services, and were keeping an eye on my weight. If it dropped below a certain level, I would be taken away.
But at the time I didn't care about myself, I only cared about her.
As soon as I heard snores, I slipped out of our small apartment onto the busy street. My short, stubby legs carried me down the street to a market where I knew food could be found. I was too young to consider the consequences of my actions, only the rewards. So I grabbed the first thing I saw. A large, decadent blueberry pie.
The police caught up to me after only one block.
The next day, my mother was forced to tell the service people about my "stunt". Being a theft of food, it naturally didn't look to good. And that was the last time I ever saw her. She didn't even get to eat the pie.
Over the years, I was shuffled from home to home, changing whenever my foster parents got tired of my newly developing "habits". They would find something valuable stashed under my bed, or in my pillowcase, and deem me a thief. But I didn't consider myself a thief, I just liked to grab things, ad they never left the house. But then I would. And pretty soon, I was old enough to never return.
So here I am, who knows how many years later, sitting alone, in the dark, smelling blueberry pie. All of a sudden I'm standing, disgusted with myself, my life. I bolted, the blueberry making me sick to my stomach. I knocked down everyone in my path - there was a lot, many people had come to buy some pie - including a young man just staring at an empty spot on the floor. Or was it empty? I couldn't be sure. I just needed to get the hell out of there.