In his soccer uniform of shorts and a team t-shirt, the little boy couldn’t contain his energy. He slipped under his mother’s arm, under the table and out of the booth.
“Wooooo!” He calls out playfully as he bounces across the restaurant, little plastic shin guards flapping against his legs. He hops from the booth all the way to the soda dispensers and back. With each hop, he crouches low before bounding up in the air, swinging arms and landing solidly. Every couple of hops he lets out a happy noise. Simply thrilled to be allowed to play, he celebrates.
His mother watches him with one eye, resigned to let him misbehave for a few minutes while she eats. It is late and the restaurant, fast-food and family-friendly, was nearly empty. Surely he isn't bothering anyone.
His play is contagious, it seems. His little sister, just moments before curled up against her grandmother looking sleepy, slides out of the booth as well.
She mimics her brother shyly. Adorable with her big blue eyes and blonde ponytail, she joins him in running circles around an empty table. Dressed in a black leotard, pink tights and pink ballet slippers, she doesn’t have good traction on the tile floor. Scrambling to keep up, she makes happy noises with him. “Wooooo! Yeah, soccer! Yay, hamburger!” Their cheers echo across the linoleum and late night diners smile involuntarily.
Friday, October 3, 2008
Thursday, September 18, 2008
the art of control
She takes a deep breath slowly and holds it for several seconds before exhaling slowly. She’s rarely aware of doing it, an unconscious attempt at clearing her mind, encouraging her body to reboot with the clean wash of oxygen. After a month of yoga classes, she lost interest and took up the old habit of sleeping until 9 a.m., but the cleansing deep breaths stuck with her.
Thirty minutes into the exam and she’s hit a roadblock. Elbows on the table, she leans her head against her left hand. Long blonde hair sweeping past her shoulders like a curtain, she stares at the test in sudden bewilderment.
The first page of the exam was easy enough. Multiple choice questions were simple to solve. The second page was short answer questions, her neat loopy handwriting started out in easy-to-read print and sloped to cursive as her hand grew careless across the page. It was the third and final page that had her stumped.
She stares at the question, reading and rereading until she no longer sees the question. She no longer sees the test. On the brink on frustrated tears, she sits up straight, pushing her hair away from her face. Resolving to remember the details of what she’d spent hours studying, she takes another slow deep breath. One. Two. Three. Pencil in hand, elbow on table, hand to paper, she writes her answer while breathing slow and steady.
Thirty minutes into the exam and she’s hit a roadblock. Elbows on the table, she leans her head against her left hand. Long blonde hair sweeping past her shoulders like a curtain, she stares at the test in sudden bewilderment.
The first page of the exam was easy enough. Multiple choice questions were simple to solve. The second page was short answer questions, her neat loopy handwriting started out in easy-to-read print and sloped to cursive as her hand grew careless across the page. It was the third and final page that had her stumped.
She stares at the question, reading and rereading until she no longer sees the question. She no longer sees the test. On the brink on frustrated tears, she sits up straight, pushing her hair away from her face. Resolving to remember the details of what she’d spent hours studying, she takes another slow deep breath. One. Two. Three. Pencil in hand, elbow on table, hand to paper, she writes her answer while breathing slow and steady.
Monday, September 8, 2008
The road is my home
This isn't really for the assignment. This is something else.
The wheels of the truck rumble under his feet, a steady, relentless hum that he doesn’t even recognize as noise anymore. The world is dark outside the illumination of his headlights, but he doesn’t need to see it to know what’s there. Ditches, drainage pipes, fields of crops, the occasional billboard; those details he can fill in mentally. The dark focuses his attention. It’s just road; it’s just lights; it’s just him and the wheels turning round. He’s always like driving at night. He’s never thought of himself as a thinker of higher things, but over the years he’s discovered a pure and simple pleasure in the potency of driving alone with his thoughts at night.
With hours stretched before him at the wheel, he even ponders time itself. He knows that one can spend hours on the road, hardly aware of time passing. Long haul truck drivers mark miles, not minutes. Frequently hours pass without event, without a way to mark the time, so for the sake of your sanity, you stop paying attention to the numbers glowing above the radio. But you have to turn that attention somewhere, spacing out entirely will ease you to sleep quicker than you’d believe and in big trouble soon after. Sleepiness is the arch-enemy of the night driver; easy slumber is elusive during the day when it’s ‘time’ to sleep and your unwelcome companion in the driver’s seat.
Luckily, he doesn’t feel the pull of sleep tonight. Tonight, his memories are like a well-loved book he can open at random and revel in. The solid white line on the right side of the road is his boundary. He can feel the gravity of the road, anchoring him safe and sure to his allotted space. The road and the driver have grown to trust each other in the hours upon hours they have spent together. Now it holds him steady between the solid and dashed lines. The road curves… he doesn’t even think about it. His hands on the wheel, automatic and sure. Driving like this is sublime, a positive feedback loop he navigates in an eighteen wheeler. He smiles as he selects a jewel from his treasure chest of memory and loses himself to the past.
Through the haze of memory, he realizes that things look different. The sky is a slightly different shade of black than it was before. Then he can see just a little better. He notices the fake wood trim of the dashboard, the bright orange plastic on the gear shift, empty coffee cups. He watches as the scenery outside the truck slowly comes into focus. Trees, wildflowers, foxes bounding through the tall grass and away. The sun rises slowly and suddenly. Pouring itself up and over the edge of the earth with such powerful slowness that he thinks he might be dreaming. Leaving his memories is like waking up from a long sleep. Quiet and contemplative, but also ready for the sunlight and the chance of conversation that daytime brings. Despite his efforts not to, he stares at the sun rising until all he sees is the negative image of the huge burning star superimposed on the highway.
He breaks the silence and asks himself with a smile, “Well, how am I supposed to watch the road when the sun is doing that?”
The wheels of the truck rumble under his feet, a steady, relentless hum that he doesn’t even recognize as noise anymore. The world is dark outside the illumination of his headlights, but he doesn’t need to see it to know what’s there. Ditches, drainage pipes, fields of crops, the occasional billboard; those details he can fill in mentally. The dark focuses his attention. It’s just road; it’s just lights; it’s just him and the wheels turning round. He’s always like driving at night. He’s never thought of himself as a thinker of higher things, but over the years he’s discovered a pure and simple pleasure in the potency of driving alone with his thoughts at night.
With hours stretched before him at the wheel, he even ponders time itself. He knows that one can spend hours on the road, hardly aware of time passing. Long haul truck drivers mark miles, not minutes. Frequently hours pass without event, without a way to mark the time, so for the sake of your sanity, you stop paying attention to the numbers glowing above the radio. But you have to turn that attention somewhere, spacing out entirely will ease you to sleep quicker than you’d believe and in big trouble soon after. Sleepiness is the arch-enemy of the night driver; easy slumber is elusive during the day when it’s ‘time’ to sleep and your unwelcome companion in the driver’s seat.
Luckily, he doesn’t feel the pull of sleep tonight. Tonight, his memories are like a well-loved book he can open at random and revel in. The solid white line on the right side of the road is his boundary. He can feel the gravity of the road, anchoring him safe and sure to his allotted space. The road and the driver have grown to trust each other in the hours upon hours they have spent together. Now it holds him steady between the solid and dashed lines. The road curves… he doesn’t even think about it. His hands on the wheel, automatic and sure. Driving like this is sublime, a positive feedback loop he navigates in an eighteen wheeler. He smiles as he selects a jewel from his treasure chest of memory and loses himself to the past.
Through the haze of memory, he realizes that things look different. The sky is a slightly different shade of black than it was before. Then he can see just a little better. He notices the fake wood trim of the dashboard, the bright orange plastic on the gear shift, empty coffee cups. He watches as the scenery outside the truck slowly comes into focus. Trees, wildflowers, foxes bounding through the tall grass and away. The sun rises slowly and suddenly. Pouring itself up and over the edge of the earth with such powerful slowness that he thinks he might be dreaming. Leaving his memories is like waking up from a long sleep. Quiet and contemplative, but also ready for the sunlight and the chance of conversation that daytime brings. Despite his efforts not to, he stares at the sun rising until all he sees is the negative image of the huge burning star superimposed on the highway.
He breaks the silence and asks himself with a smile, “Well, how am I supposed to watch the road when the sun is doing that?”
Thursday, September 4, 2008
where we're going, we don't need umbrellas
The rain has almost stopped now. On this unusually calm afternoon, the water seems to just hang in the air. More mist than fog, it restricts vision all the same. Through the haze, a man walks down a sidewalk. Dressed for the weather, not the calendar in his khaki trousers and navy blue jacket, closed below his collar. His faded Nike running shoes suggest that this is a walk of habit, not one determined by a specific destination or purpose. He must be a religious weather checker. Clutching a black umbrella, he was clearly prepared for the rain. The umbrella is no defense against the water simply suspended in mid-air, though. He has surrendered the protection, umbrella swinging closed at his side. His glasses are lightly covered in raindrops, his familiar walk reduced to smears of color, hazy shapes and the muffled watery noise of the world outside the park.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
timing is everything
He’s been talking to her all night. The conversation has been a spirited competition of words, funny voices, impressions and dumb jokes. He could go all night. And he would, if he thought she’d be won over.
She hasn’t let him buy her a single drink. It’s the ‘let me buy you a drink’ line that gets you in trouble, she knows. When the bartender looks her way, she is quick to signal for another. One more, for her. He can signal his own.
The birthday of a mutual friend is their cause for gathering. It’s drinks and cake all around, friends crowded around the birthday girl, batting balloons ahead their heads until someone jabs it with a cigarette. POP!
They’re sitting at the corner table, discussing in detail why these balloons won’t stick to the wall after being rubbed on another’s head. It’s probably a conspiracy, they decide.
Everyone is trickling out, complaining about early mornings at work, getting older and that smell in the bar bathroom. She’s settling her tab and chatting with the bartender. He’s lingering, bar tab already paid, purposely, not yet awkwardly, but obviously. She’s starting to get anxious, eyes avoiding his, not wanting to encourage him. She imagines him trying to walk her to her car, standing around awkwardly, trying to ask about her weekend plans while she dives into her car and escapes. The polite but unmistakable ‘no thanks’ is so difficult. There’s a fine line between being clear and being a bitch.
They sit at the bar, nursing the last beer of the evening while the jukebox rocks and rolls. TV's positioned around the bar show a variety of sports shows. Silent, glowing boxes, the men watch the captions that roll along the bottom of the screen.
As the guys begin to argue football and hockey stats, she spaces out, wondering how this will play out. . . oh god. What if he tries to kiss her? She worries and drinks.
He stands and yawns “Excuse me for a sec, hon.” He saunters into the men’s room.
Gazing at the dark amber bottle in her hand, she grins at the solution that dropped into her lap so unexpectedly. If only it was always this easy. One more swig finishes her beer and she’s on her feet.
She hasn’t let him buy her a single drink. It’s the ‘let me buy you a drink’ line that gets you in trouble, she knows. When the bartender looks her way, she is quick to signal for another. One more, for her. He can signal his own.
The birthday of a mutual friend is their cause for gathering. It’s drinks and cake all around, friends crowded around the birthday girl, batting balloons ahead their heads until someone jabs it with a cigarette. POP!
They’re sitting at the corner table, discussing in detail why these balloons won’t stick to the wall after being rubbed on another’s head. It’s probably a conspiracy, they decide.
Everyone is trickling out, complaining about early mornings at work, getting older and that smell in the bar bathroom. She’s settling her tab and chatting with the bartender. He’s lingering, bar tab already paid, purposely, not yet awkwardly, but obviously. She’s starting to get anxious, eyes avoiding his, not wanting to encourage him. She imagines him trying to walk her to her car, standing around awkwardly, trying to ask about her weekend plans while she dives into her car and escapes. The polite but unmistakable ‘no thanks’ is so difficult. There’s a fine line between being clear and being a bitch.
They sit at the bar, nursing the last beer of the evening while the jukebox rocks and rolls. TV's positioned around the bar show a variety of sports shows. Silent, glowing boxes, the men watch the captions that roll along the bottom of the screen.
As the guys begin to argue football and hockey stats, she spaces out, wondering how this will play out. . . oh god. What if he tries to kiss her? She worries and drinks.
He stands and yawns “Excuse me for a sec, hon.” He saunters into the men’s room.
Gazing at the dark amber bottle in her hand, she grins at the solution that dropped into her lap so unexpectedly. If only it was always this easy. One more swig finishes her beer and she’s on her feet.
Monday, August 25, 2008
Stop light stage
At the intersection of 29th and Fairlawn, Shalyn waits for the green arrow that allows her to turn left. Every night at this intersection, she waits, head full of the day's debris. Instead of watching the light, she watches her rearview mirror as it reveals a silver Dodge Neon. It's occupants visible in the red glow of the stoplight. Safe and sound inside their car, it never occurs to them that they are on a silent stage.
A young woman in the driver's seat. A young man at her side.
He is telling a story, talking animatedly, wild hand gestures and funny faces.
The driver is entertained, smiling broadly, shoulders rocking in laughter.
He laughs as well, pleased with her reaction.
Something changes the conversation, maybe a song on the radio, maybe a situation one of them referenced. They both begin to dance in their bucket seats. It’s purposely silly with head bopping and exaggerated movements. Pushing each other towards hysterical laughter, their dance becomes even more ridiculous.
Still waiting and watching, Shalyn laughs out loud. Having danced her fair share of stupid car dances, the simple delight is easily recalled.
When the light turns green, the audience of one and the unaware actors drive away.
A young woman in the driver's seat. A young man at her side.
He is telling a story, talking animatedly, wild hand gestures and funny faces.
The driver is entertained, smiling broadly, shoulders rocking in laughter.
He laughs as well, pleased with her reaction.
Something changes the conversation, maybe a song on the radio, maybe a situation one of them referenced. They both begin to dance in their bucket seats. It’s purposely silly with head bopping and exaggerated movements. Pushing each other towards hysterical laughter, their dance becomes even more ridiculous.
Still waiting and watching, Shalyn laughs out loud. Having danced her fair share of stupid car dances, the simple delight is easily recalled.
When the light turns green, the audience of one and the unaware actors drive away.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
hoping for more than 10%
It was the time of day that afternoon slide into evening and the restaurant was suddenly packed. The waiting area was filled with waiting families, parents with squirming children, wearing matching baseball jerseys and hats. The hostess and waiters set to work quickly, moving tables together, finding enough chairs to seat the mix of family and friends together.
“Did they call ahead?” the waiter asked under his breath.
The hostess glanced up at group, all shifting and sighing, juggling diaper bags and babies before answering, “Nope.”
“Of course we can seat 18 during rush. Why call ahead?” the waiter said softly with only a trace of sarcasm in his voice.
The place settings arranged at last, the hostess bounds back toward the waiting herd with a bright smile and friendly tone, “Thanks for waiting, your tables are ready if you’ll just follow me.”
Likewise transformed, the waiter grinned and greeted his suddenly welcome customers, hiding any irritation in hopes of a decent tip.
“Did they call ahead?” the waiter asked under his breath.
The hostess glanced up at group, all shifting and sighing, juggling diaper bags and babies before answering, “Nope.”
“Of course we can seat 18 during rush. Why call ahead?” the waiter said softly with only a trace of sarcasm in his voice.
The place settings arranged at last, the hostess bounds back toward the waiting herd with a bright smile and friendly tone, “Thanks for waiting, your tables are ready if you’ll just follow me.”
Likewise transformed, the waiter grinned and greeted his suddenly welcome customers, hiding any irritation in hopes of a decent tip.
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