death plays coy once again keeping me from escape
from all the memories that bring nothing but pain. would be better to burn out like a roman candle up in flames, fast and furious without the wasting. wasting wasting wasting slipping further away into the blue-black veldt that hangs over the moon and stars of the my night. there, hidden behind it all, death laughs at struggles as inconsequential as mine, striping love and beauty from the bones until nothing remains but ichor. ugliness abounds in the modern age of here today off tomorrow to the next sparkling thing if only I could find a way to live as the others do, and bury myself alive in the process of becoming other. sitting on the bridge, dangling toes in the creek
the bridge is cool, the only thing that is on this impossibly warm day she's asking me questions about politics, pollution and possibilities and the day is just warm enough to loosen my tongue. I am spilling out my heart one pearl at a time on a well worn lifeline,not realizing just what I am saying and what the impact might be. something in the wind whispers for me to be still and in the silence I catch a glimpse of her wide, wondering eyes. She's asked me what I mean, and now is waiting for my reply. I have no idea, and to myself I think, sometimes the moment is bigger than the messenger. That though, won't do for an explanation of myself and what it all means, so I exhale and prepare a truncated soliloquy that might serve as a moment's distraction. For me, no distance measured in miles, time or spirit would ever take me away from Andy. That day when she had emerged from the balloons, my heart knew where it belonged. As I shuffled from foot to foot waiting for the much anticipated reunion, I bought a balloon, all part of my grand plan.
I worked my way over to an empty spot on boardwalk and carefully looped the balloon's string through the hole in a small but flawless diamond ring. All through college, I had given up on parties, booze and frivolous expense. Every spare dime had ended up in the diamond fund. The result now hung from a lime green balloon that bobbed playfully in the wind. Then, there she strolled, down the boardwalk, like a model on the catwalk. I could barely keep my heart from escaping my chest and nearly lost the balloon and its prize. "Hello, beautiful," I managed with a smile. She smiled back, and in the replay, I saw what I had missed before. The unease in the smile. The reserved air. The way she kept her body at a remove, distanced from me. "We need to talk," she said, motioning to a deserted bench near the end of the boardwalk. The old heart in my chest crumpled because we knew the outcome, but then I had actually thought how wonderful, secluded it would calm my nerves to ask the most important question of my life. She ignored my attempt to take her hand and marched to the lonely bench. I sat, but she didn't. "I'm sorry," she began. "Whatever for?" "I've met someone. We didn't mean for it to happen, but . . .. well you see, he's a lawyer, probably going to be a senator one day and he already has a house that his parents bought just for him, well now for us. He asked. I said, 'yes.' You understand don't you?" I nodded my head, but I didn't understand anything, not at that second. The horrible moment of understanding would come, but in that second my mind refused to connect the dots. "You do?" She asked hopefully. I held out the balloon to her like some fool. Tears had started to stream down my cheeks, but I wasn't fully aware why even then. I watched as she took the balloon and noticed the small ring hanging from the end. I also noticed the huge ring already in the spot where my small offering would have rested. How could I have missed that all those years ago? "Oh, no, no, I'm so sorry, but I can't take this, not now." Her face had turned red. I didn't say a word, but I rose and walked away, out of her life, but all these years, I had never let her walk out of mine. I had rejected all others over the years, hoping she would come back to me. Now that she stood before me, I wondered what to do on the boardwalk. I had come to the boardwalk since before I could walk. My mother would bundle up my sister and I and off we would go to the beach nearly every weekend of my youth. As a child, ventures to the boardwalk only happened when she wanted something there, but as we grew up, she let us go more and more together and then on our own. The beach could relax you, but the boardwalk held the real excitement. From the dancing lights to the magical music, I fell for the boardwalk's charms hard. I never imagined I could love anything more than the boardwalk until I met her. I sat that day when she found me on a bench sucking down the remnants of a rapidly dissolving purple sno-cone. She deftly parted a nebula of dancing balloons and stepped into my stratosphere. Gravity pulled me to those piercing green eyes and something in my young heart told me that life would never be the same. What was left of the sno-cone fell to the ground, one more forgotten casualty of lost childhood. "Hi, I'm Andy, short for Andrea." She thrust her had in my face, and I recall sitting there like a mute. I could hear her asking if I had a name and looking more puzzled. I shared her confusion because I had never had trouble talking. Friendship started that day on the boardwalk, after I found my tongue, of course, and eventually, it would blossom into full-blown romance, with stolen kisses and fervent promises uttered on steamy nights as we strolled hand-in-hand on the boardwalk. Whisked away from those mostly happy moments, my mind showed me our final meeting on the boardwalk. Each of us unaware of what the other had in mind during that reunion meeting. Both of us had been away at colleges hundreds of miles apart. Her hair once a red-gold that I could only call chestnut had turned the silvery-blonde that those with red hair always seemed to chose in defiance of the white that touched most of us. Wrinkles mapped the life she had led since we had last stood on this boardwalk when she told me that she was not happy and that she was leaving me with an empty apartment and a useless ring in my pocket.
Of all my memories on the boardwalk, those belonging to her kept me coming back. As fast as a speeding bullet, as fast as an airbag springs to save a life, as fast as a jet pierces the sky, a single memory of us unfolded. Of all the ones to select, my mind made the easiest association. Fifteen years old. Is there ever a more perfect and dreadful time of life? How long does it take a memory to unfurl in the breeze of the mind and take flight to full-blown escape?
I felt eyes on me, pulling me from the past into the present, just a sad old person sitting on a boardwalk bench trying to remember what life used to taste like when the flavors used to be sweeter. I glanced around searching for whose eyes would guiltily flee mine when they realized I knew they were staring. Still I saw no one, but my eyes settled on the balloon man's corner. Something had changed there, something was not like it usually was. It took a second or two before my mind puzzled out the problem. A child of four would have found it faster, their neurons firing at speeds a fighter jet couldn't match, but when you are old, nothing moves fast. A pair of feet peeked out from the mass of the balloons that were no longer tethered to the balloon man's stand. Presumably, the feet attached to a body that also attached to hands, the very hands that held the balloons captive. I had a moment of déjà vu, indescribable awareness that I had experienced this before, not exactly, but close enough. It could come, but those messengers in my mind fired as fast as they could without causing an overload They left me to stare in stupefied wonder at the dancing balls of red, green, blue and yellow. The breeze played with them, taunting me to remember the day, the place and the name. The scene rolled out in slow motion only for me. The hand released the hold on the strings. Andy The name appeared in my mind, and odd assortment of emotions drummed up at the name, and as the balloons lifted off to heavenly heights, the woman attached to the name stood before me. I could smell the sweet scents of cotton candy mingling with the friend foods that represented Summer, fun, youth and all the possibilities that life could offer. The boardwalk rippled in the heat, sending out a faint scent of baking wood. Those around me barely noticed that odor, as they dashed from spot to spot, laughing at one another and believing in the infinite possibilities of life.
Like the scent of the wood, I remained out of place, to the side, unnoticed. The boardwalk, like all that Summer brings, belonged to youth. The rest of us were just witnesses to the unfolding drama of the journey of life. Any one of those children, stepping fast to avoid the burn of the hot boards, could have been me, not so long before. The boardwalk held many memories of the best times of my life. Retired, alone except for my regrets, I spent my Summer days and into the nights sitting there. While those around me were busy building their memories, I sat there replaying mine. |
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