People

And that’s what it was

Jesse was shorter than me, and older than me, with hair much longer and lighter in hue than mine; he was a man who preferred to lean against the railing instead of sitting in the conveniently placed foldout seats. I had made the mistake of remarking to him on how beautiful the scenery was, and I inferred from the silent gaze of his reply that such visible observations were insulting to his wisdom. From far away he looked nothing out of the ordinary; even in such an exotic land he blended in with the trees and mountains that painted the windows with flurries of green. To any person who practiced the slightest bit of prejudgment, Jesse was no more than a free loving, free roaming son of the seventies. But as our conversation delved deeper into ideas that only existed in the fantasies of paranormal fifteen year olds, I began to carefully extract a model of who Jesse actually was.

“You think Kansas is boring? It doesn’t get any flatter than where I’m from.”
I wasn’t sure if he had ever been to Kansas, but I wanted to believe him; my less than assertive nature made no attempt to argue. The scars on his suitcase showed that he was a seasoned traveler, one with incontestable experience. It probably wasn’t the man, but the suitcase that turned every word he said to me into gold. Jesse represented a freedom I could not fathom nor describe at the time. He was everything a young me wanted to be.

“Have you ever thought about marriage?”
I was bold in my questioning, bolder than I had ever dared to be. Maybe the succinct clicks of the train’s wheels against the track helped develop my transition from past to present; from the fifteen year old boy I used to be, to the fifteen year old man I still was. 

“I’m thirty five.” But the way he said it made him look ten years younger. “There isn’t a woman I meet now that I don’t think about what our kids would look like.”
It was the last answer I wanted to hear, and yet he had said it without remorse or affection. I remember thinking that if ever there was a way to capture what life was about, it was what Jesse had said to me right then.


For Rachel

She was a glass-encased sculpture sitting proudly behind endless layers of red velvet rope. The hundreds of art connoisseurs who often visited the museum could not understand why she was so well respected and spoiled. They wondered why the other, seemingly more valuable artifacts and paintings were neglected by the museum staff, while she alone was groomed and protected with the utmost attention.   

It was indeed a mystery not even I could comprehend. I too was a sculpture, but the chisels that defined my face were incomparable to the perfection and grace that marked her lovely features. The others were jealous of her because they couldn’t understand her beauty as I could. And so they turned their haughty faces away in arrogance, basking in their artificiality and ignoring the truth of her splendor. But despite their bitter attitude, they all recognized something captivating about her tilted posture, her silent voice, her empty eyes, and her solid marble skin.

Of course they criticized her behind her back, remarking on her sculptor’s flawed techniques and lack of talent. Each of them strived to bring grief to her, but her resolve seemed impenetrable. Her independent nature was always triumphant and whatever she longed for was never too far away. It was probably her ability to react with feeling rather than thought that made her so responsive. She understood what was real, and what was unreal, and what was important, and what was not. But still they kept on, humiliating themselves and parading their own triviality with their relentless goading of her miniscule flaws. In truth her flaws were not flaws at all, rather just symbiotic attachments to her attributes. But maybe that was just love talking.

In any case, she knew better than to let their petty reviews disrupt her mood. ‘I’m just better than everyone else,’ she thought. Perhaps that was why she kept to herself; conversation bored her and companions disappointed her. Indeed it was an arrogant outlook and possibly even conceited, but it was an opinion well supported and a view placed in very valid circumstances. Well, because she certainly was smarter, and prettier, and on occasion even more benevolent than anyone I had ever met. So why couldn’t she boast of her exceptional qualities and unparalleled fortune? It seemed dignified enough to me.

On occasion my podium was moved within ten feet of hers to accommodate for temporary exhibits that visited us. Each moment I had spent confined to her idyllic circumference, as her ghastly arm brushed against the side of mine, I felt a certain satisfaction that would forever be lost in that short lapse of time. Although it was a sensation that was irretrievable, it was nevertheless renewable in a different form and variation that shamed the ones felt in the past. Regrettably, my time under her serene guidance would always fall short of what I desired. But I neither complained nor hated her for what her beauty did to me, because I knew as they hauled me back to my humble little corner, she never really was that far away.

It seemed that I dreamed when I wanted, and awoke when I wanted. And no matter how far down the valley of abstraction my analogies were able to reach, they never failed to deliver the truth.


I thanked them silently

They were looking for a CD case. The mom and her older daughter liked the cheap one; but the little girl liked the pretty one. They argued silently over which would be the best selection; and the little girl made gestures with her hands, accompanied with teasing facial expressions. The mother and her oldest daughter, however, displyed blank appearances, motioning to each other with a dreary muteness. They ignored the little one, and discussed amongst each other like elders do. The ladies finally left with the ugly cheap one, while the little girl stayed a bit longer to admire the pretty one. Mother called for her young child with her hands, and the little girl somehow heard her speechless commands. I tried to look as if I was paying no attention to them, foolishly watching the various TV screens; it was no use, because I knew they noticed me, and for a moment I felt like we were the only ones in the store. In the end I realized I had no idea what their hand signals had meant to each other, and my imagination had just created a story that was completely false. It didn't matter to me though, because I was subdued by their serene interaction, and I understood enough to know that the two daughters loved their mother, and their mother loved them back.