While amidst a partitioned hour, created specifically for swimming and writing, I came across something remarkable. Here, to the best of my abilities, I will try to recall and decipher what I saw and scribbled.
An airliner weaves around the gray clouds as the sunlight chokes its way through to the cool, brown earth below. The wind is blowing from the west over my bare feet. I imagine my feet are old man's feet with bronchitis. They are struggling to remember where they left their slippers and whether it's Tuesday or Thursday afternoon. I tuck them in under each other, switching occasionally to give the one on top a change of pace. From the hills pours a stream of tanks; warlords of clouds, balls of nightfall racing toward me at 3 in the afternoon. Another wave of planes adjust their angles of attack. But it's the ducks along the river banks that begin to make for the shores, and their homes; rounding up their families before the rain causes a panic.
The paths resemble conveyor belts; shuffling contents from location to location. They wrap harmlessly along the waterway. A woman wearing multiple sweaters and attached to a very brown husky strolls up to me and asks, "where is there a pool around here?"
At first I found this question to be odd. She clearly wasn't in swimming attire. But then I recalled that I was wearing flip-flops, a bathing suit, and a bright orange and red Garfield towel. This was common attire for writing in 50 degree storm weather, I assured myself. I notion that there exists a pool behind me in the apartment complex where I'm from.
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A deceptive pool of blue breaks through momentarily. I am distracted. Sunlight bursts through like a flare; reaching across everything. What if the picture was reversed? The houses, land, and everything in them suddenly began to float up. Certainly an odd sight for the cows in the hills. Their lives are so quiet.
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The human blanket moves out of sight, replaced with another woman wearing a purple track suit. Bouncing boysenberry trunks. She stands out. Her track shoes crunch on the rocks underfoot. The sounds reminds me of the sound my jaws make while chewing cereal. Some bits kick back up and off to the side as she runs. The next course arrives on wheels. A bike-riding couple peddles by, oblivious to the giant man-moving mechanism that they are on. He's wearing a long-sleeve, marmalade-orange sweater. They match. It's not that cute.
Tempos ring down the paths. As my hour nears its end, I am left with one image. One man in particular cannot stand the ringing. He is not wearing bright colors. He does not have headphones on. He is not smiling. The guy sits down and covers his ears. For a minute he stares out across the view, silent. The ducks have left. The wind picks up. A muffled noise rushes across my face. And without notice the man begins to wobble his head like a clock in reverse: up, left, down, right, up. Then in reverse order. The pattern continues for some time and during so the man says nothing. Up, left, down, right, up, right, down, left, up.....After this he stands up quietly and walks out of view.
The whole picture feels like clockwork or coffee at 9 a.m. - deceptively normal. My time is up. I head back home, taking a shortcut down breakfast street.
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Author's Notes:
- Imagery could be a bit more conducive
- Feels a bit disjointed. Like two stories that never knew each other just found out they had the same mom, she just remarried.
- Wait, so what is breakfast street?
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