Archived Entries
in the category of Writing & Short Stories

The words, birthed from his lips, grew fleshy coveryings and fluttered into the branches above. We stood under a great, dripping canopy. Pulling the hoods of our ponchos off our heads, we looked up. The light filtering through the leaves and vines was impossibly green, brilliant. His damp hands were equally beautiful.

Stepping ahead into the marshy undergrowth, I gently pulled him along, our arms a teather. We stepped slowly, in sync, out of sync, and matched pace again, all the while stirring up the ancient smells of the forrest. The freshly disturbed ground offered up an intoxicating scent of dirt and secrets.

Eventually, the dewy forest broke over a rocky cliff that hung from unseen strands of sky. Horizon to horizon, lakes and forest and plains and clouds stretched under us. I sat on an outcropping that pleaded for company and, taking my lead, he sat next to me, silently drawing his knees under his chin. I rested my head on his shoulder and breathed in the world.

He turned at his name. Well, actually, his upper body turned as he pivoted from the waistline, leaning back sorta to look at me. He was gorgeous -- blond hair, chiseled face, rock-solid body -- a complete antithesis of my ideal, who would look nothing like this circuit boy archetype. I flashed back to the first time I saw him on the street in New Orleans. He was shirtless and decked with beads. I wondered if he even owned a shirt. He narrowed his eyes as he tried to make out my face in the club lighting.

"Hey... you?re..."

"Chris, we met in New Orleans," I said, as he left his friends to face me. He nodded.

"Yeah, I know," he smiled, sounding surprised. "What are you doing down here?" He motioned to the club, but I knew he meant Houston.

"Partying. Having a good time." I smiled back. It was strange to think that I had never seen this man out of a party setting. I had no idea what he did for work. I had no idea how old he was. I knew he grew up in Nebraska, but that was the extent of it. Most of the time we spent in New Orleans was the non-speaking kind ? liplocked in what I remember as the most incredible makeout session of my life.

"Yeah, right on. You look great."

"Thanks, so do you." I placed my hand on his waist, palm on the oblique; a spot that never fails to turn me on. "From what I recall, the last time we were together, we left a certain job unfinished."

"You?re right. We certainly did." He took my hand and led me into the crowd, lights dancing across my face, bass pounding its way into my skin.

The boy couldn?t have been more than 7 or 8 years old, although in the desert sun, traces of age seemed to blend into the sky and road that, ultimately, blended into each other if you looked far enough out on the horizon. Heat waves bathed the pavement in mirrored ice that melted and iced over, repeatedly. It reminded me of a particularly hot summer in ?84 when we drove through the Arizona desert. The thermostat in our Plymouth minivan read 111 degrees Fahrenheit, so we stopped for ice-cream, but it melted before we could bring the iced confectionaries to our sweat-soaked lips.

I crossed my arms. He seemed to take that gesture as an inquisition and looked up at me, squinting slightly, but continued to nervously dig his toes into the sand. He was the modest sort, after all. I looked up for an answer. The sky was silent and impossibly blue. A reluctant breeze ruffled the boys feathers, which barely touched the tops of his dusty Levi 501s. Out of impatience, I reached forward and grabbed the boy?s shoulders.

"I can?t help you if you don?t talk to me." Trembling, he struggled against my grip, and several feathers came lose in my hand. Startled, I released him suddenly, and his stumbled back, landing hard on the dusty, road shoulder. I offered my hand to help him up, but he ignored me and rose clumsily. Sniffling silently, he gave three powerful sweeps with his wings and disappeared into the sky, leaving a trail of dust and feathers.

I watched him fly away, and then turned back towards my pickup. Sticking a feather behind my ear, I walked around to the front to examine the damage. A shattered headlamp shouldn?t be too expensive to replace, I thought. The basketball-sized dent in my bumper, however, would be another story. It?s amazing how much damage such a little body can do to a pickup driving only 35 MPH.

"Over here," I waved. She smiled and skipped over to me, wrapping her arms about my broad shoulders in one sweeping movement. The air she swept up in her arms between us smelled clean and summery.

"Whatcha up to, baby?" She grabbed my hand and guided me lightly across the courtyard of the school. We were floating, and no one even noticed. Wanting visible acknowledgement of her question, she glanced over her shoulder at me, and I winked.

"Usual mischief, I see," she giggled.

Our standard hangout under the courtyard stairwell was occupied, so we detoured the autoshop and crossed the street to an abandoned, Victorian church where we sat on the bench under a giant ash. She slipped off her backpack and unzipped it, shuffling around inside.

"So?" I asked her, expectantly. "What was the verdict?" Gracie dug through her bag, and shrugged her shoulders. I reached into my pocket and handed her a stick of gum.

"Thanks, babe." Setting her bag on the bench next to her, she swung her arm around my shoulder.

"Verdict, verdict, verdict," she sighed. "Well, I didn?t really get to talk to him about it at much detail..." She trailed off. Suddenly, she looked at me. "What would you do if he said, ?Yes??" Dramatic effect insisted I pause for a few seconds before answering that.

I would probably throw up all over myself, came out as, "I?m not sure." She chomped on her gum for a moment, and squinted at me from the corner of her eyes.

"Uh huh. I know what you would do," she said in a southern drawl. I chuckled, looking away. The wind shifted leaves filtering green light above us, and windchimes on the porch across the street sang indifferntly to the breeze. The warm air stirred up emotions with unfamiliar flavors. We sat like that for some time, her arm around me, my tongue in my head trying to sort out a mess of entangled feelings.

"Yeah," she said, distractedly. "Well anyways, he said ?Yes.?" She tossed the comment lightly over her shoulder as she glanced at students walking by the park. I sat silent, motionlessly supressing the bleeding exhilaration that swiftly flooded my senses. In--haleEx--hale. I watched her watch people passing, an air of feigned disinterest tugging at the corners of her mouth. "Did you hear me?" she finally smiled.

I took her hand in both of mine, and squeezing gently, smiled at the ground. She squeezed back and giggled. I mouthed a silent "Thank you."

The windchimes stirred again. This time, I imagined them thanking the wind for giving them a voice, for giving them life. In the distance, the school bell called us back with a quietly insistent tone, but we ignored it. We chose to listen to the windchimes, instead.

Older Entries