Giving and receiving

You can't live a perfect day without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you.

~John Wooden

Once upon a time, there was a Boy.

Boy lived in a valley of mountain and snow. The mountains always stayed. The snow did not. Summer was coming! Boy couldn't wait to spend some time in the sun. The gentle rays of warmth washing over him...

Boy opened his eyes, sighing with regret. Inside the library, he looked out the windows at the clear, chilly sky outside. Soon.

Boy looked around at the rows and rows of computers. Full of students. Not one open. Boy settled down to wait. A girl had been standing there already, waiting. A few other boys and girls join Boy and Girl, standing impatiently, waiting for someone to finish.

Minutes passed. Boy thought of homework to complete, exams to be studied for and taken, his date this weekend, his plans for the summer.... summer....

Movement! A computer was free! Freed from the shackles of one student, only for seconds, to be again snared to do another's bidding.

It was not Boy's turn. He stood there waiting patiently.

But wait!

Girl was supposed to go next! Why was an inconsiderate boy moving toward the computer? Girl had a resigned expression on her face, disappointed but accepting the blow.

Boy didn't think, didn't have to reason, doesn't have to know Girl. Without saying anything to her, he marched over to the inconsiderate boy and politely informed him that he was out of turn, that Girl was next to get the computer. Inconsiderate boy didn't hesitate to show his annoyance. But he stepped aside. Boy motioned to Girl.

Girl came over, shyly said thank you and sat down at the computer to quietly begin her crucial homework assignments.

The Boy/Hero walked back to his place to wait for another computer, silently and without fanfare. Thinking of summer. Oblivious to the boy in the blue glasses next to him who had wordlessly observed the scene. Who thanked Boy in his mind. Who has now written down this story. Who asks, "What can I do today?"

Broken

Julie picks her head up off my chest.

“What are we doing Sammy?”

Sunlight streams through the window. It’s noon.



“Hey Sammy, order up!” Raul yelled at me passing by his counter full of orders needed to be taken out. I was running behind. Was it my fault that I was just having an off day? I seemed to be having more and more of those lately. My life was a juggling act of fire torches and I seemed destined to go down in a blazing inferno. I picked up the trays of food and walked out into the dining room.

Full house that night.

As I sat in the back for a breather and tried to get the baby throw-up off my shirt, I contemplated just walking out. It would be so easy. Just taking the apron off and walking out those doors.

I walked out the doors. Up to another table.

“How are you tonight?”

A woman looked up, alone at the table.

“Just peachy. How ‘bout you bucko?”

“I’m doing just wonderful. I’m Sammy and I’ll be serving you this evening. Can I start you off with something to drink?”

“Well, let me see Sam-I-am. How ‘bout a nice glass of ‘get the heck outta my face while I try and decide what to order’? You serve that don’t you?”

“Are we expecting anyone else to join you tonight?”

“Don’t see anyone else in the booth. I guess a girl can’t just go get a nice dinner by herself, has to have someone to eat dinner with.”

“Excuse me a moment.”

“Be my guest.”

I walked away, thoroughly attracted.

She ordered chicken, dry, nothing on it and water to drink.

She lay down on the booth and took a nap.

She cursed me in French.

Her name was Julie. I asked her out.



Julie pours herself some of her cereal that tastes like cardboard. She sloshes milk everywhere and sweeps it back into her bowl. “I don’t want this to be cliché.”

“How can this not be cliché, Julie? We’re breaking up. That’s cliché in itself.”

“Well no, actually, if we stayed together, that would be cliché. We’re against the grain on this one.”

“No, because statistics are showing that—“

“No more statistics.”

“Why?”

“Because I hate when you start getting all those numbers out and I feel the drool start down the side—“

“I meant why are we breaking up?”

“Oh that’s an easy one. We just don’t work Sammy. We’re broken. We were broken when we started.”



One of Julie’s favorite places to visit was antique stores. I think it was because she hated anything new. Julie was an old world spirit. Antique stores may have many different types of objects from different time periods, but they had the same air about them.

We went to this one store. Browsed around for a bit. Julie came up to me, holding something behind her back.

Tears were in her eyes.

“What’s wrong?”

She held out a picture in a dusty old frame. A woman stared out at me from the black-and-white photo.

“Isn’t she beautiful?”

“Sure, I guess. Who is she?”

“My mother.”

“Really?”

“Yep, she’s yours too.”

“What? No she’s not.”

“She’s everyone’s mother. Everyone who didn’t have one.”

“I had one.”

“Fine, she’ll just be mine then.”



I’m sitting on the bed, watching Julie dress. She always starts from the top and works her way to the bottom. It’s some kind of good luck thing she picked up from one of her crazy religions. She walks over to me.

Kisses me on the forehead.

Turns and walks towards the door, opens it.

Turns back around to look at me.

“I don’t like fixing things Sammy.”

“You’ll get fixed though.”

“You think?”

“Yep. Some blonde bimbo will come right along after me and swoop you up.”

“I just want you to stay.”

“You want to stay like this?”

“If it means that you stay, then yes.”

The door shuts.

©Joseph Whitaker 2010

Silence

Wind and snow blew across the almost empty streets of a slumbering New York City. Mikey crammed his fingers under his armpits as he sat against the cold bricks of the building behind him; his parents huddled a few feet away. They still had not forgiven him. But why should they? He had not even forgiven himself. He had let everyone down. He deserved to suffer.

Besides the noise of the cars on the street, it was quiet. Mikey hated the quiet. It reminded him of his loss.

“Not as cold tonight.”

They just ignored him, though he knew they heard him speak. To them, he had remained a silent figure they had to put up with. It hadn’t always been that way. Mikey sometimes smiled at those memories.

Standing on the street corner, his father strumming out the melody on his guitar. Wishing that his dad’s gigs at local bars and shows had kept them out of this situation, and then Mikey wouldn’t have to do this. Heart racing as he stares at the people passing by, almost afraid to let them hear him. But he has to make them hear him! Opening his mouth, Mikey starts to feel it swelling inside of him. Suddenly, he is no longer scared. He wants it to come out, yearns for it, needs it like the food that rarely fills his stomach. The sweet words coming out of Mikey's mouth grab the music from the guitar and stick, wrapping around them like a thread, weaving a quilt that he throws around himself.

People stop.

Tears fill their eyes. The quilt is full of blue, red, orange, yellow, green, magenta, and so many other colors that ears almost can't stand it. They are warmed down deep by the beautiful quilt, hypnotized by the power of Mikey's voice. But Mikey doesn’t notice, he’s no longer there. His parents do. Going from person to person, they barely even feel the wonderful quilt. They may have… once. They desire a different blanket now. A more valuable one…

Then one chilly morning, waking up to find everything he cared about-gone. That brutal assassin, cold, slowly murdering Mikey's voice as he slept on the streets each night. Sucking the life out of his lungs with incessant hacking and coughing, setting his throat on fire. No sound coming from his lips, no matter how much he wished it so. Looking into the eyes of his parents, seeing something die. He was killing it. He was killing hope.

Mikey shivered.

Twinkling stars shimmered.

Through the alley, the wind whistled.

His voice had come back but it wasn’t the same, it had emerged with holes ripped in it, no longer as warm or colorful as it had been so long ago. A tear rolled down his cheek. No longer special, no longer whole. Now that he was broken, no one believed that he had anything worth listening to. His voice no longer instilled greedy hope in his parents, so what good did it do?

Mikey sighed.

The silence was deafening.

©Joseph Whitaker 2010