Twitter Fiction - My First Story (Tweet by Tweet Fiction)

There are lots of iconic first lines in the stories we tell. The kind they make you write about in school. This isn't one of those.

So here's the thing. Storytelling is bullshit.

Of course, I don't really mean that. I'm just not a fall-down-backwards-over-"the power storytelling to change your life" kind of person.

I do like way a good story can bring order to things; the way it organizes. The way is can make some sense out of life. Even if its pretend.

Truth is life is completely senseless. But if you give it a beginning, middle, and an end? Voila. The appearance of - DUMDUMDUMMM - Meaning.

Another "Truth": I could sit here and spin bullshit about "life" and and "meaning" pretty much forever. And you wouldn't know shit about me.

So we best get on with it.

It started when the rains moved in. I literally felt the winds change. And then it darkened.

I didn't quite get it then - how perfect it was. The outside reflecting the inside.  I just figured that today it was supposed to rain.

But put all that aside. The deeper meaning, I mean. And focus on the rain. Because this was one hell of a storm. And I was watching it. My face glued to the front window, all streaked with droplets of water.

The storm moved out as fast as it had moved in. But though the rain stopped, whatever bigger thing this storm had brought with it, it didn’t leave. It hung, damp, over us. And I felt it. Like a chill.

For all that talk of “resilience” and all that openness and sharing and all that therapy and all that “work” I thought I had done, it was here again. And even though I saw and felt it coming, I also knew - remembered, sadly - that there wasn’t a damned thing I could do about it.

Two small birds glided by in formation, as a soft early evening golden white hued light broke. I tracked them across the sky until they shrunk away invisible. 

It was quiet again.

My grandmother used to say, “There’s a quiet *after* the storm too, but folks don’t often talk about that one. Because that’s also when you have the most work to do, especially if you’re soaking wet and freezing cold. The quiet doesn’t last for long.”

I pulled the shades down, one by one, and then sat on the couch in the dark. 

Another thing my grandma used to say was “No matter what it is, there’s a beginning, a middle, and an end.”

I always liked that one.

But how can it be that it’s so easy to get lost; that keeping your place is tricky?, I thought. 

Am II nearing the end or only just getting started?

Maybe neither. Let’s be honest. I’m sitting alone in a room at 6:30 mindlessly bouncing between an old episode of Law and Order: SVU, a repeat of SportsCenter from earlier, and the misery of today’s breaking news on CNN.

Slim pickings. But when I’m looking to distract myself from myself, just about anything will do.

Four hours and four episodes of SVU - and a whole lot of disturbing sex crimes - later, I killed the television, pulled a knit afghan over myself and curled up on the couch. I had the kind of dull headache you get from too much TV.  I grabbed a pillow to hug.

Couldn’t sleep though. When I grabbed my phone to check the time, it was 3:20 am. Unsettled, I fell into that compulsive pattern of checking the time in increasingly shorter and shorter increments. Asymptotically approaching 4 am.

It was 4:10 AM. I got up.

I peaked outside. The sun hadn’t yet risen. But I was up for good. I’d been in the house for days feeling sorry for myself.  It was time to break out of that.

I picked up my phone. I was in hiding, but couldn’t seem to stop checking my notifications. Seven missed calls. 27 text messages. 20 WhatsApp messages. 13 Facebook notifications. At least I could see who I was hiding from. But right now I didn’t want to know. I turned it off.

“Clear your head and get out in the fresh air.” “Being in nature is what you should do.” “Get some exercise. Go for a walk. You’d be amazed what it does for your mental health.”

I headed down to the garage and hopped in the car.

The Dunkin’ drive through at the Colonia rest area on the Parkway supplied the caffeine and sugar I needed for the trip. Whatever remained of a large, somewhat watery iced coffee sat in the drink container in the center console.

Oddly, driving alone all hopped up on caffeine can take me to a pretty contemplative place.

It’d been years since the last solo late night drive to the shore. That was not a good time either. Run run run run runaway.

Sometimes you just need to turn the world off and drive fast down the Garden State Parkway with the radio up and the windows down.

A few hours later, I was parked on Ocean Blvd where I could smell the ocean and see the dark waves crashing ashore.

It had been a long time since I checked my phone. I picked it up but then placed it down again. The urge to stay disappeared was stronger than the urge to check it.

The sun was coming up, smudging  orange across the distant horizon over the ocean.

Something moved to my right. I jumped a little. But it was just an early morning jogger. The town was stirring to life. I wasn’t alone anymore.

As daylight came, and the boardwalk began to fill with an assortment of walkers, joggers, cyclists, and beach goers, I realized I was starving. Within minutes, breakfast was all I was thinking about. I stepped out of the car and walked down the block to a diner on the corner.

The stack of pancakes came with a large dollop of already melted butter on top and I applied the syrup. Hot coffee and a fresh squeezed OJ to wash it down. 

“Can you experience pleasure?” “Are you able to feel joy?”

“Why yes,I suppose I can and do.” Exhibit A: This Breakfast.

I sopped as much of the remaining syrup as I could with my final bite and then polished off the coffee. After leaving a $20 bill on the table. I stepped back outside, squinted into the bright sunshine, and turned back towards the beach.

I grabbed a seat on a park bench next to the boardwalk and took off my sneakers. I balled up my socks inside them. Three gulls swooped and dove in the distance. 

“Now take a deep cleansing breath.”

I took a slow deep breath. 

“Concentrate on your breathing.”

I couldn’t.

It was probably time to head out. walked down Ocean to where I’d left the car, opened the driver’s side door and got in. My hand instinctively reached for my phone where I’d left it in the center console. I clicked it ‘on’ and waited as the screen filled with notifications.

My motions were so rapid they appeared almost random. I triaged - calls, emails, messages, texts, social media - swiping, deleting, scanning and gathering in the last 12 hours or so of data from the world I had put away for a bit to take this ride.

After checking, I was now comfortable to continue to put that world to the side for a while longer. I held down the power button and the phone again powered down.

Sitting in the driver’s seat, looking out over the beach, I just smiled when I saw the squall move in so quickly. The sky darkened. Within a minute, the rain splattering against the windshield was absolutely torrential.

You can’t outrun the rain. 

You may gain a temporary reprieve, distract yourself for a while, take in a sunrise at the beach, and even score a pancake breakfast. 

But sooner than later, that storm that’s chasing you - that storm that’s a part of you - comes for you.

The beach and boardwalk were a blur of motion, people rushing to gather their things and running for cover in every which way. The rain beat down in huge cold droplets.

Though I have no memory of exiting the car, I soon found myself among the throng instead of watching it. But I pulled in a different direction from the frantic crowd. I was the only person walking - slowly and calmly - towards beach.

I looked back over my right shoulder. The driver’s side door on my car was open. A faint chime was dinging. The headlights were on. So were the overhead lamps inside the car. The rain - now coming down in steady sheets - was beading on the leather seats.

When I got to the beach, I pulled off my shoes and balled my socks into each shoe. The sand was cold against my bare feet. I trudged on towards the horizon where the ocean and sand met, the waves reaching soaring heights just a few feet away from me.

By this point the rain has soaked through my remaining clothes. The beach was empty. I waded into the ocean -ankle deep, then knee, then thigh. It was so cold that I could barely feel my toes. I looked up, eyes and mouth open to the pelting streaks of rain. Then I dove downward.

I was swimming - or rather, flopping around in a swirl of crashing water and sand and tiny shells, taking on salt water in gulps, trying to figure out what was down and what was up. 

Well. Here I was. “Doing something out  in nature.”

Next thing I remembered was the taste of salt water in my mouth. I was facedown on the beach, a washed ashore bedraggled castaway groggily coming to on the beach. 

But I wasn’t exploring some strange new land. I was right back where I had started.

I sighed as I pushed myself to my feet and started walking back towards the car. 

What was I was even doing with all this? I mean, I think I knew. I was pulling myself outside to push myself to try to feel something.

But with this New Jersey styled walkabout? This Polar Bear plunge / baptism in the rain “adventure”?

It now seemed kind of pointless.

I’d gotten myself out in the world, but I was still absolutely alone. Still inside my own head. 

I toweled off at the car and closed the door.

I sat in the front seat for a long time, staring straight ahead, waiting on myself. 

I didn’t know what was next. The truth was there wasn’t any good reason to go back. But I also didn’t know where going forward meant I was supposed to be going.

It is at this point that it becomes important to provide some context about this time in my life.

I don’t know exactly why that storm triggered such a visceral reaction in me or where I got that urge to drive away and to the ocean. But it wasn’t the first time that storm had visited me, and though this wasn’t something I spoke of to anymore, it was now coming more frequently.

In one version of this story, after I watched the storm appear, I ran and stood outside in its eye, raised my arms and head to the sky, and just let the rains engulf me. Until it stopped.

In another,I drove towards the ocean, but ended up spinning out on the Parkway, careening towards the divider before coming to a full stop. Shaken up and alone on the road, I pulled onto the shoulder and sat there for God knows how long, heart beating out my chest.

About a month ago, a bolt of lightning took down one of the trees in our backyard. It was so dark out that I only heard it snap and then groan. When it hit the house, the window pane I had my nose pressed up against burst into a million pieces. I couldn’t stop shaking.

Last week, I was walking up the front steps to my house when everything went black. I couldn’t have been more than a few steps from the front door, but I couldn’t see it. I felt disoriented. As if I was floating suspended in the middle of the dark sky. I waited for the rain.

I made it inside. Minutes later the lights throughout the house dimmed but held. The rain came so fast and so hard that within minutes the back staircase from our upper yard to the patio became a rushing waterfall. The water rose. And then came pouring into the living room.

Is there a return after the breaking?

I used to think that there was. I mean, obviously. Just as there are downs, there are ups. Ups and downs. People say that. 

But now I’m wholly unsure. Everything feels different. And the storms keep visiting me.

Begin the Beguine - Epilogue

"Ella begins to cry.  She knows that she is alone. 
 He's not there.  And he never was."

Cole sits back and lifts his pen.

We may not start stories at the beginning, he thinks, but neither is the ending the end.

After that, he now knows, we begin again.

"Ella walks through Washington Square Park and onto W. 3rd Street.  She's alone, but the city is before her. Her camera is slung over her back, and the sun is shining."

The End.

The Beguining of the End

It's 4:30 AM. Early. Lost in thought, Cole travels the familiar path from his apartment to Ella's building. He is standing on the sidewalk, looking at her building. Three months, he thinks. It has been over three months since he had last been here. Three very hard months.

He hesitates at the base of the stairs.  Like the first time he saw her, he thinks, at Lincoln Center. He doesn't know what he is going to say. He walks up the stairs and rings the bell.

The door opens, and she's there. Ella cocks her head to the side and opens her mouth to speak but doesn't. She had woken up a few minutes ago, like she knew he was coming. This - and not his arrival - made her feel uneasy, confused. Getting over her surprise, she looks up at him and into his eyes, trying to get a read on him.

 Cole looks away. Then back at her. "Sorry to come by so early," he says. "I mean - I know - its been a while." He shoves his hands in his pockets and looks down, now unsure of himself.

She smiles sweetly and - in a familiar gesture, an Ella-ism - sweeps her hair from her eyes, "No. I - ... Just come in. It's good to see you.  Really. It's good."

She puts up water for tea. They sit on the floor next to each other, with their backs against the couch and the other three sides surrounded by last evening's black-and-white photos.

"These are really good," he says quietly.

"Thank you. Nice of you to say."

They are tentative. Slow.  It feels like they are wrapped in gauze; the space between them where there should be nothing is stuffed with a barrier layer of cotton. It's uncomfortable, but it also has a calming effect. They feel their way through.

Two cups of cold tea sit next to them on the floor.

"I miss you, Ella."

"I miss you too. But." Her last word hung out there for a few seconds that seemed like minutes.

"But?"

"But it wasn't working. Remember? You weren't happy. We weren't happy."

It was hard for Cole to remember. But he did. It was true.  He hadn't been happy. 

"I know," he said, "But..."  He reached his hand over her shoulder and rested it on the nape of her neck. Reflexively, his thumb moved up and down the length of her neck. It soothed him.

"Cole, I'm really confused." Pause. 1-2-3-4-5. "It's nice to see you, but I'm not sure why you're here."

"Yeah," he nodded, "I know. Let's just sit a while.  OK?"

Ella takes a deep breath. "Okay," she sighs.

They sit quietly. They move next to each other, so their legs touch. Its easy and familiar. She reaches over and drapes a knit afghan over both of them.  His fingers graze against the back of her neck and against the back of her head.

They sleep.

* * *

Moving from night to morning (or in this case from early morning to the waking-up part of morning) often bends time. It compresses and elongates like an accordion. You wake up mere seconds after falling asleep only to glance at the clock and find out that seven hours have passed.  Or, like today, you fall asleep at 3:45 AM, and rise at 5:50 AM, feeling restored, like you've been asleep for days.  Ella's eyes open, green and brown.  The memory of his hand on her feels like his touch. A small smile.  A big stretch.  And she sits up.

She knows that Cole must have been watching her sleep, but she doesn't see him.

As she presses her hands against the floor to get up, she brushes against a photo.  One of hers, but one she hasn't seen before.

It's black and white, like the rest of them.  But this one is of Cole.  He is sitting on her floor, surrounded by her photos, watching her sleep.  His eyes are calm, but sad.  Because he is with her, but he is also alone.

She walks over to the record player, and brings the needle down. The sun pours through the window. Dust motes tumble in slow motion. The music begins, scratchy and haunting:

"let the love that was once a fire 
remain an ember
let it sleep like the dead desire I only remember
when they begin the beguine"

Ella begins to cry.  She knows that she is alone.
He's not there.  And he never was.

Beguine The Middle

As he glanced downward, she caught a glimpse of the dull flecks of loneliness he'd been hiding. He had such sad eyes. She started to cry....

She blinked out a first tear. Then another. She tasted the salt on her lips. Finally, she gave into it, and the waves of full-body sobs came. When the tears ran out, Ella breathed in deeply through her nose and pushed the air out in short bursts. She regained her center, sat up on the couch, and reached back to slide open the window.

The night air was cold, but it felt good. Ella suddenly got the urge to get out of the apartment. She took her camera, and hung it around her neck.

She walked outside and looked up.  Grey clouds obscured the stars, but a low-hanging near-full moon gave the night an muted glow.

It was 1:30 AM, and there was a thin layer of snow on the ground.  Ella swung the camera strap around so her Canon dangled from her back.  She shoved her hands into her pockets, sighed, and began to walk.

*      *      *

At 2 AM, Ella is standing across the street from a dimly lit crowded bar, watching the people as they shuffle in and out. The snow is coming down now, but gently. She slides the Canon off her back, leans on a parked car, and begins to shoot in black-and-white.

Though colorless, the city hums with a raw energy under her gaze.

Ella's face scrunches up in concentration.

She captures a tall black man laughing among a group of friends. Click.

A woman, wobbling unsteadily, with her girlfriends flanking either side of her, until she disappears in a yellow taxi. Click.

A middle aged man in a plaid shirt and worn jeans leaning against the wall and speaking intently to an unknown person on his phone. Click.

A young couple, oblivious to the scene, bodies close, arms wrapped up in each other, a jumble of open hands resting on each others hips and shoulders. Click.

A man in a blue blazer and khakis, standing alone smoking a cigarette. His face is obscured, but the ash glows orange inches from his lips. Click. He is looking in her direction, but appears to be disinterested, distracted.  He finishes his cigarette, flicks it to the ground, and heads back inside.

A yellow sliver of moon, poking out from a pillow of dark clouds. Click.

Ella shoots for about thirty minutes, until she realizes the tips of fingers are now freezing. She heads down the sidewalk towards home, the snow now crunching underfoot.

* * *



When Ella reaches her brownstone, a soft layer of snowflakes covers her hair.  She is cold all over.  Despite the time, she is wide awake. Inside her apartment, Ella begins to warm up. She downloads the pictures from the camera, and then prints out all of her pictures from the evening. She looks at each one, and then scatters them around her as she sits on the floor.

Ella flips onto her belly, and rests on her elbows with her legs sprawled behind her. She studies one picture at a time, taking in one face of stranger at a time. She tells herself their stories, and falls asleep just as the sunrise is marked by a bright patch of light on the hardwood floor.

Begin the Beguine

"As he glanced downward, she caught a glimpse of the dull flecks of loneliness he'd been hiding. He had such sad eyes."

This was Cole's first line.

Cole was writing a love story. His love story? Someone elses? The beginning was a love story, anyway. But he was already past that part. Now somewhere in the middle, the story would be all longing and sadness.

He hadn't yet sorted that the ending in his head. Frankly, he admitted to himself, he hadn't sorted out much. Just some pieces in broad brushstrokes. Disjointed short scenes, with lots of gaps.

* * * 

The mysterious "she" was a woman that Cole had noticed a few months ago.  He had stopped by the fountain at Lincoln Center. It was just before 7 PM.  Lincoln Center at dusk was a favorite people-watching spot of his. Cole sat with his back pressed against the outer lip of the fountain and his arms around his knees.  He was wearing a grey zip-up sweatshirt and a pair of jeans.  Couples bubbled and buzzed all around him.

Except for this one woman he had noticed. She was standing alone on the opposite side of the fountain. She was pretty in a pixie-kind of way, with short blond hair, wearing jeans and a white tee. She had Canon SLR camera on a strap around her neck, and her eyes slowly tracked the scene before her. He noticed that her eyes were different colors, one green and one brown. Cole was looking right at her as she snapped a picture of him sitting against the fountain, checked it in the viewfinder, and then looked back up at him with an amused half-smile.

Cole reached his hands to the ground and rolled forward and popped to his feet. He hadn't thought about it, but he realized he was walking over to the pixie photographer. He would later learn her name was Ella.

The summer sun began its descent and the edges of the sky were a soft burnt orange.  The crowd retreated to the air conditioning and classical music.  She was still looking at him, directly at him.  And she was standing, watching, waiting.  Her right hip was slightly shifted to the side.

Her confidence, real or imagined, was off-putting, and as Cole approached her, he realized he had no idea what he was going to say.

* * * 

Ella liked taking pictures.  Especially taking pictures of people when they weren't looking, and was particularly gifted at capturing a look, a thought, a feeling. She saw their story in her mind, she could feel its truth. 

This man that was walking towards her now had friendly open eyes. And he was looking at her.

She couldn't tell with this one, who he was. Where he came from. But she knew he was also a watcher, like her.  A story finder. She wanted to know him.

And she smiled.

* * *

It was a chilly Sunday in September, and Ella was sipping on a hot tea. They were at a coffee shop in the West Village, sitting next to each other at a small metal table outside. On a plate between them were two thick pieces of fresh baked bread and a ramiken filled with honey. Cole watched her dip the corner of a piece of bread into the honey and push a runaway strand of honey back onto the crust with her index finger. A yellow-green leaf from a nearby tree helicoptered onto their table.

They had slipped easily and comfortably into this . . . togetherness.  It felt good.

Back at her apartment that afternoon, he rubbed her naked back. 

She liked old records. Vinyl. Him too. Her turntable spun, and the music played softly.

He drew small circles on her skin with his finger, and she closed her eyes. He was gentle. He kissed her neck. He rested his head in the curve of her back.

* * *

The snow was coming down outside, and Ella was wrapped in a knit blanket on her couch. Cozy. Her Mac lay open before her with a collage of her photos on the screen.

When she came across the picture of Cole from the summer, she blew it up to fullscreen. His eyes were so bright, so engaging. She sighed. He had changed so much from that first day. He wasn't the same man. And they weren't the same either.

When they decided they would no longer see each other, he couldn't even look at her. The empty space that was now between them shocked her. And as he glanced downward, she caught a glimpse of the dull flecks of loneliness he'd been hiding. He had such sad eyes.

She started to cry.

* * *

Cole looked down at the paper:

As he glanced downward, she caught a glimpse of the dull flecks of loneliness he'd been hiding. He had such sad eyes. She started to cry.

Begin the Beguine - Prologue

We think that we start our stories at the beginning.

This isn't true.

Usually we start somewhere in the middle. It's not something we mean to do or even think about very much.

Why?

Cole wasn't sure.  For one thing, when we start, we rarely appreciate the full arc of a story, especially our own.  That, and it's hard - as a matter of writing and thinking, and even as a matter of geometry - to sketch out a story from one point to another, when the end is unknown.  This much Cole knew.  Maybe it's easier to see the end from the middle than from the beginning? Cole wondered. Maybe we forget our beginnings. Or we are in a rush to get to the end.

Of course, none of these thoughts were helping. With the blank page in front of him, his mind cycled round and round: "Where to begin? - Where to begin? - Where to begin?"

"Well," thought Cole as he sat up and straightened his back, "let's get on with it."

He picked up his pen, hesitated and then wrote: "Where to begin?"

He waited.

Another pause.  And then music.  His mind had drifted to song lyrics, to that odd REM power anthem, "Begin the Begin." Birdie in hand. Miles Standish proud. "The mythology begins the begin. . ."

Not helpful.  Cole sighed.  Not helpful at all. It wasn't even the right song.

He put the pen down.

Road Trips Home [DRAFT]

My favorite part of breakfast was the make-your-own waffle station.

The coffee was weak. The hard-boiled eggs, in a clear plastic bin, were rubbery.

The dispensers of Apple Jacks, Cheerios, and Fruit Loops didn't quite capture the imagination in the way deserving of The Most Important Meal of the Day.  Nor did the pre-cooked circles of eggs, which could be matched with similarly sized circles of sausage and placed between a toasted English Muffin. Too circular. Too prefab.

The juice dispenser was a nice touch.  There was a dazzling array of juice concoctions to be made by mixing different amounts of the apple juice, orange juice, pineapple juice and cranberry juice. I did like that.

But it was all about the waffles.  The batter slid perfectly from the inside of the circle outward, as the top of the waffle press smushed down.  If you flipped at the sound of the first beep, waited, and then popped it out at the sound of the triple-beep, you got a large brown Belgian Waffle every time.  Consistent.  Fluffy.  In the windowless room of moulded plastic chairs, with SportsCenter highlights running and re-running on the two 22 inch televisions, those waffles felt decadent. I ate them everyday for breakfast.

**--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------**

I had started off on my way home, but now I wasn't.  I'd been living alone at the Holiday Inn Express off of Exit 127 on the NY Thruway for a full week now.

This was six days longer than I'd planned.

That's not true. The truth was, I hadn't really planned anything.  One week ago, after the last of my finals, I got in my car and drove.

I wasn't alone. Not really.  He was with me.  Whispering in my ear from the back seat.  He told me not to go home.

**--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------**

After a week at the hotel, the days begin to bleed together.  I fall into a routine.

[TO BE CONTINUED]

Centerfold

June, 1986:

She was wearing a yellow rainslicker. It wasn't raining. Perhaps it had just stopped. Red lipstick, red boots. Nothing else. Nothing. Big brown eyes, and hair in brown ringlets. Among her likes were "rollerskating in the rain." Seriously. And this was written without a hint of cliche.


I hid them in the woods behind the backyard.

There was an old crate, resting on leaves and branches, turned on its side. It was big enough to sit in.  A perfect clubhouse. The wood at the bottom was slightly rotted, owing to the damp soil beneath.

It was for this reason that I had to use the plastic bags. I would carefully wrap each magazine in its own clear plastic Ziploc bag, like a giant version of the clear sleeves we used to preserve baseball cards.  The ones that had to be kept in mint condition, the McGwire Olympic Team card, the Ripken and DiMaggio rookie cards, and my collection of Don Mattingly cards, valuable not because they were rookies, but because it was Donnie Baseball.

They were all Playboys. That's the only of this sort of magazine I knew existed, because that's the only one my Dad had.

His hiding spot - buried in the middle of a stack of Popular Science, National Geographic, and Scientific American that rested on the back of his toilet- was elegantly brilliant, albeit flawed. Hidden in plain sight sure seemed smart. But in the end, a good part of his collection had been smuggled out, wrapped in plastic, and tucked underneath my wooden crate of a hideout in the woods.

Outro To Alone

It seemed important to remember.  But when was it?
I know it was at the end of July.
When exactly?
Then, I was thinking of my daughter's birthday.  July 27th.  Christ.

"What did we do to celebrate her birthday last year?"

"Don't you remember?  She was away at camp. Why are you asking that?"

"noreason."

I did it.  I tried.
It was the day before she went to sleepaway camp to play in the sunshine.
Less than a week before her 9th birthday.

Lost Dreams: Chapter 10 (Merrily Merrily Merrily, But a Dream)

That night, Caleb had the most fantastic dream.

They were all together.  At a beach, salt in the air, and the waves crashing in.  He felt the cool damp sand between his toes. It was a windy day, and Amanda and he were taking turns tearing down the beach, with a rainbow colored box kite trailing behind. His parents were a few steps behind, holding hands.  The sun was setting, and the sky was on fire with pinks and oranges. Caleb looked back, and they both smiled at him.

Amanda was now ahead of him, the kite behind her now lifting to the air. "Caleb!  C'mon already!"

He smiled, and then turned and ran to catch her, his legs pumping in the sand, the sun warming his face.

And he held on with all his might, hoping - no praying - that he would never wake up.

Lost Dreams: Chapter 9 (Cold Hard Reality)

Caleb took the steps, two at a time, and ran into the kitchen.  Bernard sat at the kitchen table, the paper folded in front of him. He was still in his bathrobe, his hair mussed, and in dire need of a shave.  He looked up: "G'morning kiddo."

"Hey Dad," said Caleb, still uncertain, looking around.

"Dad. Where is Mom?"

Bernard sighed.  "C'mon. Again Cay?"  "I don't know where she is; you know she's moved around so much since she left us.  I haven't heard from her in a long time.  You know that."

"I miss her Dad."

"Me too, Cay.  But we're doing okay, aren't we?  Cook you some eggs?"

He realized.  He remembered what he had buried and shoved away.  His Mom had left; left Bernard and left him. And Amanda. She had told him, it wasn't him - it was that she and dad had fallen out of love. Those words were hanging out there in front of him, but he couldn't process them.  She kissed him on the forehead.  She was sobbing.  He was numb.

"OK. Yeah. Eggs sound good Dad."

Amanda. She was gone too. But not in his dream. For real.

He closed his eyes, to try and seal in the tears. His eyes were wet. She had run into the street to wave goodbye as he drove away.  He was going to see some movie, and he was sitting in the backseat of the car, turned around and waved - "she's such a goofball." From the other direction, the speeding car, swerving around the corner and onto his block. It was all in slow motion. The dull thud of her body against it.  The screech of brakes. The blood. Her blood. He ran from the car, and he was kneeling before her, as the light went out of her eyes. Caleb heard himself screaming.

And then he blanked out.

"Caleb?  Caleb?  Eggs are up," said Bernard, pushing the plate over to his son.

Caleb was staring off, frozen by his memories.

Bernard reached over and took Caleb's face in his hands, and then wrapped his arms around him. "Its alright." Caleb's body loosened, giving in to the hug. He began sobbing, his body shaking.

"Caleb.  It's going to be OK."

At that moment Caleb felt very alone. He looked at his father's kind eyes. He looked so tired.  Caleb squeezed his father, tightly. "I know, Dad.  I know it will be."

Lost Dreams: Chapter 8 (Where's Reality?)

Caleb's eyes snapped open. He was in his bed, with the early morning sun shining through the window and into his eyes. He rolled over, with a groggy and confused, and then gathered himself and rose. He didn't remember going to sleep. How am I waking up, when I wasn't sleeping?

The memory of his father slapping him across the face was fresh. His hand reached up to his cheek. Had it even happened? The song from his childhood lazily drifted into his head, his mother's quiet voice: "Merrily merrily merilly merilly. Life is but a dream."

He sat up.  His father *had* slapped him. And then Caleb had told him everything. They had come up with a plan. He promise to delve into himself to find his mother and his sister, and his father had proudly smiled. It would work. When he met them in his dream, as he surely would, he would grab them and pull them back.

Wasn't that right? What had happened? His head was woozy. Everything seemed melted together.

He would have to check the notepad. 

Caleb had began to record every dream he had. He would wake in the middle of the night, grab the spiral notepad from his bedside, write, and then fall back into deep sleep.

He looked to his nightstand and grabbed his notepad. His hands were shaking as he opened to the last page, to read his own words:

"5.18.2014: Dreams:

1. 2:24 AM: I swallow them up in separate dreams, first Mom and then Amanda. I tell Dad. Then, he hits me, and I fall to the ground.

2. 4:50 AM: Standing before Dad in a strange room, reporting that I had failed to find them. I had searched my dreams. But nothing."

Caleb put the notepad down.

All a dream, he allowed himself to think. He imagined walking downstairs, finding his mom cooking breakfast in the kitchen, Amanda setting at the table, and his dad reading the Sunday paper.  He took a deep breath. All a dream? For the first time in a long time, Caleb smiled.

Lost Dreams: Chapter 7 (Amanda)

That Amanda had vanished into his dream sent Caleb into a free-falling panic, as if he had fallen into a narrow deep well.  He placed his hands along the damp cement sides.

Standing in the empty street draped in darkness, even the moon and stars had abandoned him.

He walked - forcing one foot in front the the other - onto the front steps.

The door yanked open. His father's eyes wide and crazed.

"Caleb! Jesus, where did you two go? It's past midnight!" Bernard grabbed his shoulders and squeezed.  "Good lord, don't do that to me."

He hung his head, and waited. "Dad -- ."

Bernard looked at him, and then past him, to the empty front porch. His eyes shifted back to Caleb. He met his father's gaze.

"Where is she?" he said quietly.

Caleb shrugged. "I don't know. She's with mom, I think."

His father's open hand cracked against his cheek, and Caleb's face jerked sidewards. Heat spread across his cheek. Caleb looked up at his farther.

"Don't you ever say that. Ever."

Lost Dreams: Chapter 6 (Secrets and Holes)

He couldn't bring himself to tell his dad or sister that it was all his fault. But was it really?  Yes.

Caleb stayed in bed as long as he could, clenching his pillow with tight fists, wishing it all away. He heard the low rumble of his Dad's voice on the phone in the kitchen downstairs. He was waiting to hear her voice.  Caleb rolled out of bed.  He slowly walked past Amanda's room, where she was still sleeping ("such a good little sleeper," his mom used to say), and then padded down the steps in his slippers. He stood quietly as Bernard called his aunt and his grandmother, and later on the police.

"She was lying next to me when I fell asleep last night, and when I woke up she was gone."

There really wasn't much more to say. There was no sign of a break-in. No note, no explanation. No bag had been packed taken. Her purse and phone were left sitting on the kitchen counter.  Nothing was out of place or missing. Except her.

"Dad? Is she coming back?"

-- (He didn't know, so he said nothing)

"Dad?"

"Yes, Caleb," he said, looking at me. His blue eyes were a dull pale. He only seemed half there.

"Dad, what do we do now?"

-- (He didn't know.)

There wasn't anything to do.

The weeks passed, and nothing. Bernard was broken. He rarely spoke. Life kept on, but with the color drained out of it, a gaping hole where his mother had been.

Lost Dreams: Chapter 5 (Searching)

He looked for her.  All the time.  A thousand times a day.

When he was awake and when he was dreaming. For Caleb, it became hard to tell which was which.

Walking home from school, she would walk by him, airily chatting with another mom on the sidewalk across the street. Over and over again he would recognize her voice, or her smell, or her clothes, or her brown hair. But when he crossed the street, when he looked up, when he turned his head, it wasn't her.

And at night. Now every night, he would dream. He would be running in a field, or at school, or on the backyard deck. But in his dreams, always, he was alone.

She was just gone.

Lost Dreams: Chapter 4 (Dreaming For The First Time)

The first time it had happened was when he was ten years old.  Six years ago, but he remembered it so clearly.

Odd thing about memory, Caleb thought. Some things are imprinted there, and others fade away right after they happen. Like this. That day he had the first dream that he could recall. I must have had dreams before that, he thought. But he couldn't be sure.

He was in his room. His old room.

Caleb's parents had divorced, and Caleb lived with his mother. Bedtime was their special time together.

His mother sat on the edge of his bed, her fingers sweeping through his hair. She was speaking to him softly. He remembered feeling warm and safe. And loved. He smiled and rolled over, pulled the covers into a tight cocoon around him and then wriggled around to find that perfect position. He took a big deep breath and yawned wide.

Young Caleb's eyes closed. He was already drifting off. She was still speaking softly to him, something about sweetness and dreams. Until silence. Sleep.

Caleb saw himself sitting in the kitchen, like he was watching himself on television. He watched himself get up from the table and open the refrigerator door. He took out the carton of orange juice, poured himself a glass, and took a sip. 

His mother was on the phone. The phone was on the wall of the kitchen right next to the dining room, and cord stretched from there into the dining room, where she sat talking. He was unsure how he knew, but he knew it was a very important call and she was not to be interrupted.

He shuffled across the kitchen floor, juice in hand, and peered into the dining room. She was sitting at the dining room table, her back to the sliding door. To his horror, he saw a red figure approach the door and begin to slide it open. Not so much a person as an energy source, and growing larger - the deep red glow spreading and spreading.

He screamed to warn her. But no sound came out. The glass dropped and shattered silently, the shards exploding outward in a circle like a ripple on a pond. And then the color drained from the room, sliding away, replaced by gray.

Caleb knew he was dreaming. That he was watching his own nightmare. He felt his breath quicken.

He watched himself run into the dining room to warn her. But he still could not make a sound. His mother looked at him and smiled. She lifted a her index finger - "one more minute, honey."

And then it was upon her and surrounding her.  Her eyes filled with fear, and she disappeared into the red, like she was riding the sunset down over the horizon. 

Caleb's eyes snapped open. 

He was disoriented, but looked around and remembered he was in his bedroom. He was shaking as he slid out of bed and walked to the door.  He was afraid to go upstairs. He took the steps slowly and walked in, looking for his sleeping mother in her bed. The clock read 4:30 AM. The bedsheets were wrinkled. She wasn't there. Not a trace. He somehow knew; he knew she was gone.

His dream was the last time he had seen his mother.

Lost Dreams: Chapter 3 (Into Dreams)

Caleb thought back to that day. It was exactly three weeks ago.

He was sprawled on the lounge chair on the back deck, all arms and legs, his left leg dangling carelessly off the side of the chair. A glass of ice water rested a few inches from his toes. He looked up at the midday sky, the sun obscured at that moment by a single large cloud. He debated getting up, but didn't.

His younger sister, Amanda, sat on the floor of the deck with her feet crossed and her back pressed against the house.

Caleb and Amanda were two years apart. Both were wispy thin with sandy stick-straight hair. Everyone had always said they were "joined at the hip." And they were right. The two were rarely apart. Unlike most 16 and 14 year old siblings, they shared an unspoken easyness of being together.

She was sitting a few feet away from Caleb, aimlessly twirling a tulip she had just picked in her hand. The orange petals were descending and starting to brown at the edges, and they were fluttering off one by one in the small windstorm Amanda was creating.

It was a picture of suburban pastoral, and, at the same time, of teenage boredom. Depending on how you looked at it.

Anna finally tossed the flower stem and popped to her feet. "C'mon Cay. Let's do something."

But Caleb's eyelids had dropped halfway over his eyes, and then closed. He heard her voice, but it was far away, tinny and distorted. And getting fainter and fainter, like turning down the volume on the car stereo. Until silence, sleep.

He knew he was asleep, but at the same time saw a boy walking down his street. The boy in the dream was much younger than he was, maybe 10 years old. But he recognized him. He was looking at himself.

It was night, and the street was empty. No moon, but the light from the streetlamps formed dull pools of light. A small girl, a younger Amanda, was skipping just a few steps behind him. She was holding a neon orange flower in her small hand.

An odd chill passed through him. He somehow knew that he was watching a dream. His dream. He felt a panic stir in his stomach. This had happened once before. He kept watching.

He heard a horrible gnashing sound and saw the ground sway under his feet. The streetlights bent towards the street. And then everything went silent and colorless, the world turned black and white.

With a violent pull, the street split wide open, chunks of it shooting in every direction. Eyes wide, he glanced behind the figure that was himself, to Amanda. She screamed. But no words came out. She looked at Dream Caleb, their eyes locked. Her chest was rising and falling.  She was breathing hard. Unable to speak, she mouthed, pleading, "Do something. Please. Cay?"

But Dream Caleb just stood there. She turned and ran soundlessly away. Caleb and his dream watched her go. Her shape smaller and smaller - "come back, tiny Amanda" - until she was a dot in the distance.

And then gone.

Caleb's eyes opened. It was much later, now night. Cloudy, and with no moon. There was a chill in the air, and he rose out of the lounge chair.

His eyes adjusted as he began to walk around the side of the house and to the street. It was empty. And the streetlamps flickered. Something on the ground caught his eye, and his eyes narrowed in recognition. He bent down to pick up the broken tulip stem.

He was alone. And he knew she was gone too.

Lost Dreams: Chapter 2 (Shame)

Caleb looked down.  His own bare feet on the hardwood floor.  Waiting.

But Bernard was silent.

Caleb felt his face flush with heat.  His head throbbed.

Caleb heard him get up out of the chair, the weight easing off the wood.  He looked up.  The hands on desk clock, a round metal face inset in lucite, read 9:05 PM.

His father was standing in front of the desk, close to him. Tears wet his eyes.  He was torn between reaching to embrace his son and losing himself completely in sadness.  They stood about three feet apart, but a great space stretched between them.

And then he was squeezing his son's shoulders.  "It's alright. She wasn't yet meant to be found, then."
He took Caleb's face in his hands, and then wrapped his arms around him.  "It's alright." He felt Caleb's body loosen and give in the hug, the point of Caleb's chin rested on his shoulder.

Caleb began sobbing. He felt his whole body heaving, a torrential release.  He couldn't stop.

"It's going to be OK.  We'll figure it out.  Tell me what happened. Caleb?"

Lost Dreams: Chapter 1 (A Failure)

The man sat in his chair, very still, like someone had hit the pause button. He'd been there for hours, and the mid-afternoon sunlight now stretched across the lower half of his face. The rest of him remained in the shadows. 

Caleb hesitated inside of the doorway for a full beat.

To say the very least, it had not been a good day. And Caleb usually wasn't a "say the very least" kind of kid.

He did not want to be here. But Caleb continued his approach to his father's office. He needed to tell him. He hadn't found her. Worse still, he couldn't look anymore.

Bernard saw the boy padding in with his head down, droopy. He shifted his weight in the chair and softly asked: "What is it Caleb?" He did not get up.

"I came to tell you," the boy began, "I just can't; I can't do it anymore."

Walkabout To Nowhere: Conclusion

"What the fuck had happened?" thinks The Man. "Why?"

Something had happened.  

Something had happened to him.  His life had changed.  And the Man could not explain it.

He re-read his journals from years ago. He looked back at the pictures. He was happy then.

But somehow the life he had constructed since - or the life that constructed him since - did not make him happy. Up early. Commuting for hours. Trudging to a job he did not like, empty and hollow. Spending all day at it. But accomplishing nothing. Always rushing to try and get home, see his children, play, be. No time. No time. No time. And all the while at home, feeling unconnected.

Wash-rinse-repeat. Wash-rinse-repeat.
Going through the motions of life, without life's emotions.

Like paper cuts on the soul.

So he had built other things; to feed himself on the beautiful parts. His passions - reading books, playing guitar, writing, music, poetry, thinking, talking and connecting with interesting friends about interesting things: technology, education, social issues, and how to change our changing world. 

But he crammed all these things into tiny spaces of time. 
It wasn't enough, and it also was too much. 
It was fine at first. Busy. Good. 
But then it wasn't. 
And then it overwhelmed, and collapsed upon itself, a black hole.

"But why? What changed? What's wrong with me?," thinks The Man.

Embarrassed and anguished, The Man would drop things one by one by one, withdraw from his friends, from the world. Alone in pain. Alone in frustration.

He stared at his life, at himself. And, like a small child resisting his vegetables, he firmly said "I don't want it." But this made him even more unhappy. Because he didn't know how to change it. And he was scared. That he couldn't change it.

When he tried to think about how to fix it, his unhappiness grew. His stress bubbled. His paralysis became more severe.

He wanted change, and he couldn't change.

* * *

"Maybe," he thought, "Maybe, I'm just not good at life."

* * *

And at the end, there were questions. 

Questions without answers. 

Literally, unanswerable questions.

Like, what do you do when you don't like who you are? 

Like, do you have to destroy your self to save you? 
And like, can you - should you - try to save yourself from the destruction? 
(And how?)