dudelundy
He gently took her hand into his and slowly led her down the stairs. The blindfold was tight, but she was afforded a small window through the bottom of the material, but that portal provided her with few clues as to her location. She could see that the steps were well-crafted, finished. She could see the clean white walls. But nothing else. Then, just as she had abandoned the investigation into her unknown surroundings, she felt her feet hit the cold of a concrete floor. She heard no movements or murmurings, but could feel the presence of a group of people surrounding her. The moment her blindfold fell, her eyes were met by the warm smile of a flaxen-haired beauty, effusing charm and sincerity. "Welcome, my disciple."
The water dripped, then it trickled, then it seeped, then it rolled, then it poured from the many meandering cracks in the dirty plaster wall. "Brace yourselves."
She reeked of apathy and arrogance, so much so that he was revolted by it. I think I'm going to be sick, he thought to himself. He could feel his stomach churn. He released a weighted sigh. "God help us all if this is representative of future generations."
The autumn leaves glistened with an opalescent glow as the twilight crept over the hillside. The wind had rustled its last leaves of the day. The squirrels had scurried to their nests, no more daylight by which to play. All was now quiet outside the cabin door. And she couldn't be happier. Life in the city had definitely affected her. Daily stampedes rife with aimless human ambitions had trampled her thoughts of simply living. It seemed so counter-intuitive. And destructive. And pitiful. But here, in the glorious solitude of the forest, she could rediscover a truth she had known once before, a long time ago, but had somehow forgotten along the way. This is where she belonged. This is where she could put down roots.
Words tumbled down over each other and fell in a pile on top of words, and words, and words, and words.
"I never gave you much to go off of. You always seemed to know the way, like perfectly planned chapters of a book you had never read before. But when i did speak, you listened. Intently. Not a sound could be heard as you weighed out your options and weeded through the many words that streamed from my subconscious, as you plotted the path and prepared your wings for flight."
All he could see was dead, decaying flesh. These lifeless corpses stumbled by him, eyes empty as a hole, no inkling of a soul, on their way without a goal. Why couldn't the cubicle walls be higher?
There were three things he missed about being a child:
1. The small patch of pines in the northwest pasture.
2. Shifting the gears in the blue truck.
3. The car rack.
Some of the sweetest memories involve seemingly insignificant things.
She was his zen garden. His hands, a rake. Her skin, the sand. His movements were slow and steady as he delicately carved out small pieces of her flesh. He removed them with the forceps and sterilized the opening with an antiseptic.
He had been tripping over the baggage of life for many years now, and all that was left was a fall from grace and a split skull. The real tragedy, however, was that he had had no control over the events of his life. He was simply his mother's son.