3 posts tagged “creative”

            Focus…focus… focus… That’s the word that keeps pounding in my head. Focus… focus…focus … the same time this word drills my head a loud clanking momentarily disarrays the mindset and noise filled corridors block me from accomplishing that task. Focusing on getting home. I look at the clock on the wall and see that the subway to Ellis Avenue is now twenty five minutes late. People standing all around me, all wanting the same thing I do, to leave this catacomb known as the metro station. I look down the subway corridor hoping to see the subway light. My palms feel like soaking sponges filled with perspiration, and my head feels (and probably looks) like a mop bucket filled to the brim. I hate this time of day. Not the day itself, just this part of it. The part where I have to come down to this station and wait for the subway to take me home, I hate it. It’s like I feel suffocation and anxiety when I come here. I'm not afraid of the subway, I just don’t like that I have to stand here so close with these people. Oh look, there’s the subway.
    I walk towards the dock and fight my way through the sea of humanity in front of me. I walk into the subway, no seats left. I'm left standing next to people I don’t care for. Oh well, just let me get home. The subway leaves so slowly; it rocks back and forth swerving around the corners. We stop abruptly; the lights flicker a bit but no reason worry, just sweat a little more. The conductor turn on the intercom to announce:
    “Slight delay up ahead, there’s construction up on the Washington Street stop.”
    No problem, just get me home. We waited for another five minutes. First this subway was nearly thirty minutes late and now we have another slight issue; now I am getting a little restless…
Well it’s been nearly an hour now and no word from the conductor. My suit has become a sauna and I feel as though Im going to faint. I push my way through the mass to the front where the conductor is. No one was in there; I looked around the front and through the glass to locate him, I feel an eerie chill run through my whole body. The conductor is gone. I look around at the people and see their faces are gone. No one has a face. I back into a corner in sheer horror. I look at the child sitting on the bench next to me. It was stares at me. How did I not notice this earlier?
A rumbling shakes the ground and heat fills the cart. I jump up to look out the window and horror fills me. Flames are rolling down the tracks towards the cart faster and faster and faster and closer and closer and closer. I turn around to see the faceless people gone and I am the one left in the cart. I fall to my knees, with no idea of what’s going on, I put my head down and cover it. I feel the flames reach the cart and I close my eyes as tight as I could.
I open my eyes, and realize I'm still in the cart with people, people with faces. The intercom comes on:
    “Slight delay up ahead, there’s construction up on the Washington Street stop.”
    I have never come to the realization that I'm alone until today, and before today I never had come to the realization that I'm lonely .
    Focus…focus… focus… That’s the word that keeps pounding in my head. Focus… focus…Focus on getting home…alone

      Garrison West looks like a clean-cut guy. He smiles at a person with a flash of style and with a courteous wink. He has a sense of what he wants to do with his life, just without sense of how to get there. He lives with his mom, for now, until he gets on his feet.   
      “Hey mom, I’m going to work,” said Garrison West as he leaves the house. He gets into his mom’s van and drives out from his mother’s suburban neighborhood to work. West drives down the road to his place of work, where he has to wear a long sleeve buttoned up shirt to hide the tattoos that portray his story in full color. He drives there not in bitterness that he only makes minimum wage and that he has to be at work every day from nine to five, as a matter of fact, he's happy about it. Anything is better than the penitentiary. Six months out and he's never been better. Everyday, he drives to his job thirty minutes early just to show that he is a changed man and he only wants to have another chance at life. Arriving to work he pulls his sleeves down and makes sure that everything is buttoned up and that he looks nothing less than perfect.

“Hey there Charlie” shouts West to a co-worker that just got there as well.

    “Garrett you better have your running shoes on, it’s going to be a busy day. Herb is probably going to call you to the back to help cut some meat with this sale we have going on today.”
    “No problem, I think I can handle it. You think Todd has the new schedule up? I forgot to write down that I needed next Tuesday night off, I wanted to take my mom out to a nice dinner.”
    “I wouldn’t worry about it, if anything I’ll trade you hours.”
    “Thanks Charlie.” West punches in and checks the list of tasks that Todd (his boss) has left for him.
    Nothing out of the ordinary: Face shelves, stock shelves, refill paper stacks at the front counter, mop up bathrooms, and clean the backroom for inventory.
    “Inventory already? I was hoping that we would hire that one company to do it,” Sighed West.
     He started with the official rounds of “Hey there’s” and “how was your weekends” and things such as that. He slowly made his way to the back with contentment and the satisfaction of his job. However, today he’s been thinking about his future. He loves his job, but he knows there’s something else that he wants to do. He never tells anyone that his secret desire is to speak to youth in schools about his life as a gang member and how he dramatically changed his route of destiny. Maybe he’s thinking about public speaking? He always wanted to go back to school.  I mean he has been looking at a brochure for that community college down the road from his mom’s house for quite sometime now. Maybe this next fall he’ll enroll.
   “Garrett, customer service please, Garrett customer service please,” blasts the overhead.
Time to stop fantasizing and get back to work. Walking to the front he gives his usual “hello’s” and “how are ya’s” to the customers. Reaching the front he sees his old history teacher is the one who needs assistance.

“Hey Mr. Barron what do we want today?”

“Put em in plastic would you please Garrett?”

    “Not a problem. How’s the teaching going now days, I mean, since im gone?” Laughed Garrett
    “I always liked you Garrett, you always kept me on my toes! However, I’ve retired. This old man finally decided to start that garden he’s always wanted.”
    “Glad to hear…” Garrett began saying before being interrupted by a loud complaining teenager in the next check out lane.
    The young man was making a fuss over the new check out girl giving him the wrong change, small mishap, however to him this was a very big deal. West was watching as this young man was waving around his arms in the air and saw the scar on his left hand that looked like a knife wound and a red stripe tattoo on his right fore arm, the same red stripe on West’s right forearm. This kid is a part of his former gang. West excuses himself from his position and goes to the young man.
    “Hey bro, calm down ok? It was a small mishap. Let her give you the right change.” West trying his best to calm the kid down, but it was to no avail. The kid continued to rant and rave. West felt his anger starting to rise, not the typical yelling anger, no, the old anger. The anger that put him in prison before, he remembers the feeling, that feeling of breaking someone’s neck in an instant. He looked at this kid and knew he could take care of this problem without breaking a sweat. He snaps back into reality and reason.
    “Kid, I’m telling you, just calm down, your making a huge deal out of nothing. If you want to pick a fight come after five today, I get off, you come pick on me tough guy.” The kid actually listens to West’s idea and snatches the money from the clerk and walks out.
    For the first time in awhile, West felt a bit of excitement and fear. Excitement that, today when he gets off work he gets to teach a young gang banger a lesson and hopefully talk some reasoning into him. The fear that’s in him isn’t because of the other members that will be coming with the kid. It’s not that the kid scared him. What he fears is that he might go too far, he might kill again, he might have to hurt someone. But, that’s not his biggest fear; his biggest fear is that he might like it.

An old rusted 1974 Chevy truck drives over an old wooden bridge on the east side of Seiling. Snow is falling all around and the sky never seemed sadder. Bailar Memoria is driving to see his wife, Clarity. He hasn’t seen her in over a year. Ever since the separation he has been working a steady job and staying off the drugs. However, in every case, relapse does happen; this is one of those times.
 Here Bailar was, a man that once had dreams, big dreams, dreams that could fill the entire grey sky with a light from his heart. He plays the trumpet, he can sing, he can make an entire audience laugh. If there is one thing Bailar could not do, it’s keeping his mind focused. Clarity helped him with that. She met him at the House of Jazz when she was a waitress. All he had to do was give her a wink and she was captivated. They got married and had two kids.  A few years past and Clarity saw that Bailar started coming home most nights half drunk and stoned from the club he just played at. She couldn’t handle seeing the sky filled dreams and the light that came from his heart start to fade. She had to let him go.
Here Bailar is now, driving down a winding snowy road to find the one thing that he cared about the most. He never meant to hurt her. He never meant to get caught up in the mess of playing gigs at clubs. He just wanted to make his name known; he only wanted to change the way music was played. The way it was heard, the way it moved the crowd. The more he played and the more he went to the clubs, the less he heard the music, the less he heard the laughter, the less he felt his Clarity.
Here Bailar is, at the driveway of his old home. Smoke coming from the chimney and the lights are on in the kitchen; she must be cooking. Stopping just before he gets to the driveway, he gets out of the rusted old truck and stands at the driveway of his old home, his old place of hope and peace, his Clarity. Now stumbling towards the doorway to his house he hears his dog barking from the backyard. The lights come on in the living room and then the porch light comes on. Bailar brushes himself off and straightens his clothes out and makes sure that he looks nothing less than his best for Clarity. A silhouette appears at the doorway; a corner of the curtain is lifted, not enough to see in though. Bailar stumbles closer to the door with as big of a smile he could give. The door opens and Bailar begins to cry.
“Your still beautiful Claire,” Bailar says breathlessly
There a woman stood, wearing a winter coat and coveralls. Her face withered from the cold of winter and the years she lived. She looks at Bailar and tears come from her eyes.
“Bailar, why? Why do you come here? Look at you. You’re drunk. You can barely stand there. I told you to not come here.”
“I had to…I had to see you. Im lonely, I made a mistake. I…” sob Bailar falling to his knees “I can’t hear the music any more, im deaf to the world I knew before. Claire, I was doing so good, I just…today I…Claire?”
Another figure came to the door, a big figure, like that of a man.
“What’s going on?” Said the figure
“Nothing babe, just go tuck the kids in and I’ll be in there in a bit,” Claire said to the figure. “Bailar, I think you should go. There’s nothing here for you.”
Here Bailar is, broken and ashamed, crawling back to his truck and driving away from his Clarity. Leaving his former home, leaving his old life. Driving back to the life he chose over Clarity. It’s still snowing, and the sky has never looked so sad.