Thursday, February 8, 2018

Did I promise a mail related post last week?

I lied. Here's a short story I wrote last year for a swap. The prompt was "an approximately 500 word story about winter" which was a vague and horrible prompt and I can say as much because I am the jerk who hosted the damn thing. It's gathering digital dust on my hard-drive so I may as well put it up here while it's still chilly out. 

The Architect

I sat at the college station, smoking a candy cigarette and waiting for the four fifteen bus back to the less interesting side of town. Generally in writing you list what someone is doing in order of importance, so trust me, at that particular moment, the candy cigarette was the important part. I exhaled carefully into the atmosphere, the cold making my breath into a trail of smoke, before boarding the bus.

It was a single bus with plenty of room to spare. I took the seat across from the exit and watched the sunset out the side windows as the bus slunk across town. With every departure, my legs were assaulted with a cold rush of air. I turned my collar up towards my neck and pulled my scarf over my chin. With every passing second I considered moving to a different part of the bus, but some masochistically neurotic part of me was convinced if I moved I would somehow be violating my manifest destiny of sitting in this seat and watching the sunset.

When the sun had nearly set, the lights inside the bus flickered on and the windows turned to mirrors just in time for the next group of bus people to board. I caught a glimpse of a familiar face in the reflection and smiled under my scarf. The architect. I knew it was him by the scar on his nose and the way he locked eyes with each passenger, one by one.

In a warmer month, we had spoken. He had sat next to me and commented on the chain of flowers in my hair, asking if I was on a quest to bring back transcendentalism. He wanted to know what my plans were, if I had any, where I was heading to. He informed me he had been an architect with the same level of flippant certainty that he told me I was a wanderer. At the time, it felt like an affirmation, but at this moment, it was another disappointment. Here we were, different stop on the same bus route, concrete evidence how little I had managed to wander.

He sat near the front of the bus, facing towards the back. I could tell he had noticed me, but not if he had recognized me. The same small part of me that wanted to move to a warmer seat wanted me to walk over and talk to him, but the rest of me was still adamant that it was my destiny to sit here, cold, staring at the emerging stars in the indigo sky.

I listened to him laugh and chatter with the people in neighboring seats, most of whom seemed less than amused to be making small talk, until he stood, walked towards me with a warm smile, and departed the bus. He disappeared into the poorly lit side streets before the bus had a chance to continue towards its next stop.

The wild part of me still wanted to wander, to find snowflakes to put in my hair, but as I disembarked my tired feet took the same path home as they followed every night and morning. At the moment, it was a disappointment. At the moment, I did not know how many more moments it would take to become a triumph that I lived by words I had spoken instead of ones I had been told.

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