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Alive or Dead
“…and the home, of the brave. This concludes our broadcasting for the evening.”
These were the last words of the television as the black and white images transformed from pictures to incandescent static. He lay there on the firm couch, fully dressed with a blanket over his shoulders as he stared into the screen, not moving or thinking, just watching and listening; listening to the white noise from the television and contrasting silence throughout the house.
Around him, lights from the Christmas tree gave off shadows of red and green that reflected strips of silver tinsel across the coffee table. There was no one in the house. There were no sleeping bodies in the deserted bedrooms above his head so there was no fear of waking children, relatives, or a nonexistent loving spouse. No distant family, or old college friends were visiting for the approaching holiday. He was alone. While other individuals had loved ones to share the days of fellowship and brotherly love, he had no one. This may have upset others, but to him it was just the way he preferred it.
He was not a misanthrope, but after so many years of unintended seclusion he had grown accustomed to spending his time alone. In the darkness of the house there was no fear of saying something out of place, or feeling as if he were being phony to himself and the seemingly fake people around him. When he was alone he was just himself without the fear of losing his personality in doing and being what others thought best of him. He enjoyed who he was so he enjoyed being alone, it was as simple as that.
Thinking of the comfort of being alone in a house and life that was all his own he began to lift his head from the stiff couch pillow. His neck was stiff and awkward to move. The blanket fell from his shoulders as he sat up, falling to the ground with the same muffled sound of compacted snow falling from the bare, frozen branches outside his window. He stared back at the screen, turned to his left, and looked outside into the neighborhood of last names and mailboxes. He saw the other houses with their Christmas lights of red, white, green, blue and thought of other families. The thought of how their beds and blankets allowed them to dream of pleasant days to come, protecting them from the mounds of snow and ice outside their homes, while he cherished the night and the winter reality stretched out before him. He sat, stared, and admired.
After a few moments he stood up, slowly, and taking the cover from the floor, folding it into his arms. He smiled as he turned off the television with the twist of a knob, carried the blanket under his arm, up the stairs, and into his room where he slept, and dreamed.
Black Hair, Green Eyes
It was silent as the snow fell outside the one bedroom apartment window of the women he had met less than twelve hours ago. She lay asleep as he stared at her expressionless and serene dusty brown face. He examined each detail of her profile’s flawless features while listening to her slow steady breathing in an attempt to lock this memory away inside the vault that was his mind.
Her eyelids were closed, but he knew that behind those thin black eyelashes were eyes that left him speechless when he first looked into them; green eyes with a hint of brown. When seeing her across the crowded room less than eight hours ago he knew that if he stared too long and too deep he would lose all sense of himself to their unforgiving gaze. The black silk that was her hair flowed down and stopped just below her neck. It was kept and neat, even as she slept, and rested neatly behind one ear.
In the black cascade of beauty there was one renegade strand that would not comply with the orders. It passed down the center of her face, around the left eye to mingle with the eyelashes, across the cheek, and came to rest below the ear, at the jaw line. Moving down her faultless smooth skin that covered her high cheekbones he studied the genius architecture that gave existence to the flat yet slight roundness of the cheeks that were not striving for perfection, but touched on it. The slow steady breathing that escaped her dark slightly open lips let him know that she was asleep, having no idea how beautiful she really was.
The sun is rising. I must travel with the fleeting darkness.
There is no reason for me to keep moving from one town to the other, but old habits die hard. All I carry with me now is myself and this binding of paper. All I need are a few more days to finish the retelling of their story of love and fear. Afterwards…well…we shall worry of that when the time arrives. The trees store secrets few know.
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