once again unfinished...something I wrote when I started working in this cube of mine...helps an idle mind relax and not go insane

        His head was leaned paralleled to the table and tipped over so that not a soul could see his creation.  It was that intimate moment between him and the paper, a relationship built through solid moments of concentration shared between him and his crayon.  The eraser was his way of correcting his mistakes, and covering up his spontaneous moments of genius.  It was the medium that erased his originality. 

            When she was around she criticized.  She use to complain about the mess it created, of the little sheds of eraser bit that collected along the rim of his table and along the wooden floor.  But, he continued to erase, even though he erased much less than he use to.  For some reason her voice was a pervasive element.  He almost lost control with her around, and it seemed that he created because she loved it.   It seemed as though he was him because she loved it. 

            One night he was creating and fashioning under the dim of his table light.  He was faced towards his wall, looking at the pale nothingness of white.  Yet, in this white he saw color and shapes.  Then, in a quiet frenzy he scribbled and blended.  In the white nothingness of the paper aroused an image of her.  Her eyes were not equally shaped.  The left eye drooped down a bit and it was a bit rounder and larger than the right eye.  Yet, he did not forget to include the mole right of her left eye.  The mole he fell in love with, the dark spot that made her different from any other girl.  His vision of her was flawed, yet in his mind it was a perfect reflection of beauty.   In this portrait she was quiet, she was lost, and she was timeless. 

Another unfinished story.... but I will write more when I have nothing to do in my cube!

So we are inside now.  It is filled with old stained books, contributions from the neighbors and other empathetic donors.  The air is somewhat hot and it’s really moist.  I breathe in hard and I smell the old books, page 93 where tea has spilled.  I can hear the small whispers of teenage children as they breeze through the book on pregnancy.  I see the woman with thick glasses, expected, she is always here.  She looks as though she is about to fall into a state of REM, rapidly flip the white of her eyes and go into cardiac arrest.  I mean she looks old.  There is this large fake tree in the back which the kids call “the reading tree.”  I guess the interior designers decided the tree would give off the vibe of reading in a breezy park under an oak and stimulate the kids that have grown cold to words.  Ironically, whenever a kid decides to use the tree as a back rest the half dead Nazi screams, “Stay away from the prop!” 

It’s a shabby place for a library.

The air is stale and reminds me of the humidity that drove me insane. It is familiar and reminiscent of the old books grandma use to read.  She liked tea with everything, books, food, exercise, sleep.  Every summer I was shipped to Taiwan to live with my grandparents.  My grandpa didn’t truly acknowledge my presence since the time that I spent with him was also the times in which he suffered most severely from his disease.  Sometimes, I sat looking at his face counting the lines of sadness that formed.  His eyes were always closed and when he opened them they were filled with grey.  He mumbled and uttered words that only my grandma could understand.  Sometimes he would squeeze my hand and my grandma would say that the sickness is coming and it needs to pass.  I thought he wanted me by his side and he didn’t want me to ever leave. 

I use to sit next to him until the moon cast shadows across the ceiling.  I would open my grandma’s old books and pretend to read to him.  I couldn’t read a word of Chinese.  It all looked like pretty little drawings that told their own story.  I would look at each word and dream up my own story.  This one time I thought Yuan is the prettiest word I have ever seen.  I told my grandpa that a young woman was wearing a dress that always flowed against the direction of the wind.  The dress had a mind of its own and it danced and walked as the woman stayed still.  The dress was her identity.  She always wore a funny hat with that dress just to downplay it’s liveliness but not a soul noticed that hat, they saw her as the woman with the dancing dress.  I told grandpa that, if he ever met her he would understand where the word “Yuan” came from.

My grandpa with his closed eyes remained silent as if in deep sleep.  But in his silence there came noise.  A tear rolled from the side of his left eye onto the pillow cover.  He had heard me and even though his disease was eating him alive he knew I was there reading stories and creating creatures in the moon-lit darkness.

            Ten years later grandma stands on American soil as a foreigner.  She holds my hand and has let go of grandpa’s strong grip.  I walk towards S-T and look at the rows and rows of books.  I see Tol1295.1975 and it catches my eye. I slowly rub against the grains of the browned paper.  I always thought that if I read a thick book I would buy the book and show it off. Maybe I would sit it on my nightstand.  Then everyone that breezed by would think this girl reads thick books she must be smart. 

I opened “Anna Karenina,” Tolstoy’s creative treasure.  Grandma starred at the cover looking at the numerous A’s and N’s.  I wonder if she thought the “A” was a picture, a snow capped mountain.  I read the title to her, “Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy.” I only wanted one book, not five, just one that would keep me up at night. 

soon to be continued ...

            She once said to me, “Throw me in the river and let me drown.”

I did of course.  I threw her in the river but she didn’t drown.  She floated up on her back and drifted down the river smiling at the sun and blue sky.  She did not move a single inch of her body in that bath of ice.  Only her hair waved to me farewell as it swayed back and forth caressed by the ripples in the water. 

            At the end of the river’s bend, she moved an inch.  She sprang up onto the shallow end and walked herself out.  She was no longer possessed by the river’s frozen grip. 

            …She was just this type of woman.  When I met her, I thought she is really something, a “perfect mess.”  Her hair had always had a mind of its own, motioning me to approach her.  It curled at the ends in all different directions and shined with glimpses of light.  It was this dark golden brown almost like a shiny hot chocolate.

            Picture this, we were in a subway together and she was sitting one seat away from me to the left.  She barely had a t-shirt on and it was mid-January and I can say for myself it was cold as all hell.  I was wearing two scarves, two sweaters, and probably two jackets. I don’t believe in love at first sight, but she had this familiarity about her that made me think that I had been fast in love with her for years. 

            I didn’t tell you this earlier, but she was smart as hell.  I mean really smart, not book smart type of smart.  This woman had a comeback for everything you said, not necessarily a nice one but I mean she really knew how to piss people off…

Soon to be continued….

For all those who know what type of phone I use to have.... YES the Zack Morris BRICK phone =)....Guess what everyone I bought a new one...much sleeker and shinier.... =)

OLD:

http://www.urbandictionary.com/images.php?imageid=10128

NEW:

http://www.cellular.co.za/phones/lg/2005/lg-pm325.jpg

HIp HIP Hooray biatches!