Short Story Found in Park!

This is the first story that will be posted here. It was written in the park yesterday and is being included because of it's length. It's short enough to post to the blog without being excessive and has some nice things in there. Well, enjoy this first one but remember it's not the last.

A Good Story

I picked my head up from the story to notice the man doing the Sudoku puzzle had got up and gone. He sat next to me with the puzzle for almost as long as it took me to read the story in the magazine. I felt cheated that I didn’t see if he solved it or not. The story was good. Better than I thought it would be. That always happened. Getting surprised by a story. It always started out like getting up for work in the morning. I had to force myself, dragging, but once I got going it was alright. I liked the surprise and I hated it too. I liked it because it was pleasantly unexpected, like getting a gift when it wasn’t your birthday or Christmas. It felt like that was the way stories should be. Something you didn’t expect but once you got, were thankful for and maybe a little fuller for having them. I hated it because it might have meant I had a poor sense of literary judgment. Like, what kind of writer couldn’t tell from the first paragraph if a story was inspired, profound and worthwhile?

I looked at my watch and realized I’d spent much longer reading that story than I had wanted. It was still early in the afternoon but if you didn’t watch out the day could slip out from under you. The sun was still bright under the shade of the trees. The shade was all over my bench like a thin blanket. The sun was poking through the leaves like the shade was a raggedy old blanket, holes and all. It was the light that made me look up from the story, the spots of light on the ground, from the sun knifing through the leaves. The story started slow but picked up later. It was about a man that was dying but didn’t want to live like he was dying, just live like he was alive. He didn’t tell his family or friends that he was dying and I think he didn’t even tell his wife. Towards the end, he walked in to his house to find his wife asleep in a chair and he stood and watched her dreaming and then felt badly for spying on her. He started thinking about his life and then realized that it wasn’t what he thought it was. He realized his life and his marriage weren’t filled with any truths or sharing, just expectations and routines. I stopped reading to think about her. I didn’t look up from the page but just looked through it. You know, to that place you can find by looking straight through anything, that holds your memories and thoughts and daydreams? That’s where I was looking and wondering about the dying man and his wife and how they didn’t have any truth or sharing. The sunlight coming through the raggedy blanket of tree shade was warm. Would she and I have truth or sharing? Did we have any now? I looked up at the trees and realized that they were planted apart just far enough that their branches met in almost perfect apexes. They were like the swords that touched high in royal weddings that the bride and groom would walk under. The sun was a little glow ball at the top of the apex, making me squint.

I noticed more and more people coming and going. Lunch breakers and stroll takers, all passing by, some men and some women. The women were young and pretty. Pretty enough to smile at or admire. Would they ever have truth or sharing? Could they give me either? Something told me that the way they strutted meant no. I smiled and looked anyway. Sometimes they would smile too, so I didn’t feel bad for looking at them. I realized that I hadn’t eaten since earlier this morning and I was ready for some food, a drink too. I thought it was funny that I hadn’t noticed that before. I’ll get something to eat with her, something to drink too. I’m meeting her soon anyway. I smiled to myself because I thought, if I hadn’t noticed how hungry or thirsty I was, or how good of a story it was going to be, than the dying man and his no truth, no sharing life must have been entertaining enough. The sun was shifting behind the buildings, taking the holes of light from the tree shade with it. It was cooler now and the late afternoon noises were creeping into the park. It was almost that time, and I didn’t want to make her wait. I got up and put the magazine with the dying, truth less man in my bag, and left.