KEVIN STANIEC DOT COM

My bank shares the same building with the hospital. As I stand at the counter signing checks my teller announces her weekend plans with the shift manager. I much rather hide cash under my mattress than deposit funds in an account but that would require I hire security to guard my bedroom… and I have trust issues.

While vacating the premises I noticed an elder gentleman exiting his doctor’s office wearing a gray gatsby matching his tweed overcoat. He walked with a cane. I held the door open for him.

We walked together along the courtyard steps down toward the parking lot. “I don’t need the cane you know…” holding his cane at his side, walking delicately with short stride. “The old lady prefers I carry it for support, just in case you know.”

He smiled. I bid him farewell with a “good day” and continued on my way.

I asked Debbie to read a children’s book I was writing. With nervous anticipation I suggested the draft was premature and required a great deal of revising, but truth be told, I thought the story was finished, complete. I prepared weeks prior to proceed with design, illustrations and packaging…

The next day, after reading all night, she returned the copy I had given her. I started flipping through pages searching for red pen, notes or suggestion, but didn’t find a word. I looked up at her. “Did you like it?”

“Some things are better left unsaid.”

For a moment, insecurity overwhelmed my body as I assumed her statement was in reference to my manuscript… but she would eventually explain that the reader writes a different version of each page as they fill in the blanks.

I would kiss her goodnight outside her front door. Her parents had a long driveway and I could feel her watching me from their living room window as I walked to my car.

Where she lived, her house seemed closer to the clouds. I would look up at the cold night sky, the bright full moon, and pray upon the stars. I would repeat the same wish after every time we said goodbye: “Please lord find health for our friends and family. Show me a sign that Michelle and I will live together, forever and happy.”

I never saw a sign. Adolescence is admirable.

I drove the long way home. State Route 142, Carbon Canyon Road, a narrow wrapping trail tracing the cliff of mountain through tall tailored trees and abandoned, broken homes buried beneath leaves. Garrett Dutton III and his harmonica along for the ride:

“I don’t know where I want to go, but there’s one thing I know, I’ve got to be on my own. So watch me as I go, ramblin down the road, singing songs of tales untold, mystery men and the days of old.”

As I wheeled round curves, up and down hills my headlights found a deer standing still in my path. Turning the car while hitting my breaks I managed to stop before her, brown round eyes staring straight at me. I could see her breathing heavy. She hopped back up the mountain as I slowly continued down the highway.

Maybe that was a symbol for something. Maybe that was supposed to mean something.

“Ohayo” she says after I answer “Hello.” She sounds small on my phone. “I’m hungry” she whispers. We haven’t seen each other for quite some time. I almost forget what she looks like. “You should eat some food” I reply.

She starts talking with someone in her office. They laugh. I wait. Brief, brevity, levity. “Can I call you after lunch?”

My old town city Orange sounds like train and travel. Factories manufacturing vacant lots that border frames round suburban scatter, mismatching matter. Sidewalks slant slight of corner where pedestrians cross-careless empty street. Heat hits hard the concrete-walk and wall surrounding incomplete.

It was my summer star-staring, starring similar supporting roles for friend and forever. Two girls who would eventually find familiarity with seasonal weather but inevitably changed together.

Upon separating from one I met the other. She was waiting in the hotel lobby. She purchased the rising tide. I was fundamentally resigned.

The smell of cigarette smoke seeping through the fabric of my shirt, sinking into my skin. Thin lipstick sin, smearing stains along my torn collar, leaving traces of fodder. My chin with two ripping scars cutting square lines along my jaw like a map curving the coast. My foot broken from walking, wandering, an old queen of hearts hidden in the sole of my shoe, my left boot.

I am following you.

I am virga.