I began my walk.

I began my walk.

I was nervous. I reached my hand into my pocket to feel my wallet and my keys, but my fingers grasped nothing, basely scratching at cloth. I had bought a bus ticket a week ago for Akron, Michigan. I knew absolutely nothing about it other than I had blindly pointed to it on the bus station’s poster-sized map. I really bought the ticket because I had become disillusioned by the pace of my education: elementary bled into junior high bled into high school. I was not about to be curried off into college for a degree in something I would determine most likely by the professor that most inspired me in my first semester. So I bought a bus ticket. I took nothing with me except the clothing I was wearing and a small journal. It was my plan to somehow earn enough money to afford a bus ticket back home; I hoped for anything that would force me to interact with those I had never known and those I would never know again.
I really just wanted a coming-of-age experience, something outside of a controlled environment. I had been raised in one since birth. I was born on an island: Manhattan, and like so many other young children I was wisked away to the suburbs on the prospect of a top-rate, public education. I learned my letters, my numbers, how to read. I even got a gold star some of the time. After some time I learned how to right a good ole five-paragraph essay, thesis in hand. I learned advanced math and enough science for my high school to proudly present me my diploma, but most importantly, I learned I was afraid of being swept up in the bow-shock of opportunity passing me by. My uncle has always said that preparation is the mother of luck. I wanted a trial-by-fire experience in the real world. I wanted that preparation to spawn its ecumenical rivulets. I was ready to be a citizen of the world living in a new, unknown construct.

I followed the streetlamps to the center of town and made my way to an inviting park bench in loving memory of Grace Ichabod. I thanked her as well and put my head down to rest. The world snapped shut into blackness and disappeared into dream.

It was shocking, really.

It was shocking, really. I had never expected so much. I scoured the fresh pages of my moleskine and raped away their blankness with the scratches and scrawls of terrible description. One word repeated itself: blood, blood, blood, blood. That splotch had winked at me. I was sure it had. I should’ve asked Helga if she thought so, too, but I didn’t even think of the issue until we had walked at last to Akron. It was refreshing that I had to make the last mile to Akron a walk, under my own volition. A step, and another; a dead deer. I thanked it as I walked by. The crackling street lamp. Akron in the distance; too small a city to be awake at this hour.

Hematite Man

Perfectly balanced. Not a drop of glue. Marvel at this photograph of the 5 seconds it was actually standing. 

I never saw the deer

I never saw the deer the way the driver did. If ever there was a more unfortunate meeting of flesh and steel, I had not seen it. The sudden deceleration in the bus driver’s futile attempt to prevent the collision, slid my sleeping head off the silken bloused shoulder of the woman sitting next to me. Trying to avoid my head from slamming into the upright tray table in front of me was just as futile. After the collision, though, I fared much better than the deer.
The streetlight flickered through the broken glass of the bus’s front windshield. The blood splotch near the base of window had smeared into a smiley-face that I thought had winked at me. I righted myself and helped pass back fellow passenger’s belongings that had slid beneath my feet. Unencouraged by our delay, I faced Helga beside me to find an expression of despair I might copy, but her face gleamed with glissandi in the hot night air.
Helga had introduced herself to me at the bus stop before we had left. We were both bound for Akron, Michigan. Helga was going to her sister’s second wedding. I just wanted an experience to write about. Looking down her face to the shoulder I had rested on for the past hour, I spotted a sizable drool stain inching toward her collar bone. Her matronly wisdom saw through the concern on my face in a reflection that sported a bemused and unconcerned face. Her handkerchief wiped away the excess moisture and my embarrassment along with it. Your subconscious is always more comfortable with strangers than you might expect.