The Day Before

He had just finished his last day of high school and was now walking to the park, just as he had done every day after school for the last four years. As he rounded the corner the green grass spread out like a carpet before him, and beyond was the little bench perched on the edge of the pond. His shoulders dropped and he let out a defeated sigh, he had hoped, on this very last day, but no, she wasn’t here.

He made his way across the field and then sunk down onto the splintered wooden seat. The bench was falling apart, it would need to be replaced soon he thought as he stared out across the pond. His mind wandered, he thought about her. That last time they talked they had agreed to meet here, on this bench. When he arrived at Linda Vista Park the day after that conversation the bench was empty. He told himself he was just early, he waited. Then he told himself she was just running late, he waited. Then he started to worry that something might have happened to her. Eventually, as dusk fell, he gave up and went home. That was four years ago.

He didn’t know why he was so infatuated with her, he didn’t even know what she looked like, but from the moment he had heard her voice all those years ago he had known there was something there. He never told anyone else, how could he? They’d think he was crazy! He had only talked to her on the phone a few times, but he had felt it, there was a connection. She was his soulmate; he could see their future together! That’s why he kept going back to the park day after day, for four years; he just knew someday she would show up.

When she wasn’t there that first day he started trying to call her as well, she had given him her phone number, but the calls never connected. Then one day he dialed the number and it actually rang! A man answered, but he said he did not have any kids. The man explained he had just gotten this phone number when he moved into this new house with his new wife. That was the last time he ever tried to call, figuring the number was written down incorrectly. He was sure she didn’t have his number either; every time they had talked it was because she had misdialed when trying to call someone else, dialing his number was always a mistake. That’s why he was so sure they were connected; she’d accidentally called him four times! It couldn’t have been a coincidence!

So today was his very last day at the bench, tomorrow he would graduate from high school and then he would report to the Oakland Army Base for deployment, he had been called to the war on the other side of the world. He wondered if he would ever be back here again.

Young Love

Amy was trying to call her dad, to let him know she had made it safely home from school, just as she did every day, but she must have dialed the wrong number because an unfamiliar voice answered. “Oh sorry, wrong number” she blurted out before hanging up the phone. She dialed again, relieved to hear her Dad on the other end this time.

It happened again a few weeks later, that same unfamiliar voice, “sorry” she exclaimed and quickly hung up. She must be more careful dialing, she thought, feeling embarrassed. 

When it happened the third time, she was mortified, again hastily uttering an apology, but before she could end the call she heard that strange voice, “wait”.

Slowly she brought the phone back up to her ear “yeah?”

“Who are you?” his voice sounded young, she guessed he was probably about her age. They talked for a while, about school and hobbies, likes and dislikes. His name was August and he was only a year older than her, which meant he had already started at the high school she would attend next year. She felt like she could talk to him forever, but her Dad would worry if he didn’t hear from her soon. Before she hung up she gave August her phone number, he promised he would call her back in five minutes. She waited all afternoon, but the phone never rang.

It was a week before Amy heard his voice again, when she managed once more to dial the wrong number. She wanted to be mad, but August apologized profusely, he said he had tried to call her every day, but the call never connected, perhaps he'd gotten the number wrong? “Well, how about I call you back this time then?” she asked.

“Yeah, only, can we talk for a bit first, I know you have to call your Dad, but I missed the sound of your voice” 

Of course she agreed, she'd also missed talking to him. It felt like they had only been on the phone ten minutes when she heard the front door open.

“Oh no, my Dad just got home, I have to go.” She was panicked; she was going to be in so much trouble.

“Wait, can we meet, tomorrow after school, the bench by the pond in Linda Vista Park?”

“Okay, sure” she agreed as she hurriedly hung up the phone.

She was nervous as she walked to the park the next day, a million “what ifs” in her head. When she rounded the corner she was disappointed to see the bench was empty. She must have beaten him there. She waited for nearly an hour before she gave up, deciding that he had probably seen her from afar and wasn’t interested after all. As she stood to leave she noticed a weathered plaque, “In memory of August Miller, who came here every day after school. 01/10/1956 – 06/10/1974”. Slowly she sat back down, confused, 1974 was 20 years ago.

The Straight and Narrow

She was unhappy. She tried to tell her parents, suggested taking a year off, but the answer was no, so off to college she went. She was unhappy, but she met a boy, fell in love, made it through to graduation. She did what was expected, walked that well defined path to job, house, marriage, she became they, and though they were in love, they were also unhappy. They thought it may be where they were living, it was boring, nothing fun ever happened, if they moved, they thought, then they would be happy. So they sold the house, relocated, moved to an island in the Bay. They settled into their new life, and found that still they were unhappy.

They did make friends though, which was something they hadn’t had since college, so that was nice. Their new friends lived on a boat, which was intriguing. People live on boats, they had never considered it. How does that even work, and what is it like, they wondered, so they Googled it. Their search brought up something even more interesting, not only do people live on their boats, people sail them, not just around San Francisco Bay, but around the world, thousands of people, normal people, traveling the world's seas in their little sailboats. They were fascinated.

So they learned to sail, every weekend on the Bay, with the wind and the waves, first in their friend’s boat, and then in their own. It wasn’t always easy, but it was fun. They were no longer unhappy, now they had a goal.

It took ten years to finally break free from the moorings of their life, to cast off the lines and sail away from that straight and narrow path of expectation, into a dream they had chosen for themselves. It was a Tuesday afternoon, a perfect early fall day, the winds were fresh and the horizon was calling as they left the Bay under the Golden Gate, venturing away from that clearly defined path, into the bushes and weeds, creating their own way. They were finally happy.

Signs of Life

Winters in Colorado were drastically different from the ones I grew up with. In California the winter rains bring life as the summer yellow hills are transformed into a velvet green carpet rolling to the horizon. In Colorado, though, winter is the season of death. Relentless, icy winds whip down the snowy Rockies scrubbing the plains clean of any life, leaving bare trees standing starkly like twigs in brittle straw colored fields. Days like these drive everyone indoors, where I wished I could’ve been too, under blankets on the futon in my little apartment, but I had responsibilities that required I venture out into the frigid cold.

Willowbrooke Stables was on the very edge of town, where the buildings gave way to the plains. Everything was quite as I pulled up that long dirt road to the stables; it felt like I was the only person in the world. I parked my car and made my way to the large metal barn door, fighting the wind (which would often gust up to 70 miles an hour!). The frozen metal door creaked and protested until I was finally able to slide it open enough to slip through. It was like another world on the other side of that giant door, and the signs of life beyond the desolate, windswept stable yard hit me with full force, the warm smell of horses, munching on their hay, cozy in their stalls.

I managed to slide the door closed behind me, and made my way down the barn isle to my horse’s stall. Whim was standing in the far corner, blinking her big brown eyes at me as I approached, spoiled horse looking for her daily carrot. I groomed her, rode her, and then put her back in her stall with a flake of alfalfa for dinner, just as I did every day. It was important in the winter, when the horses were all trapped indoors like this instead of out in the pasture, to make sure they got plenty of exercise. That’s why, despite the cold, and the wind (and sometimes snow), I made this daily pilgrimage out to the barn. It wasn’t always fun, but it had to be done.

After finishing up the last of my barn chores I ventured back out to my car, fighting that freezing wind the whole way. I grabbed my car door handle, locked. Checked my pockets, empty! That’s when I noticed the glinting from the steering column, my keys, still sitting in the ignition. Crap. As I called AAA for the fourth time this month I thought, perhaps I should keep a spare key in my tack box. Huddled in the doorway of the barn for warmth, I waited patiently for the locksmith to arrive. Finally a lone car came up the empty highway, I watched it turn onto the dirt drive and saw a familiar face. Oh great, it was the same guy who had rescued me the last three times, just my luck.

Footprints in the Sand

We all piled in the bed of the old rusty green ranch pickup, 15 girls between eight and 12 years old off on an adventure. There were 15 more of us in the beat up old Econoline van, all headed out for the big weekend trip to Susanville. It was the biggest town close to the summer camp, Wood-N-Peg ranch and we did the trip every year. Normally we would take both camp vans, but this morning one of them wouldn’t start, which is why half of the campers, including me, were going to ride in the bed of the camp pickup instead.

It was an hour drive along dusty roads snaking through the north eastern California desert. The counselors had given us a blue tarp and told us we would all need to hide under it if we saw another vehicle coming,. Luckily there were not many cars on these quite country roads and we spent most of the trip giggling and yelling over the wind, hair blowing every which way. As we started to pull into town on of the counselors opened the cab window and yelled at us to hide under the tarp until the truck stopped. When we finally arrived we unceremoniously threw the tarp off, we had made it to Susanville.

After wandering the museum, looking at shiny black arrowheads and smooth Indian grinding stones we walked three blocks and the 5 & dime store. My camp friend, Erin, and I wandered the aisles. She got fireball candies, but I was more into chocolate, and as I was perusing my options I realized Erin had wandered off. I found her two aisles over, looking at a stack of acrylic signs, nice little pictures with poems written on them. She showed me the one she was holding, a picture of the beach, and a set of foot prints “read it” she urged as she shoved it in my hands. It was some religious poem, I thought the sentiment was kind of nice but I didn’t really understand it, the only religion I knew was the once a year Christmas Eve candlelight service. Still it seemed rather important to her and she kept asking me if I liked it.

There was only a week left of camp after the trip, and eventually it was the last day. This would be my final year, since I was aging out, and I would probably never see Erin again. We had been camp friends since we both started attending when we were 8. As I went into my camp tent for the last time I saw Erin’s bunk was already all packed up, she was gone. I sat on my bunk and wondered if I would ever see her again. It was then I saw the little package on the pillow, I unwrapped it and saw it was that poem from the 5 & dime, with a note from Erin that read “I’ll never forget the summers spent with you”.

The Hidden Message

The moon cast shadows of the trees on the ground outside MaryAnn’s bedroom window, they looked like barcodes, if I scanned them, she wondered, what would they ring up as? Shit, I’ve been in retail too long, apparently tree shadows look like barcodes now, I have to get out of this fucking job!

The phone rang and she jumped. She’d been daydreaming again. “Thank you for calling Mervyn’s Department Store, this is MaryAnn, how can I help you?” The person on the other end started yelling something about shoes, the black ones this customer had purchased turned out to be blue when they got them home, somehow this was MaryAnn’s fault. She waited for them to finish, holding the phone away from her ear until the diatribe was done, then she apologized, offered to exchange them for the correct color, and of course a five dollar gift card for the inconvenience, that seemed to appease them, thank goodness. Sometimes the yelling can go on forever.

Break time. MaryAnn sat in the dingy little white florescent bulb lit box in the center of the store that served as the employee lunch room. Some daytime soap opera was playing on the ancient CRT TV in the corner of the room, but she wasn’t paying attention, she was idly flipping through the apps on her phone. She clicked open the map and zoomed out to view the entire United States, placed her thumb in a random spot, and zoomed in. Chadron, Nebraska. She looked up at the foam tiles on the ceiling of the little box. I could run away.

It wasn’t that she didn’t love her husband or her family. Of course she did, but they were part of the problem, contributing factors to her captivity, pieces of a puzzle that she no longer fit in, keeping her trapped in this life she hated. She felt she had no choice; she had to leave them or be stuck here forever.

Chadron, Nebraska, she had done some research. It was a town of 5,000 in the middle of nowhere, no bigger than her high school had been. They wouldn’t ever think to look for her there. She could disappear; she could have the life she wanted instead of the one everyone told her she was supposed to live. She imagined herself a waitress in a diner in this (hopefully) adorable little town with regular customers who loved her, and plenty of free time for her photography and writing and hiking and all those little things she loved to do but was always too busy or exhausted for.

She lay in bed listening to the raindrops as they whispered at her window, secret things only she could hear. She thought of her suitcase, already packed and sitting in the trunk of her car. Tomorrow. She looked at her sleeping husbands face, he seemed so peaceful, so content, would he ever be again? She rolled over, closed her eyes, and sobbed herself to sleep.

The Abandoned Chore

It wasn’t my fault really, or at least that is what I keep trying to tell myself. How was I supposed to know that this would happen? It was just an ordinary house plant I had gotten from the garden section of Home Depot to spruce up my college apartment. If nothing else it should have died a long time ago from neglect, but somehow, instead…

It all started when my roommate, Brian, moved out. Well, dropped out was the better word. If Brian had stayed, then someone would have been in the apartment, would have watered the plant, and maybe could have prevented all of this. Yes, it was technically my apartment too, but I was in the throes of new love, spending every waking (and sleeping) minute with her at her place. It didn’t matter that I had a place of my own that I (okay my parents) were paying for. So yeah, it had been a few months since I had actually been back to my apartment. I know, that sounds horrible doesn’t it, but there was nothing there other than some clothes I never wore and the afore mentioned houseplant.

After a few months of literally never stepping foot in my place I began to feel guilty. Like I said, my parents were paying my rent, maybe I should actually, like, spend the night there every once in a while. So one day after classes I decided to swing by. As I approached my apartment all seemed normal. I put the key in the lock, swung the door open, and was relieved to find everything looked fine, except for a stale musty smell that I assumed was the result of having the place closed up for so long, but as my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I started realize something was wrong. The place was trashed, there was something deep brown in color smeared on the carpet and splattered on the walls. Slowly I entered, and there, in the living room was what looked like a pile of white sticks. On closer inspection I saw they were bones, hundreds of tiny white bones.

That is when I saw it, my house plant, dashing for the front door, carrying the pink pot over it’s, uh, well I guess its head? The next morning the first story in the paper appeared, many followed over the next few weeks, a serial killer; it didn’t take long for me to piece it together, mostly because those terracotta red splatters of blood and piles of clean white bones were present at every crime scene. I felt guilty, if only I had watered it, would this have happened? But I couldn’t very well go to the police could I? They would put me in a strait jacket for sure, or they would think I was the killer, or something. So I did the only sensible thing I could, I cleaned up the apartment, sublet it, and kept my fucking mouth shut.

The Empty Vessel

Late again. She could hear the train rushing out of the station as she ran down the steps. Fuck. The next one wasn’t for 30 minutes, she would never make it to work by 6:30 to open the store now, ugh, third time this month, she would be written up for sure. Her frustrated sigh echoed across the empty platform as she slumped into the wall to wait. Just then she felt a subtle breeze on her face, the warm air grew into a steady wind, pushing out of the subway tunnel, she looked up and saw a growing point of light in the darkness, another train was coming!

Relief washed over her as she stepped on the train and settled into a seat. As they pulled out of the station, she realized she was the only one in this carriage, ugh, she hated that, some creepy person might get on at the next stop and start to harass her. She decided to move over to the next car but as she approached the door and twisted the handle she saw it was empty as well. What the hell, she thought as she quickly clicked the door shut again. She rushed to the other end of her car and saw the one on this side was empty too. “What the fuck!” she exclaimed to the empty carriage, how could she be the only one on this train, it was early, but not that early. Everyone must have gotten on the one I missed she tried to reassure herself as she sat down again. At that moment she heard a sizzling noise and looked up to see the marquee that displays the next stop blink out with a loud pop. She jumped at the startling sound, but she didn’t really begin to worry until the train sped through the next stop, just a blur of lights as they plunged back into darkness. She stood up.

As the next station advanced the train continued at its break neck pace. Again they did not slow. Nervously she approached the train operator’s call box and pressed the little red button, but there was only silence. She decided she would make her way up to the front to speak to the operator in person. As she neared the door to the next car she felt the train begin to slow. Oh thank goodness. The train pulled into the next station and stopped with a jolt. She ran out of the car and onto the safety of the platform as the doors slammed behind her and the train disappeared in a rush of wind back into the yawning tunnel. Her relief didn’t last long. She was in the right station, but something was very wrong, all around her rushed men in hats and women in A-line dresses, World War II propaganda posters lined the walls. How can this be, she thought, well at least I have like, what, 75 years to make it to work now.

The Corner Park

There is a point where you think you have outgrown the park, like going to the park is just for kids, but no, parks can be exciting for 15 year olds too, only instead of going during the day, you go in the middle of the night. Like, there is this little park around the corner from my friend Michelle’s house, which is where I smoked my first cigarette. One night, during a sleep over, we snuck out of the house at like, 3 am, and went over to that park, on the corner, just down the street from her house, and we all sat on an orange plastic slide and shared a cig that Ashley had pilfered from her older brother. We all got a little buzzed, and then we hurried back to Michelle’s house and washed our hands and sprayed ourselves with perfume so her parents wouldn’t smell the smoke.

Then there was this other night, at another a sleep over, this time at Erin’s house, where we all snuck out at like 3 am again, and went to the park that was just around the corner from her place. Sarah had swiped one of the wine coolers that her mom had in the fridge. We all sat in the sandbox and passed it around, strawberry sweetness that made me feel a bit fuzzy, and then we laid back and watched the stars, which were dancing about in the pitch black sky, making us laugh uncontrollably. The nice thing about parks at 3 am is they are empty, and shadowy, so it is easy to hide. But when the light came on at the house next to the park we decided we better hurry back to Erin’s house.

The park is also where I first kissed him, this time it was the one around the corner from my house. We were coming back from the dance, and I knew if we parked in my driveway my parents would see, so we stopped at the park first, he said he just wanted to talk, but then we kissed. I was pretty sure I was in love.

One Friday night, or I guess Saturday morning, a few months after that first kiss, I got a text message from him in the middle of the night asking to meet me at our park. It was 3 am. I sat on the swings for what seemed like forever, waiting, until the sky began to get the faintest hint of dawn, and then I went home. He didn’t respond to any of my text messages all weekend and he didn’t show up to school Monday morning. It was weeks later when they finally found him. Really I kind of blame myself. I just keep thinking if I had only told someone that we were supposed to meet in the park, and he didn’t show up, something could have been done sooner. Then maybe now I wouldn’t be going to my first funeral.

In a Tight Spot

You may be wondering how I got myself into this mess. Well if that is not one of the most overused, clichéd lines I have ever heard, I don’t know what is, and yet it keeps running through my head over and over. You see, the thing about boats is, they tend to have a lot of small, cramped spaces, and the thing about me is, I am very claustrophobic. So you would think I would avoid boats at all costs, but no, I love sailing, and as far as the claustrophobia thing, I’ve just had to figure it out. It means sleeping in the relatively roomy main cabin instead of the cramped births, and lots of breathing exercises when I have to go into small spaces to do repairs, but I manage, or I did, until I didn’t.

Today I was feeling particularly brave. I had been working to fix up my old boat, but I’d been putting off repairs on the engine because in order to access it you have to lower yourself into this rear compartment that is just big enough to fit one person. Obviously not the greatest place for someone who hates tight spaces, but like I said, today I woke up and thought fuck it, I can do it! So I lowered myself in, and I did my breathing exercises, and honestly once I actually got into the work, I stopped worrying about the tiny little compartment I was wedged into. In fact, when it started pouring rain, I didn’t even give it a second thought when I closed the hatch above me to keep dry. Yeah, that is where it all went wrong, because when I finished for the evening and went to open the hatch to let myself out, I found it had latched itself shut, and you guessed it, you can only unlatch it from the outside. Well that seems like a rather dangerous oversight from the manufacturers of this vessel, I would need to remedy that, but for now, I was stuck, trapped, WORST NIGHTMARE TIME! Cold waves of fear shivered up my spine, as I started pounding my fists on the hull, screaming for help, but it didn’t matter, it was midnight by now and it was the dead of winter, I was sure there were no other crazy people out on their boats to hear me. Then my logical mind peeped up, momentarily hushing my panic brain, of course, I had my cellphone in my pocket!

Thankfully my buddy answered, and of course she would come out and save me, but boy would I owe her. I didn’t care; I would have done anything at this point. I hung up the phone and closed my eyes, you are relaxed, in a hammock, on a tropical beach, I chanted until finally, I heard footsteps, and laughter, she thinks this is funny, what the fuck! But I was so relieved, I couldn’t help laughing too, I was saved!