A short story I wrote awhile back.
The Market
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Halfway to Everywhere
Golden little motes of dust spiraled slowly through the honey-colored beam of light, like islands drifting through a vast sea of air.
Outside a frozen winter wasteland offered all the hospitality of the surface of the moon.
Cool cutting wind whipped thin mists of ice over razor edged snowdrifts hardened to a rock like consistency by the frigid temperatures.
The beam cut a large yellow rectangle into the carpet that covered the flat landing where the stairway doubled back in on itself halfway to its destination on the first or second floor, depending on your point of origin.
For some reason, that even looking back now I fail to truly grasp, I found that stair landing more peaceful and perfectly serene then any other place in the house. Not at all times mind you, during certain segments of the day I’m sure that landing saw more use then some train stations, as a horde of siblings, friends, and parents rushed back and forth between a myriad of purposes.
But at just the right instant, during the chaos that was a day in a large family, just a little after my mom had gotten everyone fed, organized and focused on the right subjects and the house had fallen into a temporary lull brought on by naps and students desperately pretending to do their homework, that landing became a sanctuary.
I’d fan out the day’s schoolwork around me on the brightly lit carpet and try and determine what was worth doing and what I could put off until later that day. Every now and then the idea of doing it quickly all at once in order to free up the day would flit noncommittally through the options.
I’d work a little, daydream a lot, and then slowly without fail, I’d succumb to the power of the sun.
There I’d lie, half a lifetime ago, drowsily basking in the radiant warmth spilling forth at an angle from a slowly rising sun.
That single shaft of sunlight shining down on my blissfully unconscious form, sprawled out in the center of a chaotic explosion of half done homework, halfway to up, halfway to down, halfway to everywhere, is the very core of one of the most perfect moments I’ve ever had.
Our view of life is as much determined by our present mindset as our view of winter is by our place of residence. I’ll be the first to admit that my outlook on life has at times been far from cheery, comparable more to living in a frozen wasteland then the glistening river of light to which this working of words is devoted.
But as cold and forsaken as life has, in darker moments, left me, when it comes to that final hour, when all through which I’ve lived is laid bare before me, I know, beyond all shadows of doubt and misgiving, that memories like that warm sunbeam on a frozen winter day, will far outshine the miseries that seem to fill the majority of any life long lived.
It’s these short-lived moments that make the worst lived of lives worth the cost of living.
It’s a simple memory really, not a whole lot to it, a landing, unwanted homework, a simple ray of light.
However, in that memory, lies all the purpose of existence.
That single thing that we rip ourselves, our life, and the very world itself, to shreds in search of.
Contentment.
No matter what I do, no matter where I go, no matter what I achieve - It will all be for one reason, for one purpose, for one goal.
To return to that moment, on a cold, cold winter day, when I had homework I didn’t want to do and sleeping that I did - sprawled out within that single honey-colored beam, underneath a million little islands, dancing in a sea of light.
Halfway to up, halfway to down, halfway to everywhere.
Content.
Outside a frozen winter wasteland offered all the hospitality of the surface of the moon.
Cool cutting wind whipped thin mists of ice over razor edged snowdrifts hardened to a rock like consistency by the frigid temperatures.
The beam cut a large yellow rectangle into the carpet that covered the flat landing where the stairway doubled back in on itself halfway to its destination on the first or second floor, depending on your point of origin.
For some reason, that even looking back now I fail to truly grasp, I found that stair landing more peaceful and perfectly serene then any other place in the house. Not at all times mind you, during certain segments of the day I’m sure that landing saw more use then some train stations, as a horde of siblings, friends, and parents rushed back and forth between a myriad of purposes.
But at just the right instant, during the chaos that was a day in a large family, just a little after my mom had gotten everyone fed, organized and focused on the right subjects and the house had fallen into a temporary lull brought on by naps and students desperately pretending to do their homework, that landing became a sanctuary.
I’d fan out the day’s schoolwork around me on the brightly lit carpet and try and determine what was worth doing and what I could put off until later that day. Every now and then the idea of doing it quickly all at once in order to free up the day would flit noncommittally through the options.
I’d work a little, daydream a lot, and then slowly without fail, I’d succumb to the power of the sun.
There I’d lie, half a lifetime ago, drowsily basking in the radiant warmth spilling forth at an angle from a slowly rising sun.
That single shaft of sunlight shining down on my blissfully unconscious form, sprawled out in the center of a chaotic explosion of half done homework, halfway to up, halfway to down, halfway to everywhere, is the very core of one of the most perfect moments I’ve ever had.
Our view of life is as much determined by our present mindset as our view of winter is by our place of residence. I’ll be the first to admit that my outlook on life has at times been far from cheery, comparable more to living in a frozen wasteland then the glistening river of light to which this working of words is devoted.
But as cold and forsaken as life has, in darker moments, left me, when it comes to that final hour, when all through which I’ve lived is laid bare before me, I know, beyond all shadows of doubt and misgiving, that memories like that warm sunbeam on a frozen winter day, will far outshine the miseries that seem to fill the majority of any life long lived.
It’s these short-lived moments that make the worst lived of lives worth the cost of living.
It’s a simple memory really, not a whole lot to it, a landing, unwanted homework, a simple ray of light.
However, in that memory, lies all the purpose of existence.
That single thing that we rip ourselves, our life, and the very world itself, to shreds in search of.
Contentment.
No matter what I do, no matter where I go, no matter what I achieve - It will all be for one reason, for one purpose, for one goal.
To return to that moment, on a cold, cold winter day, when I had homework I didn’t want to do and sleeping that I did - sprawled out within that single honey-colored beam, underneath a million little islands, dancing in a sea of light.
Halfway to up, halfway to down, halfway to everywhere.
Content.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Santuary in the Snow
A scribbling I did for a writing class awhile back.
Sanctuary in the Snow
There’s nothing like a snow tunnel on a blizzard windy day.
Above the snow, above that thin sheet of gleaming ice that sheathes the ground in all directions, the world is a riot of chaotic white, a frozen hell on earth fit only for the gnashing of teeth and slow destruction in it’s frozen lake of fire.
The wind a churning vortex of sand like ice and freezing gusts that that strips the skin from your face and seems to slowly sap you of life itself.
But in that tunnel, carved from the very heart of the storm that is seeking your complete and utter destruction.
Is heaven, sanctuary, a final sacred respite for the weary soul.
A small dark frozen hole, that in that instant seems brighter and warmer then the purest summer day.
It truly is beyond description.
When you crawl, spent and broken, out of the raging wind and roaring snow into that place of perfect peace, into that small simple state of serenity.
This must be the difference between heaven and hell, not a conquering of the elements, but a surrendering to the shelter.
An accepting that we cannot win but we can be saved.
Sanctuary in the Snow
There’s nothing like a snow tunnel on a blizzard windy day.
Above the snow, above that thin sheet of gleaming ice that sheathes the ground in all directions, the world is a riot of chaotic white, a frozen hell on earth fit only for the gnashing of teeth and slow destruction in it’s frozen lake of fire.
The wind a churning vortex of sand like ice and freezing gusts that that strips the skin from your face and seems to slowly sap you of life itself.
But in that tunnel, carved from the very heart of the storm that is seeking your complete and utter destruction.
Is heaven, sanctuary, a final sacred respite for the weary soul.
A small dark frozen hole, that in that instant seems brighter and warmer then the purest summer day.
It truly is beyond description.
When you crawl, spent and broken, out of the raging wind and roaring snow into that place of perfect peace, into that small simple state of serenity.
This must be the difference between heaven and hell, not a conquering of the elements, but a surrendering to the shelter.
An accepting that we cannot win but we can be saved.
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