Diary Entry 4/21/11: Algebra

If you're like me, you despise numbers. When confronted with an equation, your heart rate quickens, but your brain totally shuts down.
I think in letters, not numbers. I relate life to art, not integers.
I haven't been blessed with very good math teachers over the past few years, and I tend to blame my illiteracy to the language of algebra on them.
However, my math class this year is incredible. Though...not because of the math.
Today, I had the best algebra class ever, and I owe it all to the insane souls in the class.
I have algebra fifth period, and I dread it all morning. On the way to my locker, Lexie and I were in the middle of an epic argument concerning the hair of Jamie Campbell Bower (the brillaint british actor engaged to Bonnie Wright). I grab my books, and am standing outside the algebra room waiting for the teacher to show up, and decide to start up a conversation with Cooner.
"Eyyy, Coon. How bout this weather we're havin'?"
Cooner starts laughing hysterically, for no apparent reason. He's bent over now, still in hysterics, when the teacher, Mrs. Walls, shows up and lets us all in.
Coons laughing away at his desk, and no one knows why, and doesn't bother to ask.
I sit down, and as I'm rearanging my books, I spot Lance walking past me to his seat.
"LANCE!" I yell.
"ERIN!" He yells back.
"GIVE ME SOME CANDY!"
He hesitates. "I...uh...don't have..any..."
"Lance."
"FINE!" He says with a sigh. This is a normal thing. Lance is always stocked with hard candy, and he distributes it to anyone willing to pay him back.
"What do I get in returrnnn!!?" he whines, tossing my a watermelon candy.
"A grippy."
"Nah, You gave me one o' them yesterday."
"...an eraser."
"eh...."
"a pencil?"
"what color?"
"all I have is, like, pink..."
"THIS IS BLACKMAIL!" he suddenly screams, practically pulling his hair out. Lance continues to spazz, and I eat my candy as class starts.
******
Halfway through class, Mrs. Walls catches Ethan writing notes.
"Ethan?"
Ethan looks up, deer in headlights. "Mrs. Walls?"
"What are you writing?"
".....song lyrics...."
"what song?"
"You are my sunshine, by Johnny Cash."
We all break out laughing.
"...May I ask why?"
"...to give to Ryan."
He starts laughing, and Ryan is basically convulsing with hysterics.
Mrs. Walls, laughing because she knows we're her favorite class, even if she says she hates us all the time, takes the note.
She looks at it, laughing harder and harder with each line.
"Ethan, come up here." she spits out, through a chuckle.
Ethan marches up to the front of the class, ready for a show.
Mrs. Walls hands him the paper, and makes him sing it to the class.
Ethan takes a deep breath, putting on his game face.
"Ryan!" he says, staring at Ryan. "This one's for you!"
And so, in perfect key, with plenty of gusto, Ethan begins to sing, while the rest of the class is sprawled out on various surfaces around the room, dying of laughter. I've known Ryan a long time, but I've never seen him laugh this hard.
"You are my sunshine, my only sunshine!
You make me happyyyyy, when times are gray!" Ethan remains cool and collected, singing in perfect pitch, while Mrs. Walls leaves the room to maintain composure.
"You'll never know, DEAR!" He points at Ryan. "how much I LOVE you! please don't Taaaake, my sunshine awayyyy!"
The class applauds, and Ethan finally starts laughing with the rest of us, and Mrs. Walls comes back in, ready to finish the class, but can't. Because what just happened was freaking funny, and she knows it.
So, for the next half hour, the class explodes. We give up oin whatever it was we were trying to learn before Ethan's concert, and instead just sort of mess around.
I really despie math, but sometimes, Algebra can be fun..
You know, if you've got a funny kid with a great voice in the class, and a teacher who's not too big on punishment.

Diary Entry, 4/19/2011

So, I've decided to start a little diary type thing on my blog. I've never really been one to keep a diary, but I think I might give it a shot :)
I'm gonna call it my "Toy Box", following the theme of this blog. (If you were wondering why I call this "Little Green Toy Box", it is because it is based on the first poem I posted, called "Toy Box." Alos, toy boxes represent our childhood, and the things we store in them as we go through life. This blog is my toy box. :) So, enjoy this diary type thing. Leave me your thoughts, your comments...your concerns! Thanks!

Dear Toy Box,
Well, today was just like any other twisted day in my life, however, dull moments are always a rare event, so normalcy is always exciting, understand.
I woke up this morning to a variety of arguably irritating texts from my best friend Lexie's boyfriend, Topher (Who is my good friend, but also my own personal bully). I groan, because it's six o' clock in the freaking morning, and flit through the messages. A text from Topher is never a good sign...
Exhibit A: Don't be stupid, it's illegal for spotted dandelions to be immune to vaporization....
Exhibit B:You're such an oaf, just admit that the spotted dandelion's toenails have vaporized...
Exhibit C: i kidnapped your father! How's that make you feel?!

There are the normal happy wake up texts from Rachel, saying things like "You're so stupid!" or "I never liked you!"
Ah...what kind friends I have!

***

I get to school about 45 minutes early, and am sitting in the cafeteria reading the new Jodi Picoult novel, Sing You Home. It's good, but Zoe really irritates me. She and her husband are both totally infertile, right? So WHY does she have the notion she's gonna get pregnant any day?!?
I'm complaining to myself about the stupidity of the characters, when Olivia walks in, a vision of...well, pink. What else would Olivia be wearing?
She's singing "Cosmic Love" by Florence and the Machine, while complaining, simultaneously, about her sister.
"...And Emily was like 'OLIVIA!' and I was like "EMILY YOU'RE UGLY'...." She keeps talking, her face serious and solemn with the gravity of her sister's ignorance.
I've learned to zone her out. Truthfully, I couldn't care less about what she's saying...which sounds horrible. However, she's Olivia...and...
I continue reading, groaning to myself, once more, about the agonizing stupidity of Zoe Baxter, when I'm smacked on the head. Hard.
I turn around, and....oh, golly gee, how nice...it's my personal bully, Topher, grinning mischeviously, making my worried...
"Lexie's sick." He says, and my stomach turns. As his girlfriend, it's Lexie's job to make sure Topher's under control, and not bullying me too much. When Lex isn't here...Topher is a bit uncontrollable.
"Oh God..." I mutter.

***

At my locker, I'm greeted by the kind words of Rachel.
She stops what she's doing, opens her mouth wide, turns my way, tilts her foot, and puts her hands on her hips. "THIS IS WHY WE'RE NOT FRIENDS!" She yells.
I join her, stancing. "I'M THE ONLY REASON YOU WAKE UP IN THE MORNING!" I yell back. Rachel and I...we're very close, really. However, we hate eachother. You may notice that kind words between the two of us are a bit rare, even though we're, like, best friends.
We continue to scream at eachother, and eventually Topher proceeds to break into my locker and break some stuff. This is usually the part where Lexie, my savior, comes along, gently leads him away, and tells him that it's not nice to bully.
But Lexie's sick. The jerk.

***
In third period American Cultures, we watch some movie about slavery that is about as interesting as watching paint dry. Instead, I open up my Picoult, and continue to complain to myself about how irritating it is, when a seventh grader walks into the room.
"ERIN!" she yells, interrupting class, but no one seems to mind. The whole school's like this, to say the least. Annoying, outspoken....a little on the crooked side...
it's Hayley, my former English teacher's daughter, one of my dad's current students. Being the teacher's kid, as I am, you grow up with other offspring of teachers. Hayley and I are ole pals.
I get up, leaving my book behind, and follow Hayley out of the room. Once we're in the hall, she starts yelling at me about how she didn't know where I was, she was roaming the halls for twenty minutes trying to find me, I'm so ungrateful...
We reach the door to my dad's seventh grade classroom, and as she takes her seat, I go ahead and sit down in my dad's black leather chair, putting my feet on the desk.
My father, the best Geography teacher in the world, is now lying on the floor pretending to be dead, while a student thrusts him in the gut with a NERF sword, shouting victory cries. The rest of the class is screaming and cheering, and I join in. This is much, much better than that lousy excuse for a film they're playing in my own history class, down the hall.
"Father?" I venture, and he looks up at me, lounging at his desk. "Oh...look up that website, I couldn't find it!" he says.
my dad gets up off the floor, straightening his tie, and beating his seventh grade enemy with his own NERF sword. When he finishes, he bows, and the class cheers "LONG LIVE MR. SHERRY!"
I find him the website he was looking for, and then hang out in his class room for a while, not really feelign the need to go back to Jodi Picoult and the excitements of the underground railroad.
*****

During fourth period, my communications teacher starts freaking out about society, so instead of taking my spelling test, I join her. We rant for the entire class, and she doesn't seem to mind that I've blown off her test. Life's good....

***

At lunch, Topher is as much a bully as ever. I take my seat, methodically rotating our table to the other side, so that Kayla and Ryan have to deal with the crumbs left over from the last lunch period, and not me.
Kayla and Olivia sit next to me, which is weird, since usually I sit next to Lex and Topher. Cooner, a poor fellow no one really likes, but who sits with us just because we don't want him sitting alone, does some questionable things and then gives me his fruit snacks, which are shaped like Phineas and Ferb. I think Cooner has a thing for me, which is a bit amusing. See, a few months ago, Lexie and Topher and I convinced him that I was born with all these rare diseases and illness. For example: I have no feeling in my face whatsoever, I can't see the color white, I can't say the letter W....etc.
He totally bought it, and went to all lengths to make sure I was okay. He said things like "Oh, it's good you're so strong and smart when so much is wrong with you!" and "Well, you're really nice, so you'll still get a good job!"
Even now, when he knows it was all a joke, he gifts me his fruit snacks everyday at lunch. How nice.
I bite the head off of Ferb as Topher strolls along. He lifts up a chair, and places it on the table right in front of me. I don't question this, I just continue to eat my fruit snacks.
Finally, he takes the chair down, and squeezes it in between Kayla and Ryan. He takes Kayla's water bottle, and dumps it's contents into Ryan's pudding cup. No one really does anything to stop him, for it's routine by now.
In the lunch line, I make up a secret handshake with Joey. Joey's awesome, another kid with no other circle of friends to share a table with, and so was welcomed to ours with open arms. Everyone in our grade is best friends, and we all get along, so random outcasts at our table is nothing out of the ordinary. They make everything more fun.
I order my ravioli, and Ryan starts telling me that I'm short and have no friends. I tell him he's spilt his dignity, and watch as he scrambles to clean it up.
Lunch is always the best part of the day. Topher vandalizes everyone's food, so we all walk away hungry. Kayla says something awesome in a BRILLIANT jersey drawl. Coon and Joey do some interpretive dancing for Mrs. Houk, and Olivia complains about God knows what.
****

at the end of the day, I take a magnet from Kayla's locker on my way to Chorus.
Topher is behind me, punching me with every step, and it hurts.
"Dude, no."
right step.
"Topher!"
left step.
"I'm gonna tell Lexie!"
right step.
"CHRISTOPHER, STOP THAT!"
left step. I pass the principal.
"MR. WILSON, HE'S BULLYING ME!"
Principal just chuckles and moves on with his day. lovely.
right step.
"Topher, I hate you."
and so on.

As we pass some lockers, I place Kayla's magnet on one of them, and continue walking. She'll probably never find it.

We enter the chorus room, and instead of telling Topher to stop beating me up, Mrs. Duncan joins right in.
Have you ever seen a teacher beat a student up? I have.
She kicks my shins, pushes me over, and then pulls my hair. All the while, topher is still punching me, and eventually she helps me up, only to push me back down again.
Ah yes...the anti bullying program around here ROCKS!
***

The day continued like this, absolutely normal chaos. I'm yelled at by Rachel a few more times before dismissal about dignity, groove, smork....and I yell right back. We're very kind to eachother.
As you can see, my life is full of quirks and twists very unlike that of most teenage girls. My friends aren't spray tanned and gossipy, my lunch table isn't the least bit seclusive. I love my life, and everyone in it, even when my friends believe that the best form of affection is in the form of bullying, and my best friend's boyfriend thinks it's okay to terrorize me to no end...
I make a mental note to call Lex later.
You know, to tell her how stupid she is, and to hope she never gets better.
Because I love her that much.

A Penny For Your Thoughts

So there are about ninety typos in here, and I aplogize :P However, I worked on this for over a week, and though it didn't really turn out as great as I planned, I still really love it. Enjoy.

It is June, of the year 1945.
I am a young man, cleanly shaven and groomed. My hair is sleek with gel, my body crisp in the black suit of a becoming husband.
I stare at myself in the mirror, evaluating the man staring back at me.
What is it about the plain, simple stretch of my face that she finds special? What is it about my silent hazel eyes that force her to never want to look away?
It's her who's the beautiful one. The one people stare at in vain, wishing they could look just the same.
I'll never understand how someone as simple and unassuming as myself has managed to hold on to heart of such a gem for this long. She could do so, so much better...
“Come on, Jakey. Time for you to throw your life away!” I am faintly aware of my best man, Hughie Jackson, as he takes my arm with a slurred, drunken laugh, and leads me to the chapel.
“You sure you wanna do this, kid?” He sips the bottle of whiskey he'd been carrying, slinging his arm across my shoulders.
“Gimme the bottle, man.” I laugh as I attempt to wrestle the booze from his hand. “Come on, Hughie! You're the best man, I can't have ya drunk at the alter.”
His grip remains firm, and he refuses to let me have my way. Instead, the bottle becomes the object of a round of tug of war, and he's swearing at me to stop.
“Let go, Jake!” He places his foot firmly in the space beneath our quivering fingers and pulls, whiskey sloshing from the lip of the bottle and right onto the front of the tux that cost me a fortune.
“Aw, man...I..I didn't mean ta...Jacob?”
I stand there, shocked, staring down at the clothes of my marriage, which is less than ten minutes away.
Part of me hates Hughie Jackson...
But the best of me begins to laugh.
“Hughie Boy, you've somehow accomplished to ruin the most important day of my life.” But I say these words of dismay with an overpowering anguish of laughter.
“You're not mad?” He asks, his eyes wide with fright. He's probably just realized how much he'll have to pay to dry clean this tuxedo, if I choose to blame him for the mishap.
“Naw, man. Sure, I'm gonna be damp and smelling like booze when I walk down the isle, but it was worth it. Our final little mistake as boys, bro. Our last little outburst of rebellion, before we have to start growin' up.”
I embrace the broad shoulders of my best friend, and we laugh together, as we enter the chapel doors.
My mother pulls me aside, her eyes wide as she spots the spreading puddle of alcohol staining the front of the tuxedo I'll be famous for ruining for the rest of my days. Her face screams a deadly scarlet, and she seems as though she might faint.
“C'mon, ma. No spot on my shirt front will stop anyone from lovin' me.”

And with that, I marry the girl of my dreams, with whiskey soaking her white dress as we embrace in our first kiss as man and woman. She does not scold my carelessness. She does not chastise my immaturity. Instead, my wife pulls me close, and kisses me harder than ever before.
My soul erupts in a world of imagery. Of promise.
As I hold her in my arms, I imagine our lives together. Laughing at pointless humors as we embrace life together. Smiling, happier than we've ever been, when our first child is born. Loving each other, endlessly, in the winters of our old age.
And everything would be perfect now. Because we have each other.

* * *

It is July, of the year 1965.
I am middle aged, my hair just beginning to thin.
I still love my wife more and more each day, and I still remember the days of my reckless, careless youth.
Life's rich. Full of flavors you can't taste until you're old enough to understand them. As a kid, life tastes like sugar. As a teenager, life tastes like kisses and beer. As a man...life tastes like everything the culinary artists of heaven have ever created. It tastes like memories, and the mysteries of the future. It tastes like the puree and milk of your child in their first weeks of life, and of the champagne of honeymoons yet to come.
I taste these things as I walk, hands in my pocket, down the streets of the town I've lived in for fifty some years now.
The fountain at the center of Town Square was always a wonder to me. My entire life, I've watched as people tossed their fortunes to the water, not caring about anything but the wishes at hand.
“There are people out there starving.” Hughie scoffed one day, as we passed the square, wondering why people like us, so nourished and blessed, could be vain enough to lend our money to follies instead of those in true need of it. Hughie and I would question why no one ever tried to steal the pennies from the water. Why the greasy urchins we'd see in the baker's trash bins never tried to take the money from the fountain.
My wife laughed when I expressed these feelings to her one night.
“The money in that fountain is more valuable than the money used to buy groceries, honey. It's worth so, so much more than anything at the market.”
I wouldn't truly understand this for many years. For now, I'd shrug it off, and never think twice about the possibilities of a penny in a fountain. I'd forget about the magic, the promise of a wish. I'd forget about yearning for something that might never come true, and having faith in something such as a well of water to make me happy again.
Instead, I'd walk past the center each day, and simply smile at the kids tossing their money to the statues. I'd walk on, without a second glance.
Just pennies, right? Nothing but pennies, and wishes....
* * *

It is December, of the year 1970.
I am sitting at a desk of cherry.
The lights are dim.
I am thinking about nothing.
Just sitting, and trying to remember Hughie Jackson's laugh.
I remember hating him for a minute, on the night of my wedding. But moments later, forgiving him, and loving him more than ever. I remember how I smelled like whiskey as I said my vows, and how terrible the minister must have thought me.
I remember when we were kids, playing war in the streets.
Hughie would never be so serious as the times when we were playing war. Never did his face grow so determined, than the times when he held the toy gun to the sky.
His mother cried, when she found out he was going to fight, for real.
“They need me in 'Nam, ma. I need to protect this country.”
I remember standing in their doorway, staring at the tile floor, as she fell to her knees and took his hands in hers.
“Hugh, please...I can't let you go...don't...don't leave me...”
His father, rigid and thoughtful, just shook Hughie's hand, and nodded his head.
“It's your duty to fight, son.”

I wonder now, if Hughie's father regrets those words. Regrets allowing his only son to risk his life as he did.
I wonder how his mother is holding up. I hope she doesn't dwell on the looming bleakness of it all. I hope she tries, no matter how hard it is, to remember Hughie's laugh among all other things, as I am trying to do, now.
Because my best friend had a great laugh. Loud, booming, jovial....
His wife, Nancy, once said that Hughie's laugh was most infectious when he was drunk. When he was wasted, he was the happiest man in the world. He loved everyone, and all he wanted was for the world to be the perfect landscape of his dreams.
When he was sober, he was much more serious. He cared more about things like the future, the government...the war.
The war that took his life...

And when I think this way, when I think about how this war took the life of my best man, I find it hard to remember just the laugh. I have to remember everything else.
I have to remember the way he never pointed his toy guns at people, like the other boys, for he somehow understood the strange gravities of death that none of us could have possibly grasped at such a young age. I have to remember the way he believed marriage was a sin, until he met Nancy Warner, and his life was changed forever.
I'd have to remember the sound of his sobbing mother, as he left for the war that would end his contagious laugh, once and for all.

These are memories I want to remember for as long as I live.
Because if I forget them...I...
***

October fifth, 1983, six twenty nine PM...
I hold her in my arms, inhaling the scent of her hair, her perfume.

Six thirty three...
I let tears fall over her. I let them them roll into my ears, and drown me.
I take her hand, and I feel it...I feel her squeezing back. Just the slightest, little squeeze.
“I love you, Anna Rosetta Davies. I will always, always love y---”
“Jacob...” Her eyes blink open, slightly, pouring into me.
“Thank you...for listening to all of my...” She takes a breath. “my wishes...all the pennies I threw to that fountain, asking for you...”
I stroke her hair, my tears soaking her chest.
Please God. Please...
“Thank you, my love...for answering those wishes.”

And I kiss her for the last time.
I finally understand what it means to rely solely on a single hope.

***
It is July, of the year 1990.
I am an old man, sitting atop a wooden bench amid a crowd of young people, on the hottest hour of the dog days. I'm wearing a sweater of course, even as the sun threatens to burn us all to ash, for the doctors claim I'm getting colder as I age.
Funny...how nurses and doctors are always so young, yet they think they're wiser than the old timers?
And so, I'm sweating in my autumn garb, as the jubilant faces around me yell out to the scantily clothed bodies surrounding them, tossing Frisbees and colorful, inflatable balls through the summer sky.
One woman stands out to me. Her manor is simple, yet as she strides, thoughtlessly, across the park, she emits a sort of charm and aura that I long since believed had been lost in the days of the Great War. However, in a world as modern as it is, this woman carries herself with the strength and ingenuity of a woman borne unto an entirely different, older generation. One I wish, more than anything, that I could still remember. If I could just dig it up, from the deeps of me...
She is young, but her face says she is older. Her long strands of knotted brown hair whip around the strong contour of her face, making her squint her deep, brown eyes. She wears denim shorts, the kind I might envy on days such as today, when I'm feeling especially old and especially warm. However, like me, this girl wears a sweater. The long, flowing kind that buttons in the middle, and would fall past her hips, if she weren't hugging it so tightly to her torso, as if afraid of being chilled.
“Aren't you warm, miss?” I venture as she strides closer to me, her back straight with a sort of broken, ambling indignation I find stunningly admirable. Her young eyes meet my old ones, for a moment, and she allows her face to relax.
“I'm afraid I can't feel it much, any more...” With this, her jaw hardens, and she tugs the sweater tighter to her chest. As she begins to continue her walk, I call out again.
“Miss, It'd be a right crime to leave a lonely old man with a statement like that, and no explanation.” I smile, and to my great satisfaction, the girl sits next to me on the bench. I watch as she blows strands of hair from her eyes, as she tightens her hold on that sweater.
“How old are you, miss?”
“Seventeen.”
Seventeen. This is a surprise. She looks so much older, her face so much wiser...
“What's your name?”
“...My name's...” Hesitation surfaces in her eyes.
“Don't worry, honey, I'm no harm. Just an old man, with no one to talk to.”
The girl smiles, looking up at me for the first time since she sat down.
“My name's Leah. Leah Jones.” She said, with softened eyes.
“What's your story, Leah Jones?”
A question mark expanded it's dance in her dark eyes, her eyebrows raising slightly.
“I'm sorry, sir...it's..” She laughed, humorlessly. “I'm afraid it's a long story. One you might not really want to hear.”
I take her soft, delicate hand in both of my clumsy, wrinkled ones.
“I do, Miss. I really do. Give me a story I might remember, even when I've forgotten everything else.”
Leah Jones takes a breath, and I see the uneasiness of her approach tumble to nothing as she relaxes her shoulders.
“I'm pregnant.” She says, staring straight ahead, at nothing at all. I say nothing, for I sense that the general response to statements such as these have all been worn out by now.
Meaningless congratulations.
...A baby! How sweet!....Though, we all know that with a girl this young and innocent, “Sweet” will never be the word. Excitement will never be the emotion.
After a pause, she continues.
“I haven't graduated yet. I've missed important tests countless times, because something else is always a little more important...”
She hesitates. “My mom kicked me out, after I told her about the baby.”
Another pause, and I see a silent, single tear slip down the outline of her cheekbone.
“Where are you staying?” I whisper, squeezing her hand for comfort. “Was your boyfriend understanding?”
She lowers her head, staring into her lap, and clutching her sweater.
“There...there's no boyfriend. He left me a few weeks ago, just before I found out I was..I was...” She shakes her head. “Anyway, I slept in my car. I'm fine.”
“You're not fine, little girl. You're lost.”
“But It's odd, isn't it? That I'm so lost, yet I'm no more than a mile from home?” She laughs, sadly, squishing her toes into the soil at our feet.
“No, little girl. It makes perfect sense. Sometimes we feel so at home, when we're so far away. And other times, home is where we lose ourselves most.” I smile at her. “Your relationship with your mother? What's it like?”
“She's...not the most supportive role in my life, no. She used to be the smartest, prettiest mom in the world. Now she's the mom none of my friends can meet. She's too far gone, most of the time...”
“Drugs?”
“Yes.”
The warm air blows the hair from her face, and sends ripples through my sweater, though she only pulls hers closer to her.
“Do you love your mother, Leah?”
She hesitates, pulling on a loose string at the hem of her shorts.
“I used to.”
“And why not anymore?”
“Because she doesn't love me back.”
“That can't be true, little girl...”
“She doesn't want a screw up daughter, knocked up before she's even out of high school. No mother wants that.”
“Of course no mother plans imperfection, but they don't stop loving their child when fate takes its toll.”
“I stopped believing in fate a long time ago, sir.”
I squeeze her hand, arching my neck into the smoldering sun. “May I ask why that is?”
“Because it's always wrong. Fate told me that the father of this baby would love me until the end of time. Fate lied, and said that I would live the perfect life, never hitting a single bump in the road. Fate lied when he said that this baby was a good thing, that I should be proud. 'It's fate!' it whispered, and I believed it. But it wasn't fate, sir, it was a mistake.”
Another tear rolls into her hair, and I stare at this girl before me. Never in my life, in all of the---how long has it been?---years that I've been breathing, have I met a girl as strong, and brave as the one before me. Early on, I learned that people see strength most in you, when you, yourself, are feeling weakest.
“Look, I'm sorry for dumping all of this on you, sir. I really need to get going...” She stands to leave, but I take hold of her hand, making her look at me, still perched on the bench.
“Fate doesn't make mistakes, Leah.”
She stares at me, her dark, captivating irises pouring into mine. Finally, I loosen my grip, and she lowers her hand to her waist. With a blink, a breath, and a final “Thank you, sir...”, she straightens her back, and turns to leave.
“Miss?”
She turns, a few feet away.
“Take this. A penny for your thoughts.”
She hesitates, tilting her head, pondering my notions, before gently taking the coin from my fingers.
With a final, questioning blink, Leah Jones disappears from my old, tattered life, leaving her young story here, on a bench of oak and iron, with an old man she'd never met before.
****

It is November, of 1991.
I'm staring through the gaps in the trees, at the clouds as they pass the little world below. I try to become a kid again, to stare at the clouds and imagine I see a bunny, or a lion. But all I see are oversized cotton balls, signaling the onslaught of rain.
When I was a boy. I must have loved to stare at the clouds. I wonder if I had a lover...one who loved to make pictures in the sky....
The sounds of crying, of despair, reach my ancient ears, and I tilt my head to find the source. There...beneath the maple tree. A man. Glasses, rumpled brown hair, head in his hands.
He is crouched low, in the dirt, beneath a canopy of star shaped leaves.
“Come here, young man.”
Slowly, he raises his neck, and his eyes meet mine. He tries to wipe the redness from irises, but fails, straightening his glasses.
“I'm sorry, sir, I didn't mean to bother you.”
I shake my head, and pat the empty space next to me.
“No, no, sir. It is I who should apologize for intruding on a man's emotions.” I smile, and to my delight, the man sits next to me on the bench, running his hands through his hair.
“Why so sad, young man?”
The man raises his head and looks at me, full in the face. I see the pain, the desperation in the lines of his skin.
“My son...just...” he takes a breath, blinking. “He was a beautiful child. He had his mothers eyes, and the hair of his grandfather...there was this lock in the back that never quite stayed flat.” The man laughs quietly to himself, emerged in memories of a day so much brighter than the darkness of the present.
“He was killed by a drunk driver, two hours and fourteen minutes ago. He was sixteen years, and twenty four days old. I still looked the same to me, as he did the day he was born...same face...same smile...”
The man rubs his temples, the tears of memory flooding the rims of his glasses. I pat his back, aimlessly trying to console a man who would never truly heal.
“I once had a dream” I begin. “of a young boy who went away to war.”
The man looks at me, waiting for a story that will distract him, for a moment, from his heartache.
“I don't know if I'm remembering clearly, of course, dreams are often foggy....but if I'm right, this young man lived his last days in a place very far from home, dressed in the costume of a decorated soldier. He mailed a letter, his final letter, to his mother just hours before his death. He told her not to cry for him, if his time should come before he had a chance to see her again.”
The man pleads, his head in his hands again. “That's impossible, sir. He was my only son....”
“He said, 'tears don't fix anything. Let yourself live, and I'll do the same, in a place far away, where everything is so much better.”
The man lifts his head, looking me straight in the eye.
“Do you really believe that, sir? Do you think my boy is happy now?” He whispers, begging for answers to questions never truly fulfilled before.
“I do. I really do.”
He bites his lip, wiping the tears from his eyes, and smiling just the slightest.
“Thank you, sir.”
“Take this. A penny for your thoughts.” I bury the coin in the fold of his hand, before he can resist.
He hesitates, rolling the copper between his fingers, his eyes staring fixedly at the moldings...
And with a final glance, a heartbroken father is lifted, for just a moment, from a lifetime of grieving.

* * *

It is August, of 1993.
“Sir?”
I shake the sun from my tired eyes and look up at the woman in front of me.
I can't help but think I've seen her before...as if in a dream? She smiles as if she knows me, but I am fairly certain we are strangers.
I watch as she instinctively tightens her sweater around her waist. I know I've seen this done before, and it terrifies me that I cannot remember where...
“Um, you may not remember me, sir...my name is Leah? A few years ago, we spoke...here, on this bench, actually...” She fumbles with the sweater, and for the first time, I notice the small boy hanging onto her hand.
“This is my son, sir. William. He's two now.” She smiles, and tugs the little boy onto her hip. The perfect vision of a mother.
I grin at them. “Very good! He's really...really growing!” I exclaim. I cannot let on that I haven't the slightest idea as to who she is, though, part of me knows I do know. Somewhere in me, I know I've seen this girl...
“Faster everyday.” She says, tickling his belly. The child lets out a laugh, flinging his chubby arms around his mothers neck.
I know I had a wife, and I know I had two children...
I hope my kids were this adorable. I hope my wife was the best mother in the world...
But, painfully....I cannot remember....

“Anyway...” Starts the girl before me. Her dark hair is in her face, swimming in the summer wind. “I just wanted to say thank you. For what you told me...three years ago...I...you really helped me.” And she turns to leave, with a final smile, bouncing her baby on her hip.
“You're very welcome, Miss. Take care of that baby, now.”
She walks on...and I die a little bit more inside.
Life's been moving far too fast lately...
Everything I pass, is nothing but a blur.


It is September, of the year 2005.
I'm sitting on my bench again. I've grown quite accustomed to the familiarity of the oak beneath me, the soil as the wind sprays it across the tops of my loafers
“Sit down, son. Right here.”
I motion to the young man hovering over me, patting the empty space next to me, maneuvering my cane, carefully, into the hollow between my knees, so as to make room on the bench.
He raised his eyebrows in dismay, as young people often do, before airily joining me amid the bench of oak and iron. He had a baseball cap positioned backwards on his head, a tuft of bleached yellow hair peeking out from the adjustable strap on his forehead. I pondered what color his hair really was, beneath the chemicals and the backwards hats. “Turn your hat around, boy. That's no way to wear a ball cap.”
The boy snorted loudly, shaking his head.
“I don't answer to you.” He stated jovially. “What do you want, anyway? You some kind of stalker?”
I shrugged his ignorance from my ears, tapping my knees with my crippled fingers, dwindling the foam handle of my cane.
“No, son, I just wanted to ask you a question...”
He feigned interest arrogantly, resting his chin in his hands and staring up at me, expectantly.
“Yeah?”
“Yes.”
“Well I don't got all day.”
“Oh? And where is it you'd rather be?”
A snort, a laugh, a scoff.
I stretch my hand to the boy, a single copper coin open in my palm.
“A penny for your thoughts, son...”
He laughed uproariously, standing to leave, tossing a crumpled beer can at the ground ever so close to my aching feet as he began to tromp away, to wherever it was he believed life was to be lived.
He was no more than a boy. His chin was still as soft and smooth as a child's, his face still round as the baby his mother still saw in him, somewhere.
Somewhere lost behind the facade of a man in the midst of life's great games. Behind his mask, his grand exterior of untouchable power, there cowered a child, in this young man. A child who hid behind the shadows of the monster under his bed, whose mother was the everlasting angel of his nightmares.
A kid who thought life was nothing but a game. A game where you always get a second chance, and the only thing that mattered, in the long run, was the race to the finish line.
In this particular young man, that child crept willingly from the shadows, standing in plain sight with every hesitation of his future host. Every time he was caught off guard, every time he allowed himself to feel anything more than the cookie cutter feelings of this new society, the child he used to be would peek from behind his shoulder, yearning for help.
Saying, “Help me. It's gotten terribly dark in here.”
I see something in the child this boy once was....an aching sense of familiarity I cannot place. Something in his stature...the way he walks with confidence that some might mistake as arrogance. Something in his eyes....
The child in this boy reaches out, grasping the coin.
The future this child will one day become, the present he's shattered himself to be, just walks away. He slaps the tattered, tobacco stained hands of his comrades, and continues on his way, burying that cowering child of his past even deeper into the shadows.
A hand reaches out from behind him, nothing but the ghost of bone of flesh. The hand of a yearning little boy, of whom, somehow, I know I've seen before, scared of what he'll become...
But I'm nothing but a tired old man, who sees things that are best kept hidden.
And I'm sorry, son, but you're too far away now for me to reach...
“Too far gone, most of the time...”
The voice comes to me as if from a distant dream. One I think I dreamed, some time, but can't...can't remember....

Everything gets foggier, when we grow older. Everything runs too fast, and doesn't dare wait for us to catch up.
The earth spins on...
And on...
I get dizzier every day.

* * *

it is April, 2007.
I am walking, shakily. My hands are purple as I squeeze the rubber handles of my walker with all of my lasting strength.
I know where I'm trying to go, but I struggle to remember how to get there. I've had countless dreams of this place. Dreams of a beautiful woman, explaining what it means to rely on a wish. Dreams of small children tossing their coins to the water. Dreams of love, and pictures in the clouds, and pennies for our thoughts.
When I approach the fountain, I am overwhelmed. I've been here, in dreams. In reality, however...everything is so much heavier. I feel it all. Right here, right now. And I hope I might remember this, the weight of it all. Of a past I know is there...but can't remember, for the very life of me.
“Here sir, let me help you!” A woman of about fifty approaches me, stretching her arms around the handles of my walker, and guiding me to a seat on the marble of the fountain.
“Thank you very much, dear.” I position my legs to a suitable position, and stare at the foggy waters of wishes.
“Of course! Come to make a wish?” the woman comes and sits next to me, gazing into the water.
“I suppose so...perhaps I came more for the memories, than the future.” I carefully lower my fingers to the water, ruining the reflection of a crippled old man I know cannot be me.
The woman smiles. “I understand, sir.” She says softly, patting my hand. “I do the same thing, sometimes.”
It is silent for a moment, aside from the whistling noises of life in the winds around us, and we both stare at the thousands of pennies beneath us.
It'd be a crime to touch them, I know. A right crime. No one has the right to disrupt a wish as it floats.
I dig around in my pocket, and find a penny in my pea coat's pocket. I toss it to the fountain, opening my eyes only when I hear the sound of it hitting the water. I watch as it floats for a moment, before sinking heavily to the bottom of the pool with a quiet chime. It sits there now, heads up, sealing my wish to the fountain floor, forever.
“What'd you wish for?” The woman ventures.
“I wished that tomorrow, today would be more than a distant dream I can hardly surface.”


* * *

It is....i believe it is the year 2010....or is it not, anymore?
I lie in a bed of stiff white sheets, listening to the sounds of beeping.
Beeping and whispers, in the hallway.
Beeping, whispering, haunting silence.
“That's impossible. He was very wealthy... he had a sack of one hundred dollars in coins, that he kept under his bed. He never spent it, that I cant remember...will that cover the expenses? For now?”
I hear a voice I've head in many of my cloudy dreams, whispering about me to a man inn glasses and an ironed white coat.
“There's no money. I'm sorry, we've checked...he can't afford...”
“That's not...that makes no sense. He promised he wouldn't spend that money until...he said he'd spend it only on the right things...”
“He doesn't have insurance, son. There's no money in his bank account. We've checked his house, and found only dollars. I'm sorry---”
The younger man, the one I know from somewhere, bursts into the room, plastering his stern face with a false smile.
“Dad, are you awake?”
I open my eyes, and look at him. Dad? This can't be my son...my son is just a boy...he's in the yard, right now. Playing with blocks...
“Dad, do you remember that sack of coins you saved? Where is it?”
I study him, the lines of his face, beneath his eyes...
Is this really my son? How could I have lived my entire life, barely even knowing he'd lived out there, too, somewhere? Did he have children? Was I a grandfather, perhaps? This couldn't be my so----
“Listen to me, dad.” He takes my hands, and stares me in the eye. His mothers eyes...i do remember them, now...just the faint memory of her blue, blue eyes...
“Dad, you're in the hospital. We need you to remember where you put that money. You can't afford this...”
I shake my head, looking my son in the eyes, trying to sort the countless years of my life in a single moment.
It's dizzying, life is. It's so, so hard to keep track of every minute. One second, you're lying on the grass, talking about your dreams with the love of your life. The next minute, she's gone, and she's left you with nothing more than her body. She took the light with her. The light you loved about her.
You'll be playing catch with your son, your knees still capable of holding you up. The next time you blink, you'll open your eyes to find yourself in the crowd of his wedding day. People he loves surround you...but you can only name few of them. Who are these people God's blessed you with? Why can't they stop talking, buzzing, screaming...tell them to quiet down. I can only handle so much...I'm getting dizzy....
“Dad? Dad...”
“A Penny for your thoughts, because fate doesn't make mistakes...”
I squeeze the hand of the son I once knew, and try to make him understand that no matter how hard I try, I can't see him. I can't focus on him...he's moving so fast...
“A penny for your thoughts, don't cry for me....”
“Stop moving, son. Slow down...slow down...”
“Dad, no! Not...don't..daddy, please...”
And I stroke his hand, a final time. I'm sorry I couldn't remember you until now. I wish I had more faith in my dreams, son...I love you...
And I let go, of my perch on this earth.
“A penny for your thoughts, Son...” And I hope he heard me. I hope he catches the coin I've thrown down to him. I hope he knows that's all we need, in this world.
Just pennies. Just wishes.

* * *

Heaven is warm, so don't bother bringing a jacket.
It is calm, and full of the perfect music. Make sure you bring open ears.
I met St. Peter at the Golden Gates, and he smiled at me. He asked me why I deserved a place in the holy choir, and I told him it was because it was fate, and fate never makes mistakes. I told him I belonged in heaven, because I understood he meaning of a dream. I understood that hope is everything.
And with a bow, he stepped aside.
A tipped him a penny. A penny for his thoughts.

Within the lapse of my first weightless step, I was enveloped in a lifetime of memories. I felt the arms of my wife, her arms around my neck. I felt my heart twist, the first time I held my child in my arms. I felt pain, and love, and joy, and sadness, and every feeling ever hatched.
And it was beautiful.
These moments were worth forgetting, I understand now. Because they mean so much more to me. They feel so much more substantial against my soul, as they press and they laugh...and I hug them close to me. So close...

* * *

And now, I sit down against the edges of the fountain I now know was always more than just a dream, surrounded by the people of my life on earth, with me now. Eternally.
Hughie is here, unscathed and dressed in the uniform of his glory days. He smiles, he laughs, the infectious laugh he only laughed in drunkenness on earth, but laughs forever now, in heaven.
My lovely wife is here, holding my hand. She is beautiful as the day I met her, and she smells gloriously of the whiskey on her wedding gown, on that day so many years ago.
Before us, stands the figure of a young man, not a day over sixteen. His hair sticks up in the back, and he smiles at a pleasure unknown to all but his own young heart.
“Thank you, Jacob, sir.” He says with a grin, addressing me. “It hurt more than I can ever describe, to watch my father crying for me. You're the only one who helped him to heal.”
And the boy, an everlasting glimmer of life in his eternally young eyes, hands me a penny.
“Just a penny, sir, for the thousands of other pennies you've spent saving souls on Earth.”
We smile, at the follies of humanity, of wishes, and we stare into the waters of the well.

* * *

In the water, mourners dressed in black gather around a simple, mahogany coffin. Some cry...but most of them smile, at the secrets of their memories.
I smile, too. I finally remember them. Each and every one of them.

One girl, in a long sweater stands to speak.
“My name is Leah.” She smiles, and drops a familiar penny into the coffin. “He gave me this on the one time we ever spoke. It was a brief meeting, in the square. But he helped me so much more than I'll ever be able to really understand.”
Her son, now a man, stands next to her, gazing down at me. I remember the time we spoke. He was younger, grungier. He didn't quite understand, then, what it meant to live. But I can tell that he does now. He looks happier.
Leah wraps her arm around her son, and after her, I am lulled back to Earth as hundreds of souls I knew approached the alter, dropping my pennies to the spaces next to me, thanking me for listening to them, when no one else would.
I watch, as faces I remember from all those interactions on the park bench flood back to me. Teenage girls, heartbroken, and saved by my pennies, my open ears.
Distraught mothers and fathers, consoled by my small expenses.
I never knew, then, what was happening.
A day after I met these people, I would forget them. I would forget their faces, but I would remember their stories, even though I'd forgotten everything else entirely. I would think they were nothing but imaginative dreams, stealing my soul in the depths of the night.
But instead, they were the stories of the 10,000 pennies I dispersed to various wanderers during my time on Earth. Even when I lost my mind, when I forgot everything, hundreds of people in the world remembered me. They remembered me as the man who saved them, with nothing but listening ears and a few coins.
They cost me nothing. I lost no money on behalf of these people.
No, I lost nothing...I gained everything. I gained stories I would remember, even when I forgot everything else.


And now, in heaven, surrounded by those most dear to me, I drop a final penny in to the well of wishing. It's a penny of thanks, thanks for the memories. For the full life I lived during my time there. It's a penny for the bottom of every wishing well in the entire world, reminding us that hope is the only answer. That a wish is worth more than anything else, and that fate, however, troubling, never makes mistakes.
It is a penny for the souls I've met, and for the souls I will now remember forever. They think I've helped them...but really, they're the only reason I lived as long as I did. They're the reason I hung on to the rungs of the latter of life for so long. The reason I still listened to my dreams, clinging, knowing they were the reason I was who I was.
This final, little thing I drop to Earth, to take my place in the world, when I've moved on...
Is nothing but a penny. Just a penny for your thoughts.