Coffee and Eggs
The girl poured milk into the warming pan and the stove watched it settle. She added two, and then three brown eggs. This morning, she was hungry. She used a fork to whisk and fold in spices and cheese. A wooden spoon nudged the eggs along, and kept them from burning forgotten on the edge. The chair in the corner sat the big white dog, her sad eyes drooping from lingering dreams. The room was content.
Strips of sun stretched across the walls and yawned. A mug of coffee and plate of yellow-orange peppered eggs shook the wooden table awake. She ate, and looked out the window. It was early, yet the cars passing along the road outside were already in a hurry.
When the mug was drained and the plate scraped clean, she placed them in the sink. The other dirty dishes served as a reminder of the days gone by, satisfied and empty at the same time.
The girl played “Life Goes On” by the Sundays from her phone, and opened the back door to the yard. The big, white dog’s eyes grew wings as she leapt from the chair and frolicked outside.
The girl scooped dry food into one bowl, and replaced the saliva-thickened water in the other with fresh flowing neatly from the tap.
She placed the bowls on the ground.
“Aurora!” she called outside. The sound of dried-out leaves brushing against the crispy breeze hung in the air like static. “Ror!”
She sighed and shoved her feet into running sneakers so their heels mashed upon their tongues. A slight scoop of food served as a rattling bribe in her hand as she walked outside.
“Aurora!” she shook the kibble and began to trace the perimeter of the angularly shaped yard. Behind the shed, across the side porch, through the greenhouse, and to the far corner where the cattle gate stood open like a cavernous mouth to an earth with no end.
She gazed down the yard’s throat and watched the cars rattle past like loose teeth.
Her lungs clenched onto her breath as if it would run away once let go.
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White Sneakers
The green aluminum floor did not shine as much as it dulled the room above it. The young woman shifted in her seat upon a metal folding chair and crossed one stiff leg over the other.
Decaf coffee with powdered creamer warmed the mug in her hands. The steam wafting up to her face made the rest of the room seem colder.
The clock on the wall reminded her of high school, which must have been the last time she was in a classroom. Yes, she remembered once she made sure. She dropped out of college two days into welcome week, before classes began.
Clocks like these, with the plain face and god-fathered numbers, were made to slow down the passage of time. How’d Vonnegut put it, a year passed and a minute would go by?
A woman twice her age sat across from her. The woman’s white running sneakers were the only color in the room not blunted by the floor’s hue. Brand new, snowy white Onn running sneakers fidgeting below age-spotted ankles and tan capri pants.
The young women stared at the perfectly white sneakers, and wondered when secrets were just lies.
Other people were in the room, and one by one they spoke. Too soon it was the young woman’s turn.
“My name is Leah,” she said. “And I’m an alcoholic.”
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River Walk
The river’s current flowed because it knew where to go. The girl walked along it’s edge because she didn’t.
Her black boots left footprints in the dry dirt. Months of frost had drained the ground of any green. She didn’t care to notice.
Because that’s how it was, wasn’t it? Seeing only what you wanted to see, going only where you wanted to go. Some part of her knew, it wasn’t so bad, walking here. There were much worse places to go. The worst was to know where you wanted to go, for then you’d be a fool not to.
She sat beside the water, her thick jeans softening the bedrock seat. The city skyline was behind her. Its sharp lights dove daggers into her back.
Staring into the murky water, she laughed. Come all this way, and here she still was. Sitting by rivers, staring into nothing, looking for truths she already knew, but could not bear to grasp.
“Walk home with me,” he’d said. “We can take the river path.”
She remembered a tree in the yard of her childhood home, gnarled branches haunting a forlorn trunk. The last time she went home, as an adult, the tree was gone. A leftover circle of mulch marked its’ spot.
“The roots were rotting,” her mom said. “It had to go.”
The girl hadn’t walked home with him that night. She left the party without saying goodbye.
The boy walked home with another girl. They took the river path.
A few days later, the days of frost began.
The girl stood up from her stone seat, and fell into the river’s step. As her tears wet the dirt and begged the grass to turn green, she whispered to herself, over and over again.
It was better this way.
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