# A little piece to share



## e.Blackstar (May 2, 2006)

I wrote this last night, and I offer it for criticism.

Picture this
It's twenty years from now. I've finally grown my hair out again, and it's lying in raggedy waves on my shoulders. I'm wearing jeans and a communion-wafer shirt with hightops decades out of date. 

The empty bus station is soaked in pinkish-grey sunrise, its metal benches full of filth. The woman at the ticket counter is younger than she looks but older than she would like to be, and her lip curls sourly as I approach the window. I scan the list to find a destination suitably far away; I end up buying a forty-three dollar ticket to Indianapolis and sit down to wait.

Three hours later, with two more to go until my chariot arrives, a man walks in. The florescent lights make him look like a paper doll, all angles and shadows. He sits beside me, and I almost hope he starts a conversation just so I can punch someone for harassment. Instead, he stares out into the sky and murmurs a snippet of Emerson under his breath. 

_If the red slayer thinks he slays,
Or if the slain thinks he is slain,
They know not well the subtle ways
I keep, and pass, and turn again._

I watch him out of the corner of my left eye, and follow his movements as he raises a thumb and puts it in front of the sun, twisting this way and that as though grinding a baby ladybug into the pavement. He giggles like a three-year-old girl caught with her sister's doll, and doesn't flinch when I turn to him.
"Where are you going?" Now our roles are flipped, and I feel like a stalker, but he smiles.
"I don't know." He picks the dirt out from underneath a fingernail and flicks it away. "Where should I go?"
_Away_, I think, but I know I don't mean it. I'm not sure if he's expecting an answer, so I just stare, inspecting the faded piercing-holes in his right ear and wondering what the story behind each one is. He stares back, past towards the cracked concrete wall behind me. "So, who are you?" he asks.
I can't think of anything to say, even if I wanted to. "I'm just me."
"Good answer." He reaches over and pulls my bus ticket out of limp hands. He tears the slip of paper in half, and stands up, holding out a hand. "Come on."


----------



## HLGStrider (May 5, 2006)

I thought you were an anti-romantic? It's a well-written snippet.


----------



## e.Blackstar (May 5, 2006)

I am...how does that have bearing?
I'm glad you liked it.


----------

