Short Stories

The night was a cool 61 degrees, much more comfortable than the 95 plus of the daytime. Liam was at his campsite in rural southeastern Utah, about 100 miles east of St. George. He started a campfire, cooked some corn, and then found himself in the comfort of his tent as he stares directly overhead to the stars above. Earlier that day, Liam hiked 3 miles up and back from the top of Angels Landing, a popular vista at Zion National park. There’s this achiness that one feels after a long strenuous day of hiking. Legs begin to give off this minuscule, subtle, vibration. Liam was at that point zipped up in his sleeping bag, the fire was already out and the red glow was almost completely faded from the coals. The stars felt closer, they felt as if you could almost see the tips of the flames fluttering outward, even through the fine mesh of the tent roof.

“This is such a starkly different way of experiencing the world.” Liam uttered to himself in a soft, whispery voice. “Out here, you can’t hear the constant hiss of the highway traffic off in the distance, the occasional hot rod ripping it down main street, you can’t see the orange glaze covering the blackness of the sky.”

The moon was in a new phase and that almost removed the last of the light pollution. The stars were bring enough that you could just barely make out the milky way. This silver smokey clouds swirling beyond the stars drove home a feeling of insignificance unlike any other. In almost any direction upward, those burning lights are trillions and trillions of miles away. As the milky way slowly rose over the side of the red canyon, now as black as the edges of a movie theater, Liam felt his reference point change. Instead of watching the stars rising, he felt as if he could feel the earth turning.

As a child, Liam often rode the UFO at the county fair where he grew up. The UFO was setup with seats all around in a circle, where you laid down on an incline of a large disk that everyone sat around and the disk spun fast enough to cause the riders to lose the feeling of gravity. There’s this confusion in the beginning as the body attempts to reconcile the visuals the eyes are seeing and the feeling the inner ear gives as the forces shift. Often times this is what causes seasickness, stationary surroundings with shifting directions of gravity. However, Liam was doing ok. Instead of standing against a wall with a pad, his brain quickly felt as if he was laying on his back. There were these moments in the ride when the light from the outside of the ride would would bleed in through cracks and would break the illusion. Liam could then make out the speed that they were spinning and then orient himself directionally. In that brief moment, Liam’s senses felt as if it were moving to a truer form of reality, one beyond the edges of his current enclosure. The only thing he could make out was direction, but it was enough to break the illusion of the ride. In the same way as a he spun on the UFO ride and as as if he was walking out of plato’s cave, Liam felt as if the stars in the sky were just enough to break the illusion of the ride, to give him the feeling that something was beyond his newer, more vast enclosure. The meetings on data retention policies, change management procedures, and risk data flow diagrams that bugged Liam in the previous week suddenly felt idiotically meaningless. This felt like the few and far between moments of gasping for air above water if you found yourself living your whole life below it.

A few weeks ago, Liam got the idea from camping in the desert from his father John.
“You see…things in the desert.” John said, faintly suggesting in the supernatural sense. “Things visit you, and sometimes, you end up meeting yourself.”
But it was never about seeing other things, it was enough to just experience more of just what was there. Little did Liam know that sometimes those things are sometimes both one and the same, but when you can’t tell, does it even matter?

It was in that moment that as Liam stared off through almost infinite distances to the twinkling fireballs beyond, that the twinkles of a couple stars looked less like fluttering, and more like jiggling. After a few moments of squinting, jiggling became a word not fit to describe them, swaying more now. Liam questioned if perhaps a slight breeze is pushing on the fine net at the top of his tent, partially distorting his view. Despite lowering temperatures, his sleeping bag kept him warm enough to sleep with the entire tent top off, except for the mosquito net and support rods. As his view adjusted to asses the entire sky, he quickly remembered that he was in the floor of a canyon, and the tips of the trees were as still as glass. The single star in question wasn’t the only thing swaying slowly in the sky. Now, most of the stars were swaying slowly back and forth. Enough to where Liam couldn’t orient the spinning of the world anymore. Like the tips of foam on each tiny break in the water to make up a giant wave sloshing back and forth, were the stars now almost all moving in unison back and forth, but not perfectly. Still giving each star a little variance to break any sort of uniformity.

The stars were now swaying in differing directions, up and down, back and forth, against each other and apart, taking up almost all of Liam’s field of view. Occasionally, a couple or a few would appear to be locked and moving in unison for a brief moment. This gave off the appearance of negative shapes or a plane, as if all the stars are just small reference points of a much larger picture or shape. Suddenly, the stars in the middle of the sky appeared to lock in place as the rest continued to move. The shape produced was a rectangle with a wider bottom than top. One by one more stars began to freeze and naturally grew the lines created by the frozen dots of light.

“A bridge.” Liam confusedly uttered under his breath. “A city? A bridge toward a city!” Liam gasped as he could finally make out the image.

The stars were all frozen in place and in the negative space was a bridge starting at him ending directly straight up in the sky toward a city. Liam was on his back, but the picture in the stars made him feel as if he was standing upright. As his eyes wandered, he could make out the large spires, buildings it seems. The twinkle of their edges were all made up of stars. The buildings didn’t look futuristic or ridged, but as if they were natural crystalline formations giving off an ambient jade green light. All building from the outward in, grow in height sporadically to a central point at the center of a city. The white stars somehow made it seems like the city was a mountain of intricate green glass. One that was overwhelmingly busy, teeming with life.

Liam was able to make out the railings of the bridge, accented swirls of metal around each intersection. Borderline elvishly Tolkien in its aesthetic going on for a few miles directly toward the city. Just as he pondered if he could step out on the bridge, the stars instantly all broke apart, completely dissolving the image of the city. As if the stars were a school of fish suddenly spooked by a predator, suddenly shifting and swirling around in the sky in a uniform contour.

Before he even had the time to ask himself what he just saw, Liam began to watch the swirling stars and felt an odd, but deep connection to them. As if they were a hive mind of fireflies connected to some much larger, sentient being. A being that is reaching outward from itself down deep into Liam. He could feel as if a new plane of communication opened up that made his voice and ears obsolete. It was similar to still having a landline, but all communication is done over the internet, Liam felt like he could communicate over feelings. Nothing lost in translation, completely perfect 1:1 transportation of thought.

“God?” Liam asks in his head, “Is that you?”

Liam has been disillusioned by religion over the past few years, but at the very core of his being, there was still something there. Spiritually, he felt like a political refugee, unable to go back and unable to go anywhere else. The continuous waves crashing against the ship of his own spirituality over the distance he’s traveled has made him feel far more mentally exhausted rather than spiritually rewarded. It wasn’t till about a year ago that he let everything go completely, only to wait and see if something ever returned to him, but nothing ever did.

It felt to Liam as though the stars responded to his silent call, bouncing from their movement into a new and different direction. Aligning to slowly create the shape of a triangle, then slowly clarifying, but also complicating and expounding the shape into a face. Lips, eyebrows, cheeks, all coming into view. No irises or pupils in the eyes, all empty space filled with only the furthest, faintest background of the smokey universe.

The face was feminine, the angled cheeks combined with the eyes and lips were all giving the face features of an African woman. The stars above the face were either braids of hair or a doek or duku, a traditional African headscarf many women wear. Liam stared upwards in silent awe as his entire field of view was filled with this giant face.

“Is it you?” Liam felt.

Suddenly, the stars giving the contours of the lips started to move and stretch, the face now was smiling, but still completely silent. Liam felt like an infant, swaddled in a crib with his mothe, god’s warm love emanating downward. Everything that Liam saw before him, what he felt, was a fly in the eye of everything he thought he knew, but only a foolish man would stand in the rain and claim that he read somewhere that it wasn’t.

The face was gone, the stars were now swirling in a symmetrical, kaleidoscopic pattern. The stars slowly morphed into small, wiggling, bioluminescent fish. They were swimming around in symmetrical patterns as bigger fish followed each one individually, swallowing each one up, one by one. The even bigger fish appeared, followed, and swallowed the next fish so on and so forth. Liam felt a little dizzy, his eyes were following so many things morphing so fast that his mind didn’t have the opportunity to catch up. So he turned his head and looked to the left, out of his tent when his eyes spot a tree only a few feet from the side of his tent.

The tree next to his tent was a single-leaf pinyon, a type of pine tree, but it didn’t resemble a tighter pine that many are more familiar with at Christmas time. This pine had more traditional tree branches that spread much wider at its base and reached upward, making the shape of a tree almost like a wide egg. The tree wasn’t densely packed either, you could easily see through the tree if one was so inclined. However, this tree was odd because scattered throughout, from the top to the bottom were all various types of human faces. Liam immediately recognized that these faces all belonged to people who are dead.

Men, women, children, of all various expressions, each as distinct as a personality. Liam didn’t recognize the people, but he could tell what most of them were. Some faces, however were disfigured, bloodied, and a some even had torturous expressions that conveyed excruciating pain. Not only from their appearance, but over feeling, Liam could feel them all as dead, but nonetheless all staring at him as if they were all standing next to his tent.

Liam immediately closed his eyes as he felt as if Ice water coursed through his veins. His mind thought about jumping out of his sleeping bag and running as fast as he could in the opposite direction, but some odd feeling kept him right there. His heart felt like it was was beating a hundred miles an hour as he opened his eyes back to the faces in silence. Breathing heavily, his eyes wandered to each one, examining them all a little closer. He was disturbed when he came across one that appeared to be completely missing skin. He wondered if these faces are how they all appeared when all these people died. If so, then this face was a person who was tortured to death.

People die, painful and excruciating deaths all the time, but rarely do any of us ever find ourselves in the situation of staring at it in the eyes. The fear that Liam had began to be replaced by sorrow.

“There is so much unknown pain.” Liam spoke verbally in a soft tone to all of the faces on the tree. “So many people die, die painful deaths and their voice is nothing more than a distant echo. Their suffering, their story is nothing but a drop in an ocean, rippling off to nothing. So many people are forgotten.”

Based on his statement, some of the faces changed their expression. Some of the more sad or angry faces shifted into a more pleased ones.

“Sometimes, the only thing people seek is just a little acknowledgment. A glace, a wave, a nod, I’m here, and so are you.” Liam uttered. “You’re here all the time.”

Liam felt like the world peeled back and there was only a film of saran wrap separating the himself from what was beyond. This felt like a grandiose version of placing your hand against a glass pane and letting someone align their hands with yours. Seeing all the subtle differences between each other, this is my hand, and that is yours. The faces never spoke, but Liam could feel them, and right now he could feel that these faces and so many others are always present, but in a different way. This caused him to think of something a little humorous.

“So does everyone see me when I’m in the shower or jerking off?” Liam asked with a grin. “It’s an honest question.”

Many of the faces turned to smile and what appears to be laughter as Liam could feel their response. It doesn’t exactly work like surveillance, but the present nature of the dead was one more along the lines of solidarity of being. Like when you’re driving in a snowstorm when there’s snow fully covering the road and you see you’re following another single set of tracks. Or when you walk into a room that someone just left and you can just barely feel the warmth their body heat brought to the room. Like hearing coyotes howl to the moon in the distance, you then know that something else is here, and something else is there. This caused Liam to think of another question.

“Am I doing what’s right? Liam pleaded “I’m always worried that I’m headed into the completely wrong direction in life. I’m scared i’m not living up to my potential. I’m a dud when everyone else is exploding beautifully.”

Everything is fine, Liam felt as a mental weight falls off of his shoulders. He was always worried that there was a moment earlier in his life where the universe fell off kilter and he was like an astronaut thrown from a ship in deep space. Hurling aimlessly, helplessly into the dark, never being able to get back to the ship. Everything he thought, didn’t match up with how he felt, because felt good. He felt like he was being told, everything is ok.

With tears in his eyes Liam asks, “I’m talking to this girl.” As he cracks a smile. “Should I move forward with her or take a hike?”

Liam was honest and did what he felt anyone would do if given the opportunity to consult omnipresent wisdom, indulge a little. There was a face that caught his eye, one accented by wrinkles. It looks like it’s an older woman, 70s or 80s perhaps. For a minute Liam felt like it could have been his late grandmother, but it wasn’t. Although based on her face, he felt as if she were equally as warm. Liam missed his grandmother, she and many grandmothers have this unique warmth about them. It’s a feeling easy to miss until they’re gone. A baking brownies on a summer day and her letting you lick the spoon kind of feeling. Like the hugs that felt like nothing could ever bad happen kind of feeling. The times she calls you sugar kind of feeling. A reminder that the story you are a part of goes back a lot further than you remember kind of feeling. Liam hasn’t felt it since, but he feels it now. Her face changed, it was in response to his question.

She gave him this big warm smile, but the feeling. The feeling was one of a thousand words and a million moments of possibilities swirled into a vortex and fired out of a fire hose. If emotions all have a temperature equivalent ranging from hot to cold, this felt more like a texture. Something completely different, smooth, course, fluffy, or even sticky. So much more information condensed into a flash of light. Like experiencing an infinite number of lifetimes in a single moment.

“Thank you…For everything.” Liam says.

Liam didn’t realize that it’s been a few hours and it won’t be long now until the sun comes up. With one final nod that’s returned by many in the tree of 100 dead faces, Liam rolls over and begins to drift off asleep knowing full well who’s always there, and in some unique way, that kept him feeling warm.

This is a short story I wrote in high school in 2007. I found it on one of my old backups and decided to post in on my blog, enjoy. – Logan

Thomas Harper found himself tracing the unique, tile layout on the floor with his eyes, anything to try to keep his mind off the matter at hand.  Allowing his gaze to wander freely cost him his peace of mind, because the reminders where everywhere.  Signs for cardiology, radiology, oncology, and nuclear medicine were all daunting reminders that he was in a hospital, and healthy people don’t come to hospitals.  He was standing outside the waiting room, he could see his wife and two of his sons through the glass window sitting inside.  Like a lightning bolt of distress, it hit him, he noticed the uneasiness and anxiety on their faces.  He turned to the opposite direction and began to quickly walk down the hallway, almost attempting to escape a personal tsunami of accountability raging behind him.  He began to notice during his walk that all the nurses, patrons, and doctors seemed to ignore him, which was perfectly fine for him at that moment.

He didn’t want to be bothered, he was overwhelmed with stress and his mind was racing a hundred miles an hour.  Although, he did get some awkward feeling of solace when he examined the expressions of everyone he passed.  He wondered what perils they are currently under, if perhaps their face showed a sign.  A sign of the substantial strain they were all under, from of being pulled too far apart, from being stretched too thin.

Before Thomas’ mind wrapped up the loose ends of the rope of desperate wonderment, he found himself standing in the main lobby of the hospital.  The lobby was fitted with two gigantic pane glass windows that allowed the entire area to be lit by bright, natural sunlight.  Thomas could feel the warmth of the light, he could feel the calming sensation in contrast to the cold florescent ones in the hallway behind him.

This is where people healthy people leave the hospital. He thought to himself.

The generic white walls covered in flat white pain in the lobby had a slight greenish hue from the reflection of grass outside.  Thomas felt drawn to the free flowing environment outside, away from the sterile malice of this fortress.  Thomas closed his eyes and walked through the door, he felt such a soothing feeling of relief as the sudden breeze began to tug at the hairs on his arms and face as he crossed the threshold.  Standing right outside of the doors to the hospital, Thomas noticed a small walking path covered in pebbles that lead to his right along the side of the hospital.  As his feet followed it, he noticed it led into a small little park on the far corner of the hospital with a fountain area with flowerbeds lining the walkways.  Along the path were trees, bushes, and little sculptures that made the entire aesthetic simple and beautiful.  Thomas felt inclined to follow the path, so he did.  Each step was therapeutic for him, he was beginning to notice the subtleties of nature and the abundance of life around him. The sound of birds, the rustle of trees, everything felt alive. He saw that there were a couple other scattered people keeping to themselves, a jogger and an old man sitting far off on one of the benches.

Thomas made his way to the fountain area and sat down on a molded concrete bench all by himself centered in front of the large fountain.  He enjoyed the seclusion, the hissing sounds of the wind agitating the trees was always so peaceful to him.  That combined with the passionate songs sung by the birds almost completely drained out the sound of the ambulance arriving at the other side of the hospital.  That muffled sound of the ambulance being overcome the sound of nature was almost perfectly in unison with his worries overcoming his hope.  He was brought back to reality by finally understanding the reason of this little place of solace.

This is probably where some people come to accept death. He thought to himself.

Thomas tried to imagine what one must have to do in order to face mortality. Standing on the fringe of the afterlife, surrounded by bleak, pale, unsaturated surroundings may add a little emphasis to their imagination.  Thomas began to let all concerns and worries slip away as he took in the environment, accepted it, as if his consciousness was plugged in directly to the tranquility of this little park.

“You still carry yourself the same. Your head sticks out of your shoulders as if you’re a turtle poking his head out of a shell.” A voice rung out and broke the silence.

Brought back to the present by the random voice, Thomas jerked forward as as if he was just awoken from a nap.  The anonymous old man he saw earlier seemed to have moved from a bench from down the path, to directly across from Thomas on the other side of the fountain.  Just as Thomas began to question whether or not this old man was following him or if he was a distant acquaintance just the old man raised his hand and motioned for him to come over.

Answering the call with a slow determined groan, Thomas contracted his muscles, stood up and slowly began to walk around the fountain toward the unknown man.  With every step that Thomas made, the subtle grind of the pebbles broke the awkward silence of unfamiliarity.  Little by little, Thomas’ view of the man slowly came into focus, but still the man was unidentifiable.  He wore denim overalls with a white undershirt, his hair was black with small dashes of silver peppered throughout and parted messily. He stared back at Thomas with thick horned rimmed glasses, but took them off and stood as Thomas approached.  He appeared to be in his fifties and judging by his weathered, leathery skin, this old man had a distinguished roughness about him.

“It’s been a long time, boy.” The old man said.

Thomas stared silently confused at first because he felt an awkward sense of familiarity with this old man.  As if he forgot an old conversation he was supposed to. He should know him but, there seems to be a disconnect. Slowly, Thomas’ eyes widened as he began to recognize this stranger. It occurred to Thomas in a few moments that he was standing face to face with his father, Jeff Harper.

“…Dad.” Thomas said with a sighful voice of acceptance.
“Thomas.” Jeff said back with a smile “It’s been a while hasn’t it.”
The hair on Thomas head began to stand on end as he asked with a palpable disdain. “But how?  Why are you even here?” Thomas inquired with a shocked voice of perplexion.
“I don’t know, I just found myself here In the heat of the moment I guess. Might as well check onhow you’re doing. Jesus boy, I expected a little more enthusiasm out of you. It almost feels like you almost forgot where you came from.” Jeff calmly sneered.

Just then, Thomas stepped around to break up the rigid pose he found himself in, all while maintaining eye contact as he said.  “But I do, I do remember exactly where I came from.”
With a noticeable shift in tone, Jeff could feel Thomas’ contempt. Jeff stepped forward face to face with Thomas and sternly said, “Is that right?  So where did you sleep?” And without letting Thomas respond, he continued. “Did you have food in your belly? Were you warm? Yeah? How many times did you have to sleep under highway 210? None.  So don’t try and gloss over the fact that the only reason you’re breathing right now, the only reason you’ve made it this far is because I made sure you could.”

Thomas stood there in silence, looking up at his father who stood a few inches taller than him. Perpetuating this feeling that his father was a mountain he couldn’t climb over yet, as if it would always be in his way and his whole life, even if he turned away, it would still cast a shadow over him.  Deep down inside of him, Thomas felt something give away, his worry, his anger, all stored up in a container was now emptying. Given the circumstances, Thomas stopped caring anymore, he had nothing to lose and burning a bridge with his father was trivial at this point. Thomas felt the almost limitless ocean of emotions he swam in as a child and teenager come back. Thomas indeed remembered where he came from and replied, “Yes, I remember.” Thomas continued with a sober, calm, but passionate tone in his voice. “I remember where I slept. In my bed as early as I could, because I wanted to be asleep before my father would come home from work. Is tonight the night he drinks a little too much and decides to see how tough his son is? Food? Yeah I had food in my belly, It was full of spoonfuls of peanut butter because there was nothing else in the kitchen.  Yes, I was warm, I had about 6 blankets on my bed and slept in my sweat pants because the heat was always shut off.  I peed in water bottles in my room, partially because the water was cut off sometimes, but mostly because I didn’t want to leave my room and run into you.

Remember Kevin Chauser? Who am I kidding, obviously you don’t. Well, back when I wanted to join T-ball, him and his dad picked me up for the first couple days of practice. When I arrived all the other kids’ dads were there assisting. I was mesmerized, I couldn’t even fathom what it would be like to have a dad who actually gave a shit.  I could feel their stares at me, where’s Tommy’s dad? Oh he’s at home sitting on a lazyboy strung out on something.”

The silence was deafening, it almost made the trickle of the fountain sound more like raging rapids. Thomas was now looking at a different man the he was moments earlier, a different man the he grew up with, but he wasn’t sure if it was his father who changed based on what he just said, or perhaps Thomas felt changed for saying it, but he continued, “And then you were gone, as much of a relief it was. you ran off somewhere and we had to move out because mom couldn’t afford the rent.  We had to sleep on the floor grandma and grandpa’s living room.  It took a few years, but we finally mustered the ability to find a rickety shack to live in, but there wasn’t enough room, so mom always slept on the living room couch the whole time.”

It seemed as if the years of Thomas’ life was finally concentrating to a single point in his brain awaiting to be pulled out and discarded into the trash can.

“Kids my age didn’t understand at first.  After a while they did though, probably when the went home and asked their parents why Tommy’s dad was never around.”

Jeff’s eyes began to slowly point downward, just as Thomas reminded him, ” Look at me in the eyes dad. You come back now and not have even the slightest clue of the damage you left in your wake? I want you to know. I want you know how many times I wondered, what was wrong with me? Why else would my own father refuse to be in my life?”

Jeff’s stared back into Thomas’ stern gaze, softly said, “Thomas…please.”

With emotion showing in his face, Thomas angrily continued. “No.  I was a kid! You know what its like to constantly have that itch in the back of your mind? Where’s dad at? Because after a while, I didn’t care if you came home.   And after you finally died, I noticed that there was suddenly peace.  I didn’t have that constant worry in my head that you would come back and somehow wreck my life again, I just got used to you being out of it.  When a 40 year old man dies, people always wonder, and they always ask why? No, it wasn’t a heart attack, it wasn’t some tragic car wreck, it was a mountain of pills.  Hey everyone, that’s the mantle I stood under.  That’s the name that I have, Harper… Jesus Christ…I wish you were different, I wish you were like all of my friends’ dads.”

“…So did I.” Jeff replied with glassy eyes filled with the tears of a lifetime.

With such a small statement, Thomas felt everything collapse within him, all the anger, all the pain. It wasn’t fixed, it wasn’t healed, but it was finally acknowledged by the man who caused it.

“Thomas, I’m sorry for allowing myself to become ensnared by things.  I never truly wanted any of those things to happen, but to be honest, I felt powerless against it. I felt like no matter how hard I tried there was some handcuff attached to me pulling me to a place I never wanted to go.  I never felt normal because I felt this emptiness, like pins and needles in the back of my neck. They would only go away when I was high. I only felt normal when I was high. I thought I was managing it, but it ended up destroying me and I missed out on what would have been the best part of my life. “

“I’ve had such a shadow hanging over me.” Thomas said. “I feel like my whole life has been just a challenge not to repeat my father’s mistakes.  I’ve held in such a bitterness about you. The envy of my peers ate at me.  Their 16th birthdays were filled with new cars and happiness, while mine was working in the kitchen of a Cici’s pizza. It’s been this unquenchable bitterness my whole life. I’ve never been happy with myself about that, and it wasn’t till I was an adult that I started to understand the nature of addiction.”

Thomas slowly, but forcefully breathed in the air in a way he’s never breathed in before.  As if he just emerged from the ocean moments away from drowning. As if to remove a jacket of malevolence, Thomas stared intently into the glassy, tearful eyes of his dead father from the welling eyes of his own and felt a sense of closure for the first time in his life.

“Tommy…You were the best thing that ever happened to me and I wished I could go back and right my wrongs, but I can’t… I’m getting exactly what I deserve, I just don’t want you to hate me.”

“Dad…” Thomas musters through a broken emotional voice. “I don’t hate you.”

Thomas and his father both step forward at the same time and hug each other.  Jeff says, “You’re a better father than I ever was.  You’re going to be fine once this is all over.  In the meantime, I believe it finally time for me to get out of here.”

Thomas stood quietly with tears in his eyes as he watched his father peacefully walk toward the bright horizon at the edge of the garden, the bloom of the brightness slowly engulfed him as he disappeared into the light with his right hand raised as a signal of goodbye.

Thomas sat back down on the bench that faced the fountain.  He gazed forward at the water being shot upward from the jets, following parabolic paths downward and splashing against the surface of the pond. The water doesn’t choose where it goes, it doesn’t pick where it splashes. In midair, the water doesn’t make a sharp turn or decide it wants to go back into the jet, it follows the forces around it.  Thomas felt like a droplet of water, spewed into his life as a child.  He never chose his parents, his home, or even his country of birth, but was spewed into it nonetheless.  With every drop of water shooting into the sky, there is always one before and one after.  The way a drop of water hit the pond always altered the way the next one hit, then the next one, and then the next. It seems oddly ironic, that we are so fascinated with things that we have no control over that we end up ignoring the things where we do.

Thomas felt a stoic feeling of warmth around him, as if an emotional loose end has finally been tied down, a thorn in his side was finally gone.  Thomas stood up and began to walk back to the hospital, but this time he used a different route.  Thomas cut off of the gravel path and began heading into the grass heading directly for the exterior brick walls of the hospital.  Thomas stopped short of the wall by about a foot, staring intently through the window at eye level.  Thomas turns and starts walking along the brick wall, peering through every window he passes slowly while avoiding the large bushes placed almost directly against the brick wall.  Thomas eventually gets to a window that he is satisfied with, the interior is a patient’s room.  He doesn’t know the patient, but remember’s the location.  Standing inches outside the window, he calmly steps his left foot forward toward the brick and walks forward.  The brick wall accepts his foot without resistance as if it’s a silk curtain, he takes another step further into the wall as his body begins to be slowly engulfed peacefully by it.   Taking another step, Thomas’ left foot finally lands firmly onto the linoleum of the patient’s room.  Thomas is now walking at a regular pace, taking no effort to avoid the tables, chairs, and even the patient’s bed, walking straight through them without any resistance.  Exiting the patient’s room Thomas makes a quick left and begins to head down the hallway.

Thomas is walking with a new fearlessness as he rounds the corner to cardiology. As if he was completely oblivious to his surroundings, Thomas brushes up against doctors, and nurse carts, and visitors as his body passes through as if his composition was made up of nothing but smoke.  Thomas spots the words “Cardiology” lining the top of a set of double doors, he found his destination.  Stepping through the doors, Thomas made an abrupt left and stood outside operating room #1. As he stepped forward and walked through the double doors without making any impact. Thomas stared over his own body as the surgeons busily operated on his heart.