Short Stories

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He sits in a lawn chair in front of his efficiency apartment. It has a small kitchenette and one room with a fold out sofa. An old color TV and a cramped bathroom with a garden hose duct taped to the bathtub faucet are enough. His homemade shower never seems to wash away the grime of his past mistakes and failures.
Most days he sits and rocks in his lawn chair. Staring at reruns in his head, imagining different outcomes. Most folks ignore the invisible man, just another loner watching time race. I know who he is though, I found him on the Internet. He was young, she was younger and they were in love, so it is said. Now he is alone, a social outcast, a misfit.

Down the street from the Invisible man a very young and frightened hispanic boy sleeps on a stained carpet with a room full of strangers. Six days in America and already he is working long grueling hours, with little sleep, little food and little pay. It is the waves of loneliness and fear that grip him and cause him to hang his head and cry. His monumental efforts to staunch the flow of tears are like a handful of sand thrown against a raging river. In his village he was considered a man yet in this vast city with living arteries and a pulse all its own, he is still a boy. His eyes betray the homesickness that eats at his soul.

A dozen houses up the street a mother of two slams the door on her SUV and roars out of the perfect driveway to her perfect home. She runs her kids everywhere, soccer, school, practice, ragged. Her husband is a myth, leaving early and arriving late, keeping the hounds of ridicule at bay. Echo's from the calloused hand of criticism have produced a toned and taut shell that brims with self-loathing and hate. Dignity and success whip her into submission as torment masquerades as confidence behind the thin veil of social grace. Her fickle circle of debutantes may give her the insincere nod of approval but the cruel taskmaster of obsession will never allow her to rest.

Across the street Father Time sits at the front of his garage. The door is always open and you can see inside, his tools, his toys, his past. It was just yesterday, a breath ago, that friends and neighbors would stop and chat for hours. His garage was a beehive of activity, burning the midnite oil weekend after weekend. There was always someone there, a friend, family, a neighbor, now most of them are gone. So he languishes, sitting like a skeleton in front of a giant coffin.

My own story remains unfinished, I watch from my porch and play. I feel their sadness, I see their loneliness and I hear their tears fall. My songs have shaded the street and held their hands. Optimism has carried notes of hope to vacant hearts and vacant homes over the years and I have believed. Hope for clarity and purpose, hope for vision and destiny, hope for peace and prosperity, hope for rest and contentment.

To all the lost souls on my street.

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