I wake up with a start. Not again…
“Honey? What it is it?” I turn my head to see the beautiful outline of my wife. Although we are surrounded by the darkness of night, I can still tell she’s covered up to her neck in blankets and her head is upon an abundance of pillows. She’s fighting the sleep because she thinks she can help me. The Hill always casts a shadow. The sun peers through the thin gray clouds that are so common in Seattle, and every ray of light it casts, Beacon Hill selfishly catches, leaving the area behind it to the west, dense with gloom—a captive, forbidden to soak itself in gold.
On the Hill, innocent little similar-styled houses form this grid of a neighborhood—a neighborhood I live in, but never felt part of. The lawns weren’t usually manicured but the green waxy color it reflected made it look almost artificial. It’s summer and most kids are inside playing their video games, watching their individual TVs in the PJs they plan to wear until their parents announce they’re taking the family out to eat that night. Only the younger kids with their white, pink-tinted cheeks thrill themselves, riding their bikes where they shouldn’t—down the middle of the street where one or two gleaming SUVs will drive every ten minutes or so. Some parents will watch them from their porches, talking to the neighbors about school systems, traffic, and news of robberies in the neighborhood. The soggy floorboards creak underneath my feet as I walk down the pier, my fingers loosely intertwined with my dad’s sweaty hand. Frowning as I look at my flip flops, I wish I could just be barefoot. Why do there have to be rules about wearing shoes in places that are outside? It’s not like my feet are bothering anybody. I just want to feel the texture of the damp wood beneath my soles. I can easily take in the scenery: the yards of open pier ahead of me, the miles upon miles of ocean around me, the strip of beach below, and the shops sprawled out at my back. I can see all of these things, but my feet are currently blind to their beauty.
The hum of morning deafens the senses as I pulled back the heavy, desert-tan canvas door. Reds and browns danced in the air with a cool breeze futile against the already blazing sun. Smells of musk and defiled grey water filled my nostrils as I embarked upon my morning trek. Lips burned as my sandpapered tongue attempted to moisten. My body ached and creaked as it was propelled forward with hopes on mental reprieve.
I sat upon a makeshift bench of rejected two by fours and cinder blocks. The only company was another red-eyed sleep deprived soldier. He stood beyond the massive grey concrete walls in his modest wooden shack. Rifle slung across his chest, one in the chamber twenty-nine in the mag. Finger gently rested on the safety, ready to slip into fire or three round burst if there was any warrant for a cause. My rifle laid on my lap with the same standards of operations always in effect. All I’ve ever wanted was to be loved by Vera. I don’t know when exactly I realized this or when I fell for her, but I did. Not literally with the falling part—well, maybe a few times. Then again, I fall a lot. I’m sort of a klutz that way and other ways. I do a fairly decent job of not tripping over my own feet too much, if I do say so myself. Unfortunately, though, tables are a different story. I don’t think there’s been a day that’s gone by that I haven’t knocked something off of something somewhere sometime in the day. I’ve gotten better, though, if I think about it. If I don’t think about it, well, as I said, I’m sort of a klutz.
There she sat, at attention for the world’s viewing, sixteen years of age. Like a wind-up toy awaiting play time, she looked at the boys with apprehension for she knew and deeply understood their affections for her—their coveted imaginations dancing behind eyelids. She was the life of the party, stories circulating this way and that as if she had some dark secret hidden away inside her—like a treasure. She resembled other girls, tight curls, lips painted in ravishing reds, materials that hugged her body just so that they mimicked the touch of love she so desired. The girl found an opening that she could force herself through, standing, waiting for her crowd’s admiration, approval that never quite filled the void within her own heart. And each night she found pleasure in a man who she thought she knew—a man who was much like the others—a figure of momentary comfort, fleeting penetration.
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