The Multiple Stories of Balloons, Pencils and Pillows.

I.  He lies awake in his bed, head cushioned softly atop his pillow, staring drearily at his ceiling.  Above him floats several balloons from his 30th birthday party from that day, a slowly rotating ceiling fan and a spider so timidly crawling from one side of the room to where he now lies.  He became so incredibly anxious now, with his life flashing forward quicker than he could ever imagine and having no worthy accomplishments to show for it.  "Thirty," he kept repeating in his head.  "Thirty short, short years.  And in another I am sixty."  The spider timidly walks towards the man, who is staring directly at it unfazed, and starts to spin a web to drop down towards his face.  "How did I become this old?" he reflects, still staring at the dropping spider.  "Look at him, so majestic and strong.  Building and constructing his dreams, his hopes and his strength.  And he is probably not even a few months old."  The spider continues to trickle down, forcing the man to finally gets out of bed as he notices how close the spider is getting to his face.  He grabs a pencil from his desk and places it right below the spider who gently lands on it.  With pencil in hand, he walks it to the front door and tosses it out into the bushes.  He walks back to his bed, puts his head on his pillow and looks at his 30th balloons dangling closer to the fan.  "Thirty..." he whispers as one of the balloons hits a fan blade and pops.

II. "Pencils down," the proctor says, with all of the students exhausted from the exam.  Terry, a straight A student, puts down his pencil and waits for the test to be collected.  "I'm sure you all did a great job and you worked really hard for this," the proctor says as she collects their papers.  When everything is collected, the students are instructed to leave and not discuss the test.  Terry walks out of the exam and hops on his bike to go home.  He contemplates some of the questions in his own head, still not satisfied with some of his answers.  Becoming increasingly depressed, he parks his bike in front of his house and walks into his house.  "SURPRISE!" a burst of excitement and balloons fill the room, as Terry looks nonplus.  "You did it sweetie!  You took the exam!" Terry's mother says.  "Yes, but I do not even know if I passed..." he retorts.  His mother, completely delirious with enthusiasm, pulls out a cake from the kitchen.  Still befuddled and slightly agitated, he yells, "Mother, I just want to go to sleep now!  Leave me alone!"  His mother, still excessively proud, runs into his room and grabs a pillow and hands it to Terry.  "Here is a pillow, rest your head on that couch over there but you are not leaving this party."  He reluctantly obliges as the rest of the guests cut into his celebratory cake.

III.  The light flickered on, and I, with nothing but the clothes I was wearing, sat in immense confusion about what had just happened.  I was walking my dog Sir Barks-A-Lot in the park when he ripped the leash out of my hand and then my memory goes incredibly fuzzy.  And then I woke up, sitting in a room full of pillows with no idea what to do.  The room was completely and entirely covered in pillows like some insane asylum, except there were no doors.  It was just me in a room of pillows.  I figured I was doomed to this until I had no energy, since I was not left food nor water.  I looked up for a second to realize there was a balloon floating close to the ceiling.  There seemed to be an object inside of it, but the balloon was too opaque that I had no clue as to what it could be.  Immediately, with my stomach growling, I thought it was food and quickly tried to get whatever I could to get the balloon.  The pillows however were firmly cemented to the wall and there was no way to rip them off or use them to my advantage.  So I sat back and looked at the balloon taunting me with its height, and began to figure out what could possibly be done to obtain it.  I feared, too, that this could all just be a diversion and really nothing beneficial would come out of the balloon, but I had no other option at that point.  So I jumped, climbed and screamed to try to get the balloon but to no avail.  I threw my clothes at it but nothing knocked it out of its high and mighty place.  Finally, out of what I believe to be sheer luck, my shoe hit the balloon in such a way that the pencil inside of it popped the balloon from inside out.  Then I realized, I just spent so much time trying to get a pencil out of a balloon.  I began cursing when a piece of paper also followed the balloon.  I looked at the piece of paper trying to see if there was any clues as to what I can do to get out of this room.  It was just a simple white piece of paper, just like the white pillows that filled the room, and I sat down and wrote this story.

IV. She smiled, looking into his tired smile filled with hope and optimism, seeing their wedding day coming up in a few days... and he slept, drooling uncontrollably.  She woke up early and concocted a breakfast for him, still sleeping.  It was a simple breakfast; bacon like pencils, rigid, slightly burnt and thin; two eggs with yolks like balloons filling up the plate; and a glass of milk as white as the pillow he was drooling on.  She smiled and went back to bed to hug her future husband.  When they both awoke, he rolled over, looked at her and said, "If I could write you a love letter I would, and throw you a party write after and finally end up in this bed, I would..." and she became confused, "but we have no bacon anymore and it is hard to pay this rent, and then we want to have children right after?  I think we spilled the milk here, and I am unsure if we can clean it all up and marry."  She was in a bewildered state, barely awake and upset at what was just said.  "You didn't need to write me anything or inflate my ego or comfort me when I go to sleep... you just needed to say I do..."  and she sat, sobbing uncontrollably.

Dinner

"Pass the salt please," a young man of about twenty-four asks from across the table. His eyes piercing green with a muscular physique obtained from five to six days a week at the gym, for three to four hours a session nonetheless. He is a model starting out his career which had the potential of going for years. He is the cliché "everyone wanted to either be with him or just be him" deal. His grandfather is the opposite, a rather frail old man who always claims to be eighty-five years young and never had charmingly good looks throughout any portion of his long life. He married a while back to a rather plain woman, but they were happily married for fifty-three years until she passed away.

The grandfather stares wearily back at his grandson and, while shaking, slowly reaches for the salt to pass along. The grandson smiles and waits, although mentally cursing out his grandfather's pace... "fucking slow ass MOVEEEEE." The grandson would not even be there if not for the duress of his mother, but he sits there forcing a smile as his grandfather takes his time passing the salt. The two have little to converse about either, even though the grandfather has been through several wars and experiences that the grandson could never even imagine having happened; yet the second hand on the clock is more loquacious than they are.

"Thanks," the grandson utters while barely looking at his grandfather. He pours a little on his french fries while texting his friend about plans for after this dinner with someone who he has been interested in for about a month now.

"What are you doing?" the grandfather inquires.
"Texting," the grandson responds.
"I miss when you actually had to walk to your friend's house to do that," is the response, rather predictably.
"Yeah well now we have phones gramps."
"You don't even look at me anymore though."
"I am right now!" his voice becomes a little louder.
"Don't you want to learn more about where you came from."
"No, I want to learn about where I am going, more specifically in the next hour after this."

The two become increasingly louder with each other. The grandfather though, realizing he will lose and fatigue easily, decides to concede the debate over to his younger counterpart. The grandson continues to text while the grandfather continued to eat his meal. Time slowly passes by when finally the two both finish their meal in silence.

"Well this has been fun gramps, but I am going to head out." the grandson says.
"It was nice seeing you," ironic in sentiment, responds his grandfather.

The grandson walks out the door and into his car. He calls his friend on the phone and starts the ignition.

"Hey yeah, I am finally out of that hellhole, I can be over your place and you're alone right?..."

As he begins to drive, the conversation between him and his friend continues about what they plan on doing with a free house without roommates. The two have been trying to hook up for weeks now and this is their first free moment between them. Although they have not been dating, the two have been more or less anticipating that would be the outcome of all of this. He hops on the freeway and speeds quickly and begins to merge.

"I cannot wait there are so many things I want to do to you..."

As he finishes the word, he quickly jets back and forth between traffic but misjudges the speed of one car, clips it and begins tumbling rapidly towards the divider. After a huge audible crash, the car begins to go up in flames.

The Tree, the Bridge and the Die

There was always this man, perhaps about 71 years old, that every day would walk to this old oak tree perched on a tiny hill overlooking the city.  He came alone every time that I would see him, but if I were blind I would have thought he had come up with at least two or three of his other friends.  He would always chatter and ramble to himself about the weather, the state of the economy, the new war on guns and the dilapidated condition of his house.  However, it was the fact that he spoke so loudly that caught my attention and drew me into his life.  I would never actually come up to him, but I would hide behind a bush like some secret agent, just learning about his life from the snippets of audio to which he let me listen.

His name was either Mark or Chris, as those were the only two names he has ever mentioned to himself. Although now that I think about it, his name might not be either of those because those might just be his friends.  Regardless, he mentioned those names on more than one occasion so undoubtedly they are of some importance.  He lived alone now as his wife, whose name I could never understand but sounded like a mix of Marybeth and Sheryl, passed away five years ago and he has been coming to this tree ever since.  I have only been noticing him for the past year though, but I come at least once a week in the summer and he has been there every time without fail.  He was a carpenter, started his own business when he was 21 and about to get married.  His life was perfect then, there was no depression or sadness, just positivity.  Slowly his life started to crumble.  One day he yelled about the time his wife came home late smelling of alcohol and cologne and how she crashed the car on the way home and needed to hitchhike home.  Yet the car did not have a dent when he went to find it the next morning.  Another day he yelled at how the government was forcing his business to pay more and more money every year, but nothing was changing.  Every day he would come to this tree, I would just wait for the keyword of what the argument was going to be today.  Taxes.  Overpopulation.  War.  Obesity.  Even if it sounded positive at first, the stories would always warp into some depressive nightmare.  Grandchildren.  Job.  House.  Nothing was good in this man's head.

My favorite story started off with so much hope, about how he built his house from the ground up to support him and his wife.  And then soon the world would welcome their child, William.  He would continue to work and work and provide for his family.  And just when the world was looking bright, the house began falling apart; the stairs would crumble each time someone took a step, and the neighbors began complaining about the disgusting state of their landscape.  Then, one day the front door fell over the hinge when his wife walked in and the two had a horrible fight.  The son, at this point apparently seventeen, could not stand the arguing and fled the scene, coincidentally through the broken door.  Now the man was incredibly disappointed that his son no longer wanted to be part of the family and became incredibly depressed.  His wife, also unable to cope with this disappearance, began to have more arguments with the man about anything they could think of: the trash, the finances, cleaning, fixing the roof, taking off his shoes.  These arguments kept arise for years and years to come, and explains to me why he was so good at arguing even to himself.  His house began to fall apart a little bit each more every year.  He was convinced it would be best to just build a new house.  But he never did.
I know I should not have listened in on this conversation to himself but after he started I was enthralled by his tale and could not wait to hear some positive ending; alas, that ending never came.  His wife died from a sudden heart attack.  His son came back once to show the man that he now was a grandfather, but after that meeting the man never saw his grandchild again.  And now the man is unable to work because of his physical condition.  He would just sit in his constantly in his favorite red and grey plaid chair and watch the television in his continually worsening house.

Beyond these stories that he would tell himself, sometimes the man would just sit and stare into blankness.  I was curious as to why sometimes he would do this and not say a word, as it was a sharp contrast to his normal arguing self.  I believed that the tree was sometimes telling him something and he was finally just sitting there listening.  Normally I am not into that stuff, but it seemed to fit this situation almost perfectly.  And that is where my story begins.

He was just sitting there, under the tree like always but he was at the point where he was not arguing but rather listening to something.  The sun was shining brightly behind some clouds, a slight breeze was blowing and no one was around him, except me behind the bush.  He looked around, almost as if someone told him something was around his body, grabbed something from the grass, although I could not see what he pulled out, and slowly lifted his body to stand.  He hugged the tree the entire time, although even I am unsure if it was for emotional support or physical.  He meandered slowly to a nearby bridge, and I stood behind my bush a good distance out, nervous as to what was happening.  I became increasingly aware of how high the bridge was above the river below him.  He reached into his pocket and pulled out a standard six-sided die, which I assumed he picked up near the tree.  At this point though, I was not even questioning why there was a die near a tree, as he steadied himself on the ledge of the bridge.  I began to tremble, wondering if this would be the moment I should actually stand up and show myself, but fearing that if I did he would fall out of shear shock and surprise.  As the seconds passed like hours and my body now sweating with intense heart palpitations, the man spoke clearer than he ever had before, "Odd I jump forward, even I jump back."  He was facing the river, so the only thing that could mean was that if the number was odd, he would ultimately jump to his death.  If it were even, it seemed that he would live for a while.  Before he rolled he said, "Either way, I am not coming back to this tree."  My mind raced with the possibilities and what this man could possibly mean and still contemplated jumping out behind the bush to tackle him to safety.  My muscles were frozen.  The wind began to pick up.  The man dropped the die and watched it as it rolled from rock to rock.  As it began to slow down my heart began racing again.  The die stopped not on a numbered face but on its side, stuck between two numbers I could not see.  "One or four," the man said.  "Pick one." As he spoke, a gust of wind blew through the area rolling the die and breaking the odd and even tie.  When he was about to look at the number himself, I fainted.

She is

She is Van Gogh,
depressed and starving,
dying and broke,
brilliant and unrivaled.
Her vision is ahead of herself
The world slowly crawling
without knowledge of direction
Latching on to her like a small child
to her mother's hands
Blindly scraping her knees
on the cement she has painted.

She is Bach,
known for the wrong things,
unknown for her talent,
striving and pushing.
Her sound, a melodic lullaby,
calming and soothing the world,
hectic and bustling through,
without rhythm or uniqueness,
she attempts to sing
to those covering their ears
a song out of their range.

She is Poe,
dark and cynical,
pessimistic and morose,
methodical and revolutionary.
She smiles, this Annabel Lee,
with a heart so divine and pure,
that a world egocentric
fails to notice the timid words
that escape her trembling lips
and thinks of her as silent
and unfit for her own pages.

She is
an artist,
a composer,
a poet,
a woman
without fear
living in
anonymity