Etchings and Scribbles

An attempt at writing third person -------------------------------------------------------- It was a serene day in the village. At last, the long winter had finally broken, sunlight streamed through the freshly budding leaves in the orchard, and children ran amuck in the streets. Well-worn dirt paths held deep grooves on their sides from merchant wagons that passed through. The village itself had grown since the previous year. It seemed every so often a passer-by would decide to stay and a family would sprout up around them. The robed man walked into this saccharine scene full of relief. It had been a long journey, and his feet were killing him. A gentle breeze picked up and carried the smell of wildflower blossoms to him, his grayed beard trailing along outside his hood. “Yes, yes…” he muttered to himself, lifting one foot in front of the other in an almost zombified state of mind, he made his way to the largest building in town, the inn. The inn itself was perhaps the finest building...

Our first visit was a short one. Not that we realized or knew what was going on, but we knew without a doubt that the safest place any of us could be was in that broom closet. “More like a boom closet,” one of us had tried to joke. No one laughed. Humor had died with everything else. “We need to find food and water. I think for now we have a workable shelter.” “How are we gonna sleep in there? It’s packed full of shit.” “We’ll pull the racks out and recycle them into something else.” “Oh yeah, you’re just Robinson fuckin’ Crusoe, aren’t ya?” “Chill the fuck out man, I know we’re in a bad spot. But if we don’t want to die, then we need to work together, OK?” That was the extent of our conversation that day. No names asked, no life stories shared. I think we were all in denial. It’s difficult to ask those hard questions when you’re surrounded by destruction, and deep down we all knew the answer. Deep down we wanted it all to go back the way it was. None of us were happy, but one of us c...

Melissa and I had been officially seeing each other for a few weeks. To whom it was made official I’m not sure, but she had been staying at my place, and I had allowed Her toothbrush to grace my bathroom counter for more than a night. To me, that said “Official Couple”, to  Her  it probably said “Official Dumbass Has Allowed You In”. That was a term I began hearing a lot more, “dumbass”. She only called me that every now and then, but that was  Her  official description of everything, ESPECIALLY things she didn’t care to understand. “Look at that dumbass”, “What kind of dumbass”, “What the dumbass”, “Who in their dumbass mind”, trust me, it got old. But I was blinded by attraction, and, arguably, a dumbass about the ways of love or even a healthy relationship. It seemed the only healthy relationship was  Her  status with cigarettes and getting  Her  nails done. I never asked how or where she got those nails fixed up every few days. Once, I was be...