Solitude in the City

A short story, about a walk across the city and the musings of a young adult. It was sparked by a writing prompt from Weekly Writing Challenges posted by The Daily Press.

Loneliness is a curious feeling. Enduring and flexible, it follows the popular just as much as the not-so-much. A cabin in the middle of the woods is no more filled than the hearts of all these strangers bustling past me. Their faces like mirrors, just as well as the dusty glass above my bathroom sink.   
     The difference between the crowd and I today seems to be the direction in which we move. It doesn't matter which side of the street that I chose, it seems, I'm still pushing through enough bodies to make a wall. Collapsing myself into the small spaces that the passers-by allow, I wonder if the feeling the act inspires is the feeling of my spirit folding away in the little spaces I accept. Not that it'd be a bad thing, spirituality having become such a weight for me nowadays.
    I've heard focusing on something to make it better is actually worse than ignoring it. Baby steps, they say, modify a life by changing day by day, one small portion of a routine at a time. In my case, changing one negative thought at a time.
     It's remembering that I need to change that's my problem. I allow the changes I make to slip through my fingers, saying I'll pick them up again when I'm less tired, that they aren't really necessary to my survival. It's a lucky thing when I remember just how vital those changes are before I slip too far inward. When I've avoided cleaning for six weeks and haven't bathed more than twenty-five times in the forty-two days, I generally remember. The times I don't pull myself together even then, I don't remember the consequences. I just know I don't ever want to go back. At any rate, when I remember too late, there is not only a path to be followed, but a hole to crawl out of to continue.
     Today was a lucky day.
     Hence the trouble I've taken to leave my apartment in search of trees. Trees to climb, high enough that people are no better than pocket-sized toys. There, I will meditate as well as hopefully solidify the more difficult changes.
     Some changes have been solidified this way. Like smiling often and responding openly to a stranger's attempt at conversation (especially important considering my timidness). But, it seems people don't want to talk to an unwashed, anguished stranger. It's time I find a way to remain positive, to remain confident in my worth, without such constant, tiresome vigilance. Such incessant vigilance is what generally leads to my laziness, when I stop policing myself. Then...well, there's no need to reiterate.
    The upstream crowd is thinning, whether it's due to an end in lunch hours or just where I currently find myself, I'm unsure. However, I'm near the park I've sought and fought for. Large and without many benches or paths, it's often used as a landmark more than anything else. My feeling is that it was constructed, or let alone depending on  how you see things, for citizens of this downcast city that are like me. Far from one's wooded home, but anchored by economics, a place left for the dreamers in waiting.
     I've only seen a few people in my many excursions. These few didn't try to make eye contact, looking away as I did. Delightful company when you're hoping for solitude. There was a time, however, when I was sitting near the spring that lies just left of center and I heard someone. The person had tripped, or something to that effect, and laughed. A light laugh, the way a person might laugh at an anecdote provided by a rather boring person at an illustrious dinner party. It was attractive in the circumstances, though no more revealing of the person than a shadow through a curtain. Just a laugh, neither masculine nor feminine, not even with the distinct crackle or freshness of age. Something I've wondered about every now and then.
    The grass is cool, even in the day's overcast heat, and soft as the air, ripe with moisture. The trees, evergreen and otherwise, sway ever so slightly in the sparse wind, so very different from the surrounding upright buildings. The aroma of the wet rocks beyond the leaves and shadows propel me forward. The closer I draw, the coolness deepens. Soon, the shadows grace then cover my cheeks and I smile. They say divinity lives in all living things. That being said, I see no reason that trees can't make friends just as well as humans or dogs. Not that there's much of a difference between the latter two.
     The twigs crackle as I step, the soles of my shoes molding to the roots' form. My breath deepens with shadows, growing quieter as do the cars' sounds.
     This is peace.
     Oh, if I could afford to leave...but now is not the time for those thoughts. Here and now, they say, is the best meditation.
     Here and now, in the lovely, lush green, full of fragrance and silence. Drawing near enough to hear the gurgling of the spring, my awareness notes the branches broken ahead of me. I can hope they're from the day before, or hours at least.
     On the edge of the clearing, I'm almost certain that the trail broken before me was much earlier, being that it's so quiet and there are fewer here. I enter and begin to circle the water. The leaves' silhouettes ripple in the perpetually stirring water's surface. A blue hue remains in it's clear, reflective being, even in the cloudy day. Today was the perfect day to learn to remain from the ceaseless fountain. Again, I circle, looking at the trees instead. From the line-up, a sturdy spruce seems to call me.
     Before I can start comparing myself to wimpy birch to the left of it's majestic truck, I find a handhold on the spruce, jumping to reach, and begin heaving myself up. Working my way around and up, I keep an eye on the spring as I go. When it looks as if I could fit it in my pocket, where I am nearly to the precarious top, I find a perfect merging of two branches on to sit without concern. The bunched muscles relax and I settle happily in with the height. Here, the wind is stronger -- gloriously so.
     I take a few deep breaths of moving air and watch the spring for a while. Eventually, my eyes move to the tree tops around me, dappled with sunlight in some places and shadowed in others. The taller tree tops remain in the sun and the others fight for the scraps. Perhaps growth will take much longer than I had realized.  I watch and watch, until-
      there was a face.
      Directly across from me, unmistakable. Smiling into the sunlight, hair and other features blending into the shadows, that smile shining from the depths. In an instant, another gust of wind moves the leaves around him, out of my view.
      Without truly thinking, I shout, "Hey you!" To my dismay, surprise carried my tone.
     There was silence, I wait long enough that I begin to question whether or not it was just a play of light. That smile though.
     I'd almost let it go when he replied, "I saw you -- later we will find each other!" Again, he laughs. It makes me shiver, but I know that he doesn't want to hear a reply more than I want to provide one.
      I look up for perspective. The past few minutes had seemed monumental, I have a way of getting lost in things like this. So, instead, I lose myself in the clouds upon clouds, illuminated only by shadowing others. Passenger planes like pebbles against the giants, their trails no thicker, to me, than twigs.
     I came here trying to find away to remind myself that I'm still as big as a passenger plane, even if life and it's problems can be as colossal as the clouds. I wanted to learn how to do it without having to cross the city and be in the quiet. However, it seems that this encounter served to clarify my confusion. I think now I will never not need to come here. That has to be okay, everyone has their safe place, and mine just happens to require walking. When I can't, I can always just look up. The real question seems to be what is jeopardized when I ignore myself, my need to visit my 'safe place' and all the other basic needs.
     To me, this seems far too coincidental to be a coincidence. The sudden realization that I'm not the only one that comes here to be quiet, that I'm not the only one like this, seems to have been all I needed to know. Perhaps this aching confusion I was feeling was merely loneliness.
     Coincidence.
    What a word. In a world so large, it would appear to be plausible. As you look close, at the microworlds within, it becomes harder to believe, doesn't it? That one's best friend just happened to move across country and just happened to strike up a conversation in line at a store? Or, if I had decided to actually come here yesterday as I had thought, would I have seen the face of the the enigmatic laugher?
     Yesterday, I had not the intense desire that I'd had this morning. However, yesterday I was just as aware as my precarious position as this morning. Is there even a possibility of me choosing another path? Is this day justification for my lacking in spirituality, simply because everything feels right today? Or was it a dim longing for spirituality that drove me here today, to meet this other person, to learn more about...everything, really?
      My head hurts now and I just want to enjoy the time. Whether it's spirituality or coincidence that has brought me to this point, I'm unsure and don't care. It just is, and it's a wonderful notion.

Author's Note

I've recently rewritten the ending, thoughts are appreciated!

Reviews

[Christoph]

I don't think a lack of brevity is a huge problem here, actually, since we're following the thought process of a fairly lonesome narrator who is searching for something. The pacing is fine if you want this to feel like going for a walk with the character, which seems plainly to be the goal. Not every story has to ramp up and smack the reader around.

But I might be justifying this for myself, since I tend to write in a very meandering sort of way and spend twenty minutes talking about the frayed tip of a shoelace.

So this is the least helpful review, maybe ever. You're welcome.

[closed]

amazing depth and perception to your musings
this shows an awesome perspective on nature

the thoughts carried in this are fascinating
and draw the reader into your mind and spirit

very impressive narrative

[CWP]

I'm flattered, thank you!

[closed]

you're welcome

[Carissa Faulk]

Hmm... You're right, a little bit wordy, but I think it works! As far as that goes, the only thing to look out for is unnecessary description. I love most of your phrasing, but describing something that the reader already understands just makes it sound overdone.

What I would be more concerned about, rather than worrying about wordiness, is worrying about preachiness. There are several passages in here which almost start to sound like propaganda. This could potentially work if it was going to play in to the conclusion of the story, but it really didn't. There's a lot of time and words devoted to ideas about unity in nature, positivism, meditation, etc, yet nothing comes of these. The conclusion of the story is that the speaker finds someone else like himself. Yet, if that is going to be the conclusion, then the thoughts leading up to it should focus on the loneliness aspect more than the religious aspects. All of the talk of unity with nature made me expect some sort of supernatural ending to the story, like him melding into a tree and becoming a dryad or something. Remember, especially in extremely short pieces of fiction like this, you want every word to count. If it doesn't contribute to the climax, it doesn't need to be there.

Overall though, I really enjoyed this! I love your style and flavor in your writing. Great work!

[CWP]

Very much appreciated! Just an irrelevant side note, I can't help but to love that you saw the main character as a man whilst I was imagining a woman.

That being said, the positivity in your response is more than encouraging so, again, thank you.
What I was truly aiming for, with all the spiritual themes, was the way in which it can work without one knowing. I was driving towards the miracle of "coincidence," even in a completely unremarkable way. Closure is my weak point so I'm suspecting I could have expanded it to connect it all. Would you agree?

[Carissa Faulk]

I definitely think it could all connect, just find a way to work the spirituality into the ending a little more clearly. Maybe that will even help strengthen the conclusion! :) Good luck!