The Incoming - a short story

It was a beautiful fall day out.  The sun was shining, the gold and red leaves tossing about on the ground around the lawns and fences, as they gazed at the trees that gave them up, still holding on to the very few once-green, full of life appendages that once blanketed their branches.  It was time for the woods to go to sleep soon, and wake up months later to give birth once again to new life.

He walked with her hand in hand, while the Young One followed beside them.  Down the frozen, gray street they strode, with a breeze in the air and an accompanying chill to beckon them to look up at the skies and satisfy their curiosity about the bite they could feel in their lungs.  Indeed, on the midday horizon approached some dark, looming clouds.  Though they approached slowly, as if to warn of the impending trouble they would bring.

The streets were quiet on this Sunday afternoon, as his thoughts swirled unwittingly and the clouds continued to march forward.  It was as if his thoughts somehow came in with the clouds.  She knew it, too.  She turned to him while they still were holding hands with their wool gloves on.

"Is it happening?"

"I'm afraid so, sweetheart," he answered her, somehow knowing what was about to become reality that was predestined in his mind.  "It's coming, and I can't stop it.  I've asked what could be done so many times to The Knowing, but they don't see the abnormalities that bristle when they happen.  It's disheartening.  I don't know how many more storms I can endure, or how many I can control."

"You have to realize, dear," she replied calmly, "that I'm with you every time, even when I'm not here."

The Young One began to drift away onto a side street, reacting herself to the incoming turbulence in the air.  She is their offspring, after all.  She's connected.

Snow began to fall.  Little flakes, again as some kind of beacon that something more was about to come.  The Young One was out of sight now.  The Two noticed her breaking away, but knew they could do nothing to make her stay with them.  The Younger One also has battles she must engage in for her own self preservation.

The white in the distance began to thicken as the sun disappeared completely, and he shook with chills underneath what would normally be a warm blue and white, ski-mountain quality winter coat that clothed his medium five foot ten inch frame.  His white skin began to redden, and tears were churning behind his eyes at the turmoil that was developing among them.

They continued to walk on the now-whitened street toward home, to get to the safe environment that would envelope them from the oncoming destructive chaos.  She would make sure he got there with her, despite his wanting to endure the punishment, for reasons she can't quite understand.

She couldn't feel the grip of his hand anymore as she held it while they walked closer to home.  "Don't worry my love," she assured him, "we'll get home and everything will be fine, I promise!  I'll make sure I take care of you and get you through this."  She could see the storm in his eyes.  Almost like his brown eyes were translucent.  He seemed weightless; but if he'd collapsed, she felt strong enough that her modest average frame, strong as it was, could carry him as far as they needed.  She began to cry at the thought of what he might be enduring, having been through it with him before.

The snow was coming down hard now, and the icy wind blowing harder, and they could barely see ten feet in front of themselves.  She still couldn't feel a grip on his hand, and he stopped talking long ago.  She knew it was imperative to get him to safety.

"It was such a nice day!" she thought to herself.  "We awoke to smiles, he brushed my hair from my face and smiled at me, stroked my head and kissed me, and told me how much he loved me... it's all I want in life.  He says it's all he wants in his."

They were about a minute away from home, as she continued to think to herself:  "If there was only some way I could make it all better, to control The Incoming in his mind.  God I wish there was a way!  And The Knowing won't help us, I don't know what to do next!"

"You have to let go," a familiar voice from a distance whispered in the back of her mind.

She was puzzled at it.  Like an intruder had entered and spoken to her.  Who would dare do such a thing!  He was all she wanted in life, with The Young One, and who would dare to take it away!

They walked up the hill of the driveway when she squeezed his hand tighter, only to feel that she'd just made a fist.  She looked down at her hand, and his wasn't there.

She looked ahead to their home, and there were no footprints leading to the house.  He wasn't there, either.

She looked behind, and noticed that there were only one set of footprints as far as she could see.  They were her own.  She looked into the snow-filled air in the distance, and spotted a lone blue and white jacketed figure, as he waved to her, blew her a kiss, and turned around to walk into the vastness of the blizzard.  A cold gust of air blew her back.  There was nothing she could do.

She cried out to him, screaming.  Cold tears streamed down her cheeks as she shook with fear and sadness.  But he was gone.

The Knowing took to long to offer assistance and offer ways to hold back the storms.  And each time The Incoming invaded, no one knew whether they might actually see him again or not.  Most didn't even know of them.  He was clearly not strong enough to fight them on his own.

She stood in the driveway bravely until the storm ceased.

And she would wait and hope for him to come back.

The Purse

She was beautiful.  The most beautiful girl I've ever known.  But as with all things physical, there is always more than meets the eye.

When I first met her, it was love at first sight.  The long, flowing, wavy brown hair.  Her curvy physique.  Her piercing gaze.  And her smile... her smile was like a tractor beam, pulling me into her vortex.  She was welcoming with her introduction, and inviting.  I knew upon first seeing her, there was nothing I could do to escape her pull.  She knew it.

This was the first time I fell for her, and the hardest, which still resounds today.  In the times to come over the years following, I would distance myself from her, again and again.  And then, I would fall for her.  Again and again.  With each time I would separate, or try to separate, my heart and soul from her, I found myself anticipating the next time she would come around.  And why?

When we were together, I did everything I could to please her.  I would try to anticipate her desires.  I would move to her moves.  And with every move she would make, in her snug, worn blue jeans, or her mid-thigh high skirts, and not-too-revealing but still teasing tops, it turned out to be another link in the chain that bound me to her.  I could not undo what I had done for her, nor would I dare.

The things she did to me don't add up to someone who a normal person would fall for.  As we continued to get to know each other, I feel like she knows me far more than I know her, because I couldn't see what was coming.  When I looked for a fastball, she'd throw a changeup, and I would strike out.  I began losing all my friends.  They would tell me I was out of my mind for being so into her when she would treat me the way she did.  She would taunt me and humiliate me in front of them.  Sometimes it made me sad, most times I was oblivious, and perhaps choosing to be so.  I suppose that's  my inner defense mechanisms at work, shielding my heart from the truth.

During the times we were apart from each other when we were broken up, I left the paintings of her I'd composed on my walls.  I'd find myself gazing at them with the pictures of our vacations with one another.  Our times at the beach together, or out of the city and into a small town where no one knew us, just so we could get away and feel that magical sense of newness once again.  Sometimes, getting away like that worked for us, and would reset our relationship.  Sometimes it didn't.

Today I can look back and see things a little bit more clearly, as I wait for her to come back to me.  I go through intervals of reality that suggest that I just might be insane to hold on yet again.  I would dream of her at night and wake up feeling that it was so very real, and I would suffer throughout the day because of it.  Every woman's face I would see would be hers.  Every song on the radio described how I felt.  It was like getting on a plane that could never land, destination nowhere.

And so I start another painting.  She's grasping her purse that she'd wanted so badly that I once bought her.  I envisioned her in one of her skirts, tights and snug tops, with her heels on, all decked out to attract.  I loved when she did that, so I had to make my own physical visual rendition of it.  I was taken aback at my own realization of what I'd already known, but didn't want to acknowledge.  I painted her walking into her favorite store with her purse I bought her, amongst other patrons, and shopping for another one.

I realized, I am that purse.  She has me, she's tired of me, and she wants another one.

But I am hers.  I'll wait until she wants me again.

The Cars - It's All I Can Do