08-09-2009

I decided to try another round of 1st person writing. Not sure I am any more comfortable with it, but it is kinda fun...

Start Fiction:


     I got nothing. I sat in the middle of the street at four a.m., I think, and realized I had no where to go.
     I had no job, no home, no friends who dared to be around someone so down and out. I was an outcast, a social pariah. I now understood what it meant for the mighty fall.
     After attempting to get a room at the shelter earlier in the day and getting turned away, I was shown the street for the first time in the thirteen months I had been homeless.
     I laid down in the street and I felt I had hit the bottom of the bottom, that it couldn't get any worse. Then the rain came.
     The rain pelted me as I sat in the street. I took a inventory of my body and came to the conclusion I was not injured from my fall. I didn't see the point in getting up; I had no where to go, nothing to do and there was no one around.
     The rain gently hit the ground around me, slowly filling small puddles, and the noise made me think of a bowl of Rice Crispies. The various sounds snapped, crackled and popped hitting the ground, cars, trees, falling from clogged gutters and down in to the storm sewer. It was soothing, calming. Why have I never noticed this before?
     I stood up and made my way in to the park. In the center under an opening in the trees I sat the bench. I leaned back and put my face to the sky. The smell of the rain was fresh, the wet grass sweet. It was definitely more quiet in the center of the park, and more relaxing.
     I had driven past this park for years, seen dozens of people playing freebie, hacky sack, sun bathing, but I had never actually stopped or even merely walked through the park.
     As I sat in the park, I realized there were many things in this town I had taken for granted. I had always been in such a hurry to do this or do that; working long hours, drinking in the few hours in between work, but playing very little. I was not one to smell the roses, but I wanted to know how the roses could make me money. Ironically, now I had nothing but time to smell the roses.
     Maybe this is a new beginning for me, a second shot at contentment and inner peace. Maybe this time around I will walk a little slower, look at the sky from time to time and definitely find time to sit in the park during a gentle rain.


End Fiction.