I am on grass that is greener than the word has power to hold. It is a color that one can only see in dreams and even then only just enough to make you long for it always. All around me are trees full of some kind of fruit that is probably ripe and tasty and wonderful. On my left is a fast-flowing river full of water so black it resembles ink. Actually, it probably is ink and I would know for sure if I stopped to examine it, but I am running and I can not stop. I dropped something in that river of ink and I must get it back. I need it; I must have it; I can’t be me without it. So I am running faster than my feet can carry me, ducking around trees whose limbs reach for me. The fruit hanging from them knock against my head, but I do not stop.

Frantic, I begin grabbing apples and throwing them away when they are not mine. I am still yelling, screaming out my anger, my loss. I am throwing apple after apple out of the frozen river, but it makes no difference. For ever apple I throw another is added. But I can not stop. I have lost my treasure, my heart and joy, myself. I must have it back; I need it.

Adam woke up tired and sore. He felt as though he’d been hit repeatedly during the night or maybe like he’d slept on a pile of lumpy rocks. His body was tired and his mind didn’t want to face the day. But a glance at the clock told he would very soon be running late so he forced himself into a sitting position and heaved himself out of bed.

A shower made him wet and then a towel made him dry. Neither the process nor the water did anything towards helping him feel awake or more energetic. He ate something and dragged himself out of the apartment.

It was the beginning of his second week on the job. He was now a full-fledged janitor. He had a card key to get around the building, he had a pair of coveralls, he had a mop he preferred, he had a locker. If there was a lower position in the building than new janitor Adam was sure there were laws against it being filled by a sentient creature.

Adam managed to get into work just before he was late as usual. He hated pushing himself to get in on time or, heaven forbid, early. It seemed to acknowledge how important having this job was. It highlighted that this job wasn’t just a stepping stone from where he was on up to where he wanted to be; it was all he had. If he lost this job then he would probably find himself very hungry with an eviction notice. But even knowing that this job was putting food into his cupboards hadn’t meant he’d had to have any more respect for his it. It just meant he made sure he wasn’t late.

Adam changed into his coveralls, his name neatly printed on the left-hand side of his chest. He opened his locker to stow his satchel inside only to realize that he hadn’t brought it again. It was still on his table where he’d dumped the day after he’d gotten this job. A feeling of loss threatened to creep up on him, but he’d gone two weeks without that stupid bag, book and pen so he could go another day. He slammed his locker, grabbed his cart and started his rounds.

It was a new experience for Adam to be invisible. He was used to not being noticed in a crowd, used to being overlooked, but he’d never been fully and completely invisible. People will stop their private conversation for someone who’s easy to overlook. One might accidentally make eye-contact with someone who’s hard to get to know. It is even possible that somewhere there is a person who would hold an elevator for a stranger. But nobody notices a janitor.

As he went around the building emptying garbage, cleaning the bathrooms, mopping or sweeping it was as if he didn’t exist anymore. Several times a day Adam would walk into the middle of some private gossip fest in the hall. Heads bent together, voices hushed, eyes constantly checking to see who was coming that shouldn’t hear this juicy new news. The huddled people would break off when others walked past and start up again as soon as they were out of earshot. But no one stopped talking when Adam walked past. It was as if his bucket, his coveralls and the feeling of shame that surrounded him worked together to make him completely invisible. By the end of his first week he knew more about the lives of the people who worked for the newspaper than he’d ever wanted to.

Adam found himself talking about it to Jameson. Imagine his shock on his first day to find out that his park side therapist was also his new boss. Adam had gaped at him, moving his mouth wordlessly like a fish out of water while Jameson just calmly explained his duties around the building. The only admission he’d made to their first meeting was asking him on his first day where “that fancy bag with your paper and pen” was. Adam had replied tensely that he’d left them home. Jameson had nodded thoughtfully and nothing more was said of it.

Now he was nodding again as Adam ranted about the other employees of the newspaper.

“I mean, just because I don’t wear a suit and tie doesn’t mean I don’t work here, too!”

They were sitting in the basement eating lunch together. Sometimes Adam felt that he was beginning to live his whole life is basements. He’d had been a janitor for a month and eaten lunch with Jameson almost every day of that month. He hadn’t a few times and found that he missed the company more than he wanted to admit. With no reason to write Adam was struggling with thoughts and ideas coming into his mind with no way to express them. He ended up dealing with it by talking far too much to Jameson. Adam couldn’t remember the last time he’d talked this much to anyone. He was just aware enough to realize that Jameson never got much of a chance to say anything in these conversations and that he knew next to nothing about his fellow janitor. Of course, the old man never made much of an effort to talk so Adam hoped he didn’t mind very much.

Like now, for instance, Jameson had almost finished his lunch and Adam had barely taken a bite. He’d been too busy talking about the most recent slight on his person.

“I don’t expect much from them, you know, but, I mean, really, I’m still a human being even though I don’t work at a desk.” The sandwich was almost to his mouth before he jerked it away again. “It’s not as if just because our break room is in the basement that we shouldn’t be treated like people. We’re still humans, y’know? It shouldn’t matter if we where coveralls or not.”

Jameson got up from the rickety table they were sitting at, stepped over to the coffee pot, poured himself a cup of coffee. He added some milk and stirred it, all in slow, deliberate movements. Adam watched him closely, hoping for some reaction to what he’d been saying, but not expecting one. His eyes followed Jameson as he stepped back to the table and settled himself back in his chair. For lack of anything else to do in the silence Adam took a bite of his sandwich.

Jameson blew on his coffee and took a sip. He rolled the sip around his mouth, swallowed it and blew on his coffee some more. Adam found he’d bolted most of his lunch while the other man had prepared his coffee. At times like these Adam had discovered he had more patience than he’d suspected before meeting Jameson. Jameson cleared his throat, but when he spoke, without looking up, all he said was, “You leave your pen at home again today?”

His words followed Adam around the rest of that day. All of the thoughts he’d used to put on a page with his leaky pen pushed against the boundaries of his mind. He watched the politics of the small-city newspaper, the unspoken rules, the behavior of people when they assumed they were alone. And always the thought of a leaky pen and a notebook in an old leather satchel rose to the fore.

Adam finished his shift, punched out and went home. A shower washed most of the smell of honest labor from him. He wrapped himself in a towel and went to the kitchen to make some dinner. As he assembled the makings of spaghetti he kept passing the table where his satchel lay. He put a pot of water on the stove to boil. He stared at the satchel. He opened a jar of sauce, emptied it into a sauce pan, put it on the stove to heat up. He stared at the satchel again.

Images and sounds played through his mind. A road of clouds that had turned to vapor. A swirl of snowflakes that managed to dance together while still each being special, unique. A grove of apples knocking against his head as he ran. Always these thoughts came back to a pen that was probably oozing ink and a notebook that had seen better days.

How did it all come down to this, Adam wondered. For a moment he fought with himself. He held back from picking up the satchel, from sitting down to commit his thoughts to paper. Always before he had written for his dream. Always before each word had been a small step on the road to a job as a journalist writing down wisdom for the masses. That dream was gone now. If he picked up that pen again what would each word be worth? What would be the value in stringing together thoughts and sentences?

Well, he asked himself in a voice that sounded like someone else’s, what would be the value in not?

Decision made, Adam sat down at the table and pulled his satchel towards himself. He pulled from it a battered notebook and a pen that always leaked. Immediately he stained his hand in the same old spot. Adam realized that the ink had all worn off his hand in the weeks since he’d last held this pen. He’d never realized how much he’d missed it. And there, at a small table in a basement apartment, Adam began to write. He wrote until his water boiled and his sauce splattered little red drops all over his stove. He paused to turn them both off and went back to writing.

The next day Adam got out of bed and went to work. He punched in right on time and went to his locker to hang his stuff up. Jameson wandered over to him and watched him hang up his jacket and satchel.

“What’s in the bag?” the old man asked mildly.

Adam suddenly felt shy before this man he had said more to than anyone else.

“Just my paper and pen,” he said.

Jameson studied his face all traces of vagueness gone from his eyes. They were once again like spotlights. “You know,” he said, “there aren’t any Pulitzers down here.”

“Yeah, I know,” Adam said. “But, well, maybe no one’s thought to listen to what a janitor has to say before.”

**************************************

I’ve heard it said that we are not hypocrites in our dreams. That instead we use our dreams to reach further than we would ever think to try. We reach up high and maybe we miss the stars, but in the reaching we find our arms are longer than we’d thought. Our single bounds rarely carry us over any buildings, but in the leaping we often find an entire world we’d have never imagined just above our heads.

I am asleep and I am dreaming. I stand in the center of a vast snow storm that covers all the land. The wind whistles and shrieks all around me, but the cold doesn’t touch me. It can’t reach me where I am. Snow falls from the clouds above in big, white, fluffy flakes. The ground is covered and I’m standing in snow up to my feet, but still the cold and wet doesn’t touch me. I am surrounded by millions of snowflakes and I hear myself say in a voice I don’t recognize, No two are alike.

“But there are so many,” I protest. “Surely in all of these thousands of thousands there are two snowflakes that are the same.”

No, the voice that is almost my own answers. Each is unique, special, worthy of notice and attention. Each snowflake carries a pattern that no other snowflake will ever know. It will never be repeated and it will never be seen again.

I stare around myself and try to imagine such a thing as the voice speaks of. I put my hands out to catch the snowflakes that spin and wheel their way down to this frozen earth. There is no way I’ll be able to tell one from the other with my naked eye, but still I put my eye close to my bare hand and try anyway.

They look the same, alike, perfect copies of each other. A small mound of snow collects in my palm, nestled up against my lifeline. The truth that each is special, unique, all that that voice trying to pass as mine says wanders through my mind, but I do not believe it. I can’t.

Adam woke up, but kept his eyes closed. He knew that there wasn’t enough to look at in his bedroom to warrant opening his eyes. He had no plans for the day, nothing pressing. He had no projects on his plate and no deadlines looming over him. The whole day was before him with no appointments and no demands on his time. Only instead of the day being free for whatever he wanted it just looked empty.

Eventually the need to visit the bathroom got him out of bed. When he was done he stared at it, but walked into the kitchen instead. He didn’t have much in his cupboards. The part of his mind that was good at math and logic took note of this fact and filed it away under “Not Good”. What was in his cupboards was just enough to make a cup of bad coffee so he did. He took it to the table where his notebook rested next to the pen that always leaked. Adam sat down and stared at the notebook and pen. He took a sip of coffee and made a face at its bitterness. He briefly rested his hand on the pen, but all he got was more ink on his fingers. He finished his coffee in a swallow and went to see about a shower.

Adam left his house half an hour later and let his feet carry him where they willed. He didn’t know why he was out in the day, but he knew if he sat in his apartment much longer he would do irreparable harm to something. So he stepped out into a gorgeous autumn day and set off, pausing only a moment to shake his head in disgust at the cheerful weather. He wandered along the street paying just enough attention to his surroundings to avoid offending anyone or getting killed by a passing vehicle. He’d grabbed his satchel before he’d left and stuffed his notebook and pen into it out of habit. It’s weight on his shoulder was comforting as he walked.

He supposed he would have to give up the satchel soon. There didn’t seem much point hauling around a notebook to jot down thoughts and observations if he was never going to be a published writer. After all, there wasn’t much call for the thoughts or insights of janitors.

Adam stopped walking. His feet had carried him downtown and he’d been walking through the lunchtime press of people. Important people with important jobs walked here and there in their fancy suits. They clutched their take-out coffee and gossiped about the most recent office scandal. Business men and women, their secretaries, lawyers and accountants all brushed past him there on the sidewalk. They were the employed and the well-employed; all of his hopes hung on becoming a janitor.

A crush of self-pity fell on Adam as he watched the bustle and press of people. It felt so heavy he almost staggered under it. He would do well at being one of those people with one of their jobs. He knew if he could just earn one of their lives somehow he would do quite well at it. He’d tried for it. More than once and more than twice, but his every attempt had ended in failure. Sometimes more spectacularly than other times, sometimes almost comically, but always failure and rejection. His dreams of being special had slowly crumbled and his ability to try again had melted all away. He hadn’t understood at the time that the job at the newspaper was the last chance he’d given himself, but now he did. Now he knew that all his hopes, all his dreams, all of what might have been called his aspirations had hung on getting that job or one like it. Now, he’d lost his chance at that job and he’d run out of time and money to search for another like it.

There was a bench close by so Adam slumped into it with all the weight of failure on his shoulders. In the heat of the sunny day he began to remember a dream he’d had the night before. He remembered snowflakes and wind. He remembered a voice close to his spouting nonsense. Adam raised his head and stared at all the people passing by. The words ’special’ and ‘unique’ floated through his mind.

A woman walked by talking on her phone. She was wearing a gray business suit that fit her like a tailor’s dream and high heels that evoked thoughts of anything but ‘comfortable and practical’. Her dark hair was cut short and perfectly styled. She was arguing with the person on the other end of the phone about tables and figures, arguing with a cold fury that made Adam glad not to be speaking to her. She had to wait for traffic to pass before crossing the street, but even then couldn’t be still. She paced back and forth, her heels clicking on the sidewalk, speaking coldly into her phone, the hand not holding it stabbing at the air in front of her.

Adam watched her cross the street and knew that he was nothing like her. They shared some basic similarities in the same way that all snowflakes are made of water and cold. They were both humans, both breathed air, both walked on their feet and not their hands, and, judging from her energy, both drank coffee. But his coffee had been made out of stale grounds by a battered coffee maker in a dingy basement apartment. Her coffee had probably been made by someone with a special title whose job was to make coffee. It had also probably cost as much as a good-sized meal. For all their similarities, Adam knew that he and the woman were nothing alike.

Adam turned his gaze to other people. They moved like a snow storm, swirling and spinning around each other, but somehow never crashing or colliding. Each was unique. Adam was sure of this somehow. Each person was his own world full of hopes and brokenness, always in orbit around the people close to him, but never coming close enough to touch down. And just as he was suddenly sure of that he was suddenly sure that nowhere in that great press of people was anyone who was exactly like him. He stared at the retreating back of the woman on the phone and knew beyond a doubt that she and he were not the same. He watched a man hail a cab, saw two people walk hand in hand down the street and knew that they had pathetically little in common with each other and even less with him.

Loneliness rose up and clawed at his mind. He felt more alone in that small moment than he’d ever known before. Adam was well acquainted with the many flavors of loneliness. There was the loneliness when you are completely alone. No one else is in the apartment and you can feel the silence like a physical thing. Every noise echoes hollowly and reminds you of your solitude. Then there is the loneliness of a room full of people. You wander from one conversation to another, always on the outside, on the fringe. You can’t walk straight for the crush of people and yet you don’t feel their weight. All you can feel is the slow crush of loneliness as it pins you down in the middle of a crowd.

Adam felt pinned to the bench as he watched all the people pass to and fro. His chest grew tight and sweat stood out on his face as each breath came with difficulty. Adam watched as a wave of dizziness formed on the horizon and then crashed over him. He closed his eyes, but that only made the bench begin a slow spin that quickly picked up speed. His stomach lurched and Adam wondered if he was really going to be sick here on this bench in front of everyone.

The bench jerked as a weight dropped onto it. Instead of making the dizziness worse the sudden motion brought Adam back to himself and made the sidewalk under his feet stop its wild dance. Adam looked to his left and saw a pair of much-used brown work boots. He followed the boots up to the legs of a pair of dark coveralls and from there up to the torso of the coveralls. His eyes caught on the name tag and stuck there. Jameson. It was like a rope had been thrown to him from the shore. His mind settled and he found his breaths coming easier. The name he was staring at wandered around Adam’s mind without sticking to anything, but just its solid sound helped steady him. Adam was just about to decide he liked the name when a voice cut into his revery-

“I gotta say, this is a new one.”

Adam turned his head a bit more and looked at his fellow bench-sitter. He was an old man, grizzled and wrinkled, but still powerfully built. Bushy hair that couldn’t decide if it was gray, black or white covered his head and blended into a beard of the same confusion. He was holding a sandwich halfway to his mouth and looking at Adam with an amused expression on his face. What parts of his face weren’t covered in beard were darkly tanned and well seamed with laugh lines.

“I mean,” he went on, “I’ve seen my share of you younguns staring at chests, but I’d've never thought one of you’d be staring at mine.”

He took a bite of his sandwich and chewed, a smile behind the beard and twinkling in his eyes. Adam’s brain finally processed what he’d heard.

“Oh, I’m sorry.” Adam rubbed a hand over his face. He was just so tired. “Really,” he watched the old man take another bite, “I didn’t mean anything. I was just-”

Here he trailed off because he hadn’t figured out yet what to tell himself about recent events much less some random stranger. Some random stranger who was still staring at him and chewing. Some random stranger who probably deserved an answer.

“Sorry,” Adam said. “I was just… it was… Sorry.”

This didn’t seem sufficient to Adam and now the man was smiling around another bite of sandwich. Adam was beginning to find that smile a little grating. If the man had simply been angry for being rudely stared at Adam would have known what to do, but this amused reaction just confused him. He knew he needed some sort of explanation, though, so-

“Panic attack,” he said finally.

The man, Jameson, nodded. “Yeah, I’ve heard of them. Your body goes all weird and starts acting like you’re being chased or eaten or some such.”

Adam had never heard a panic attack described like that, but found it oddly appropriate.

“Yeah, something like that.”

By now Jameson had finished his sandwich. He pulled an apple from one of his many pockets and begun polishing it against his dirty coveralls.

“So, what do you do when you’re not panicking on a park bench?” he asked mildly.

Adam was normally a very private person. He kept his emotions and thoughts carefully guarded behind his public face. His writing was his one true expression; any interaction that couldn’t be undertaken over a long distance was very difficult for him. He usually found himself falling back on formality as a defense against people trying to figure him out. He was almost impossible to get to know in person while being completely transparent in his writing. It was his touchstone with the world outside of himself. Which he would now have to give up to be a janitor.

Adam looked at the man sitting a mere bench width away. The man stared back with a mild expression on his face and a sharpness in his eyes. For a moment so brief he thought he’d imagined it Adam saw a snowflake superimposed over the old man’s face. And then, to his surprise he opened his mouth and began to talk.

“I was going to be a journalist. I was supposed to be a journalist. Ever since I figured out how to write I knew that’s what I wanted to do.” Adam was saying more than he’d planned to, but couldn’t stop himself. “I was going to write stories about, I dunno, important things. And, y’know, since I was in print people would listen to what I had to say. People would listen to me.”

Adam looked down at his hands, one still sporting an ink patch from his leaky ballpoint. He rubbed at it, trying to get the ink off. “It’s all gone now. My plans. All my work. It’s all just gone.”

The man next to him hadn’t looked at him once since he’d started talking. He just sat there crunching away at his apple.

“Where did it go?” he asked through a mouthful.

Adam just just shrugged.

“So,” the old man asked again, “What do you do?”

“Nothing,” Adam said in disgust. He was starting to lose what control he’d entered the conversation with. “I just lost my one chance to get into the business and I gotta eat, y’know?” Adam dropped his inky hands and said, “I took a job as a janitor.” He glanced quickly at his bench-mate to catch his reaction.

Jameson hadn’t reacted at all. He was finishing up his apple with relish. He chewed the last bite thoroughly, swallowed, wiped his hands on his pants and then looked at Adam as if he’d just remembered he was there. He waited quietly for Adam to keep talking, a politely quizzical expression on his face. When Adam stayed silent he said, “That’s good work.”

All of the frustration and disgust Adam had been feeling at himself burst out of him. “No, it’s not good work,” he said. “It’s menial work. Unskilled labor requiring no more thought than a- a-” Adam couldn’t think of an occupation low enough. He glared at this man who had show him nothing but polite interest. At the moment he made a great focal point for all of Adam’s rage and despair. “It is not good work and it’s certainly not for me.”

Jameson sniffed and stared off into traffic. “Somebody’s got to do it.”

“Well, that somebody shouldn’t be me.”

“Oh?” The old man watched a car pull into a parking spot while Adam seethed next to him. Still looking off into the distance he asked, “Why not?”

Words were still pressing to come out of Adam’s mouth. The part of his mind that liked logic and had noticed the cupboards weren’t full began asking why this strange old stranger cared so much and why in the world Adam was explaining himself. But that part was not very loud and was easily overwhelmed by the rest that so badly wanted someone, anyone, to talk to. There was so much that Adam had been wanting to say and now was his chance.

“Because I’m better than janitor work!” He as almost shouting. “I have thoughts, I have ideas; I think about things, y’know? And then I write down my thoughts and maybe I make things better, nicer. Or maybe not, but the point is that I’ve put my thoughts out there and people listened. People sometimes listen to what a journalist thinks. Nobody cares what a janitor has to say!” Adam glared at the man again as if daring him to contradict him. “They stay in the background, just part of the scenery. They don’t stand out. They don’t…. do things. They make sure the toilets are cleaned and the floors are all mopped. I- I’ve got, I dunno,” Adam was beginning to run out of pressing emotion so his words were slowing down. “I always thought I had potential for something better,” he finished.

Jameson had sat under the force of his outburst unphased. He hadn’t taken his eyes from the cars passing by, but Adam got the feeling that for all that he’d heard more than had been said. Now he took his eyes off the traffic and turned them on Adam.

“So, what you’re saying,” he said in a gentle tone, ”is you always thought you were special.” His tone and his expression were mild, yet for some reason Adam felt the intensity of a laser hiding behind them. “Yes?”

Once again an image of a snowflake floated into his vision and then gone again. The words “special” and “unique” came to his ear as if carried by a cold wind. Adam nodded.

“Yeah,” he said. “I always thought I was special.”

Jameson nodded as if it was just what he’d thought. He got to his feet with some stiffness and grunts. Adam just watched him. With careful, deliberate movements Jameson gathered up the few scraps of debris from his lunch and stuffed them into one his pockets. He locked eyes with Adam, suddenly no longer mild or distracted. Rather his eyes were now like spotlights shining on all of Adam’s assumptions.

“Where is it written that working an honest job means you aren’t?” he asked. Then he walked away.

*********************************

I dreamed I stood on a mountain so far above the clouds that the only object to mar the sky was another mountain peak rising just before the horizon. There was a sort of emptiness in all that space filled up with clouds that shifted and moved. There was a sort of fullness in all that emptiness, the space filled up with possibilities and choices. They and the clouds formed a road from where I stood to the mountain peak standing on the horizon. I stared at the clouds below me and almost imagined them to be solid.

Step off the mountain, I said to myself, in a voice I barely recognized. These clouds of thoughts and options and water are sure to hold you. You could run the whole way.

I spoke out loud as if to the clouds and the wind. “No, I couldn’t! The clouds won’t hold me. I’ll fall,” I said to that voice that was almost mine. “I’ll die.”

But there is another mountain on the horizon, that voice replied. How else will you get to it if not walking? Perhaps you can fly?

“I don’t know,” I said. “I’ve never tried before.”

I inched to the very edge of the mountain peak I was standing on and looked over the edge. The ground must have been somewhere an ocean depth away, but all I could see were clouds the color of sunset. I looked from the clouds to the mountain peak far away. I spread my arms out to the sky and stepped off the mountain.

Adam woke and stared at the ceiling above his bed. There wasn’t much to see. He saw dingy white paint peeling away from its place and dark water stains. There was a leak upstairs, but the people living there never bothered to get the landlord to fix it. Eventually the dark stains would cover the whole ceiling and there would be no more dingy white to look at.

Under the water stains was a twin-sized bed holding Adam and his blankets. Next to the bed was a battered night stand that used to be white, but now would better be described as “indeterminate neutral”. In the room was also a wooden dresser with so much everyday clutter scattered across the top it was impossible to see the wood, a chair full of laundry in various stages of uncleanliness and, the only decoration in the room, a framed diploma. It hung on the wall above the dresser, conspicuous in its heavy wooden frame. In large, decorative lettering it announced that Adam Schiffer had won for himself a bachelor in journalism.

Adam rubbed a hand across his face and sat up. What part of him wasn’t covered by the blanket was lean and lanky. It was as if someone had formed a perfectly proportioned man, grabbed him by his hands and his feet, and pulled. A mop of dark, curly hair topped a thin face that seemed to be made entirely of sharp points. The fingers of the hand he was rubbing his face with were long and ink stained.

Adam swung his legs over the side of the bed and tried to gather together fragments of thoughts. He’d been dreaming when he’d woken up. There was an important thought just out of reach. Just before he’d woken up he knew he’d realized something, something important.

An image of a mountain peak and a road of clouds and decisions leaped into his mind. With it came an unfamiliar feeling. Adam looked into the day before him and saw… possibilities. He saw options. Today he could do anything; it was a new day, right? The only thing on his horizon was another mountain peak off in the distance. Maybe today he’d find he could fly.

Adam ate something without paying any attention to it, focused on getting dressed long enough to make sure everything mostly matched and headed up the stairs to street level. His portfolio was in a brown leather satchel he wore slung around his neck almost everywhere he went. It usually held a tattered notebook full of scrawls that eventually turned into the articles in his portfolio and a ballpoint pen that leaked sometimes. Today the pen was in an outside pocket so it wouldn’t leak on the folder holding his best work. The weight of the satchel felt good on his shoulder. But, then again, most things felt good. He was buzzing with energy and certainty. Today was his day. Today he would finally be recognized as the great journalist he was. Today his future would begin.

It was certainly a nice day for a future. Adam stepped out of his door onto a city sidewalk flooded with sunlight. After the gloom of his basement apartment the light and color was overwhelming. If today went well enough maybe he’d be able to afford someplace a little nicer. Someplace above ground perhaps. Adam turned his feet downtown and headed for his mountain peak. He walked on a sidewalk that gradually filled with people heading to work, but he paid them no mind. In truth he was walking on a road made all of clouds and options. Or maybe he was flying. Flying would be better; walking would be far too prosaic.

Adam was so caught up in imagining himself flying, all gangly limbs and flapping coat, he walked right past his destination and had to turn around a block away. He stood across the street and looked his destination up and down. The building rose from the ground like a man-made mountain, towering over all the puny mortals who walked in its shadow. The building was not actually taller than its fellows, but to Adam’s eyes it stood head and shoulders above them. He knew, of course, that the roof of the building lay far below the clouds, but the part of his mind that was given to fancies imagined standing on that roof and looking down on a mass of clouds the color of sunset. He ran a hand through his hair, straightened his jacket, resettled the satchel on his shoulder and stepped off the curb.

“Good morning,” he said to the receptionist behind her grand desk. “I’m here to interview for the new opening.”

An hour later Adam was slumped on a park bench three blocks from his glorious mountain. His portfolio lay on the bench next to him and he glared at it from time to time as if all his troubles were its fault. The large folder just stared back at him blandly, calmly waiting for the next thing to happen.

The people at the newspaper had been very polite. Almost kind, actually. Almost pitying when he really thought about it. They’d explained very carefully that no, they hadn’t had a journalist position open and they didn’t know how he’d gotten that idea. Some terrible mistake must have happened with the ad which was ironic, huh, them being a newspaper and all. Was he interested in the janitor opening?

Adam glared at his portfolio again. He’d been about to leave the building in high dudgeon, but then the thought of another late rent notice and empty cupboards had stopped him in his tracks. He’d climbed down from his glorious mountain in the clouds, neither walking on the road of clouds or flying, but trudging down each heavy step, and interviewed for the janitor job. They said they’d let him know in about a week. Then he’d left.

Adam’s day of glorious future shattered around him. It broke apart into tiny pieces and all the fragments stared up at him from the ground. Instead of being recognized as the brilliant writer he sometimes told himself he was he was once again being recognized as the failure he knew himself to be. All the fancy thoughts and dreams of a mountain above the clouds had been nothing more than some random image from his sleeping consciousness. Adam took his gaze off of his broken dreams and turned them to the folder that held copies of everything he’d ever written that was of any worth. The manila folder was far too simple and bland to hold all of someone’s dreams.

Adam picked it up and walked over to a garbage can with it. The city had put these garbage cans all over the place with signs all but begging the populace to put their trash in them. Green plastic cylinders with gaping holes waiting to eat all the refuse the passing people might think to drop in them. Not that anyone ever did. They just threw their trash wherever the passing whim led. Adam stood in front of the garbage can that he knew had once been somebody’s really good idea and stared into its open mouth. He shoved the folder holding his writings into the garbage can and walked away.

It was a purely symbolic gesture; all of those pieces were saved on his computer at home, but right now he felt he really needed such a gesture. So he shoved all his best works into a green plastic can full of the trash and debris of lives. Soon his writings would end up in a landfill where they would become nothing more than pieces of paper rotting away. He turned his back on them and trudged home.

Part Two
Part Three

The sun jumped in fright and ran for the horizon as a wall of clouds as black as hate tramped across the sky. The white, fluffy clouds that had been playing tag across the blue were trampled into mist and all that blue was swallowed up by darkness.

She crouched on the shore under the baleful gaze of a cold moon shrouded by dark clouds. The warm sand she’d been playing with had gone cold and clammy like sickness and all the pretty, round rocks she’d jumped from were casting dark shadows that reached for her. She looked out at the water that a moment ago had been clear as truth. Now it was black and oily. Instead of lapping at the shore like the start of a game of tag it clawed at the land. As if it were furious, as if it were jealous, as if each and every grain of sand had dealt the lake a hurt it would never forgive.

She wrapped her arms around herself and hugged her sorrow close. Two tears fell from her eyes and traced their forms down her face.

Abby sighed deeply. Just a minute ago she had been close to happy. The day had been going so well and she’d thought that maybe today she could go the entire day without feeling so gray. There was nothing she could point to and say “This is why I suddenly feel like going back home and locking the door.” Nothing that she could explain the sorrow away with. Work was okay. Not great, but then she didn’t expect it to be. The customers had been, well, fine. Not great or spectacular, but this was fast food. She didn’t expect spectacular. A lack of stupidity was the highest she aspired to when it came to the people moving through her line.

Just a minute ago the smile she beamed at them had felt real. Her muscles didn’t scream in agony as she forced them into a smile that didn’t look as grisly as it felt. Her eyes had crinkled at the edges without her having to remind them to. The sun had come out in her life and she had smiled for real.

But now it was gone. The sunshine had seeped away though it was plenty bright outside and her face was hurting again with the strain of keeping that smile in place.

“No,” she whispered somewhere far behind the smile, “Not today. Please. Please. Give me some sun again.”

Her legs ached in the sand. The cold and wet was creeping through her skin and into her bones. She hugged herself, tears long forgotten. There was really no point anymore. She could have filled this lake with her tears and it had never changed anything before. So she just gave herself the hug she wished someone else would provide and felt the despair.

It was cold and hard, but fluid at the same time. It slipped inside and filled up all the nooks and crannies. It smothered, turning laughter to shrieks and the shine to a dirty light bulb in a dank room. It turned the sunshine into a cloudy day that stretched from forever. She knew the despair. She knew it well.

Abby watched herself work. She felt like she’s put her body on autopilot and was in the passenger seat watching. She watched herself take orders. She watched her hands make change and get drinks. She watched herself seem patient to trouble customers. They all thought she was so patient, but she knew better. Frustration, anger, even irritation were all feelings, emotions. She was too tired to care that much.

The tiredness never went away. Abby could sleep a whole day away and still wake up tired. She could spend an evening with her friends laughing at jokes and smiling real smiles, but when they’d gone home and the lights were turned off all the laughter would seep away. Loneliness would come to share the bed with her and it would whisper to her the whole night through. She would wake the next morning with the emptiness and the gray sky pressing her down. She would drag herself to work and then home all the while being so tired, so very, very tired.

Today had started differently. Today she hadn’t had to convince herself to get out of bed. She’s walked to work and noticed the colors. She’d turned her face to the sunshine and she’d smiled, she’d truly smiled. But it was all gone now, sliding through her fingers like sand.

There was a footstep on the beach. She jerked up, startled and frightened. No one but her ever came to this beach; it was as lonely as a birthday spent alone. But now there was a footstep on the beach.

She looked down the beach to see who was coming. Who could be coming to break her solitude? Who would be walking down this sickly shore under the hateful sky?

“Howdy, darlin’! And how are you today?”

Abby had been so busy restocking sauces she hadn’t noticed the man come up to the counter. He standing at the counter beaming at her as if she was his very own creation who’d just learned to walk. Like she was special. Like she was precious.

He was tallish. And very normal looking. At least that’s the best Abby could remember when he’d gone. She couldn’t remember what he’d looked like, but she would remember his smile until long after she was dead. It was big and broad and genuine. It was like he’d brought the sunlight in with him.

She stared at the figure all the way down the beach. She stared as he stood over her and gawked when he sat down and settled himself next to her. She stared even though it hurt her eyes to look at him. She stared even though he seemed only half there, as if his entire presence would burn her eyes away. She stared through new tears forming in her eyes.

He was brilliance itself. He shone like a thousand stars all standing in the same place. He glowed as softly as a firefly and blazed as fiercely as a sun come to earth. His light even seemed to burn the darkness away from the sky, the cold from the sand and the hate from the moon. She sat next to him feeling awkward and dull.

Abby was confused and so fell back on habit. “Um, may I take your order?”

He chuckled like a grandpa with a surprise. “No, darlin’, I’m okay. Actually,” he leaned in closer. She found herself leaning in, too. “Actually, I’ve got something here for you.”

He slapped something down on the counter and pushed it over to her. Her eyes still on his smile Abby picked it up. Then he tipped the hat she hadn’t noticed he was wearing, turned around, and left.

Slowly, the man sitting next to her got to his feet. He offered her his hand and pulled her to her feet when she took it. Carefully, as if she were a bird fragile and scared, he put his arms around her. And he hugged her.

She closed her eyes and rested her head on his chest. She’d always known she was this tired; she’d felt it deep in her bones. But no one had ever come to her beach before to break her solitude and let her rest. No one had ventured here to chase the loneliness away and make the fluffy clouds come back. No one before today.

When she opened her eyes again she was alone. But the sun was back. It hung in the sky and blazed with laughter. The sky was bluer than sapphires and a perfect background for the clouds that danced across it. The water was clear once more and reflected the sunshine like polished glass. The sand was warm under and around her feet, warming them through and through.

She spread her arms wide. And smiled.

When the doors closed behind him Abby looked down at what he’d given her. It was a bright yellow sun pin. The sun was full with all its arms stretched out. It was warm, maybe from his hand, but maybe not. Abby pinned it to the front of her shirt. It looked good there, like it suited her somehow. She felt the ache in her muscles and her soul ease as a smile spread across her face.

I’ve taken my loneliness to the lake many times. I let it roll off of me like heat, let it roll out on the water. I pray the tide will take it away and bring me back something to quiet the echoes in me. Sometimes the moon shines down on me and we stare at each other looking for something we will never find. So many stories say the moon is lonely. She lost her lover, her friend and she can only stare down at our Earth and search for a glimpse of his face. No story says she ever found him again. Her search has never been rewarded, her vigil never broken. I guess the stories all think she shouldn’t have lost him in the first place.

The moonlight will sometimes play tricks on the eyes when you’re sitting by shore. All the color is bleached away and everything is blue, black and silver. My hands finally turn white under the moonlight and all my clothes turn black, the proper color of loneliness. Everything goes with black, but nothing ever changes it, lightens it. The water is black and dark blue by night. The only light shines from the tips of the waves as they rise and fall on the shore.

There is something lonely about the sound of waves. Especially at night when they hit an empty shore. It is endless, unbroken like a long night, rhythmic and regular like a heartbeat, constant like a hurt no one else can see. I sway in time with the waves. The undertow pulls me out forward and then the muted crash pushes me back. Forward and back, forward and back like a dance by myself in an empty room.

The waves are the fingers of the lake reaching to the shore for some understanding, seeking a remedy for this ache. The waves reach for me like I reach for them. But our hands have missed each other and our fingers close on empty air.

It is cold here where I sit. The moonlight has bleached all the colors away and my world has turned dark with only the sound of water to orient myself. We sit alone together the moon, the waves and I.

The dandelion grew under the bright sun. She drank up the dew in the morning and smiled at the tulips that surrounded her. And when a breeze came by she always spread her leaves out wide and swayed.

“Look,” she said turning her yellow face to a red tulip, “I’m dancing!”

The tulip looked down at the little dandelion, surprised. The flowers didn’t often speak to weeds; it was unseemly. But he saw no reason to be cruel so he nodded his head gravely.

“A dance is a series of rhythmic and patterned bodily movements usually performed to music,” he said quite correctly. But the dandelion had already looked away. She had her eyes closed and was imagining herself twirling and leaping.

The dandelion would watch the birds swoop and dive in the air above her. She leaned over to a lily and said, “Wouldn’t you just love to dance like that?”

The lily considered the birds in the air. “No,” she said. “It looks most dangerous. An unseemly and impractical way of transport.” But the dandelion was staring transfixed at the birds, flapping her leaves up and down.

When the sun was overhead the dandelion would watch the heat shimmer off the sidewalk. She yelled across the sidewalk to the clover on the other side. “Don’t you wish you could move like that?”

The clover were all startled by someone speaking to them. For a moment it looked like at least one would respond, but then they all hid under their leaves. The dandelion didn’t mind. She was busy trying to bend and shimmer.

One day when the dandelion’s leaves had all changed from bright yellow to fuzzy white a child picked her. When the child scrunched her eyes closed the dandelion wondered if she was imagining a dance. Then the little girl blew on the dandelion and blew all her fuzzy petals away.

They spun end over end, swooping in the wind. They twirled, spinning around each other. They soared and flew through the air, a cloud of dandelion seeds dancing in the breeze.

Being that close to her was worth every minute in the rocky soil he’d been planted in. He’d had to send his roots down further than the other plants and so he was one of the last flowers to bloom. The other flowers towered over him and took most of the sun, but he took what he could get and figured having to stretch for it would help him grow taller. And from where he was planted he could look at her through the other flowers and over the ground cover and she need never see him.

She was beautiful even compared to the other tall flowers soaking up the sun. Her head was perfectly round and full of the brightest petals he’d ever seen. He liked watching her sway in the breeze and drink up the rain. He loved the way the sunlight made her dark stem and leaves turn bright like a smile. He knew he was being obvious, but never cared. He would stretch for his bit of sunlight and watch her. To his mind she was the best that could ever be.

The winter months were hard for him. He curled up around himself and tried to go to sleep, but he couldn’t stop worrying about her. She looked so fragile. And that winter was especially cold. The soft blanket of snow didn’t come until late and the flowers huddled together as the wind bit into them and froze the water in their veins. The short flower found his height, or lack of it, useful as the other flowers’s long stems bent all around him. He was terrified she would bend and break as the cold only got worse and worse.

The snow eventually came and with it the bliss of sleep. The flower made sure she had gotten plenty of snow to keep her warm and safe and then gathered some around himself and fell asleep until spring and warmth and sun would waken him again.

Spring came and brought some warmth with it, but seemed to have forgotten the sun and packed rain instead. The flower was woken by rain, rain, rain hitting all around him. He just shrugged his shoulders and stretched. Living on just a bit of sunlight was normal for him. So while all the flowers around him waited for the sun to reign again he just started growing and blooming. Which is why when she woke up he was the first thing she saw, standing tall and straight in the rain.

She was so glad he never noticed her watching him. She felt so awkward when she’d just bloomed and was sure that such a fine flower would never look at her even once. She felt like she was all ragged edges and gangly stem. She really didn’t like all this rain and wished and sighed for the sun while he just stood in the rain like he’d been planted for it. She was torn between hiding from him and preening so that he would notice her so she did both. She would stretch out her petals and sway in the breeze she pretended was blowing past until she felt so silly she would hide her face and hope he hadn’t noticed.

Eventually the rains stopped and the other flowers began growing and blooming. But this time he towered over the others where she could still see him. She snuck little glances throughout the season while the sun shone and the birds sang. A few times she thought she saw him looking at her, but knew she was just imagining things. She tried to focus on growing up and growing bright.

It was a good season for the flowers that year. Plenty of sun, lots of rain, green ground cover to hide their feet and friendly bees to play with. But soon the summer rolled into autumn which faded away into winter. The flower gathered snow around herself and took a last, long look at him as he went to sleep. Then she laid her head down and did the same.

Normally waking in the spring was a smooth, slow process. First, he felt some sensation in his stem and then the feeling of heat on his head and then he’d open with the accompanying stretching and yawning. Not so this time. All of a sudden he was fully awake and open. He looked around for what had woken him, but saw nothing strange or unusual. Whatever it was it had woken just one other flower. A very startled, very pretty flower.

She never liked waking up, but this time had been the worst. No slow process just suddenly awake. She shook her head and looked around her. And then she looked at him, the only other flower that was awake. She looked at him and blushed all the out to the tips of her petals when she saw he was looking at her.

There was really no reason not to say something to her, he thought. They could talk about what had woken them up. They could talk about the weather, the winter, spring, really anything in the garden bed, but all he did was stare at her.

Time slowed to a strained crawl as the silence stretched between them. If one of them didn’t say something soon she was sure she was going to scream.

It was time, he told himself. He would say something clever and witty and then she would laugh and they would, well, he wasn’t sure about the next step, but he knew he needed to do something. So he shook the dew off his leaves and said, “Hi.”

She imagined a confident and graceful smile on her face and did a tense, nervous one instead. “Hello”, she said.

They stared at each other, neither having any idea of what to say next. So he smiled at her and she smiled back. It was a good beginning.

“Put me down, Mommy,” he’d yelled when we’d first come over the rise. His feet had started to move in expectation.

“Not yet, baby,” I’d wanted to say.

“Stay here in my arms a bit longer,” I’d wanted to whisper to him.

“That sky is so very big and I will lose you in all that blue,” I’d almost said.

But I had felt his small body against mine and watched the light turn on in his eyes. His feet needed to run and his skin needed the wind that would blow against him. My boy needed the sky like food or water so I had put him down and I’d let him go.

He ran away from me across the sand. His legs that I’d always described as sturdy found new grace as his feet pounded against the ground. He flung his arms out to the sides and spread his hands to feel the day slide between his fingers. A yell that was pure joy floated back to me on the breeze. His mouth open wide he yelled his happiness at the sky that watched like a proud father.

It was so big, that blue. So very bright and dark and wide and deep and more than I could ever explain to my boy. Standing there on the ground I was honest and I told the sky that it scared me. I told it that it frightened me more than thunder or snow or hurricane.

“I gave you my boy,” I told the sky. “I put him down and he’s running to you like you’ll take care of him and make him happy.”

“Will you?” I asked the clouds as they blew by. “Will you take care of him or are you only for today, too?”

“He’s all I have and he’s running to you not me. I can’t be the wind.” I slumped in the sand and felt the roughness with my hands. “I can’t be sunshine and I can’t be bright clouds. I can’t be the sky for him.”

I looked up to the blue as the clouds blew away and the sun glinted off my tears. “You’ll have to be his sky, y’know? My feet won’t leave this earth and all my blues are dark and sad. You’ll have to be his sunshine and his wind and his bright blue.”

I put my head down in my hands, a familiar place for it. “Will you?” I whispered. “Please?”

It came to me on the breeze. The smell of yellow and the taste of starlight. The feel of birdsong and the sound of the horizon. It all blew through me and it said, “I will.” So I got to my feet and I went to my boy. I took his hand and we ran across the sand laughing together with the blue blue sky.

I didn’t know I’d hung so much importance on spring coming. Here I thought that I was just looking forward to it like it was a treat that had been hinted at by a doting uncle. Turns out I needed spring to come like I need to eat every morning.

It had just been a hard winter. The wind bit into me every time I stepped outside making me hunch up into myself away from everyone. First snowfall was almost pretty, but then the dirt and filth of this city turned all that whiteness brown and gray before it even hit the ground. After that, the snow was just something else that was cold and wet and dirty. All the magic’d been drained away and every dancing snowflake had broken its legs before it touched down. I watched them fall from that dark, glowering sky and imagined I could hear them scream the whole way down.

That’s enough to depress a canary, but the thing that got to me the worst was the way the color of the world had changed. We get all ready for winter by walking through autumn with its kaboom of color. Autumn’s like someone put a firecracker in a box of crayons. You step outside your door and there’s reds and yellows and oranges all sitting on bright green grass and standing against a sky so blue it hurts your eyes. I love all that color. I roll around in it and let it cling to me and maybe it makes me better. Then, well, then the leaves turn sickly and fall off the trees. The grass turns brown and clouds roll over the sky like a blanket nobody wants. My whole world turns white and gray and dim and dismal.

But hey, I’d say, spring is coming. The snowflakes would cry and the sun would get all lost in that smog, but I could handle it because, I told myself, spring is coming.

So where is it? Where is my spring? I keep stepping out hoping to see at least some glimpse, but all I can see is how when the snow melted it turned three feet of dirt into six feet of mud. And all the flowers I’d planted, all the color I was hoping so much to see, is drowning and dying in all that mud.

So now I’m standing on the little scrap of earth that’s mine and I’m staring at these plants. They’re just limp, little things all flopped over from the pounding they’re getting from the rain. It’s like the weight of the whole sky just fell on these little plants and knocked them down so hard they can’t get out of the mud.

I’m looking at these sprouts and feeling like I want to hit something when I see a plant growing up between some rocks. It’s still just a little sprout, but already it’s had to push its way through life just to get to the air. It’s got all these rocks around it which almost kept it from growing, but now that it’s there the rocks are keeping it upright in the rain. This plant fought to sprout and now it’s standing tall just daring the rain and the gray and the cold and the mud to beat it down. I look at this little flower plant standing so tall and proud and then I look up at the heavy sky.

Yeah, I say, spring is coming.

The little boy wraps his arms around his legs and shakes. He can smell the air in the small space under the covers going stale. He can feel the cold of the darkness wrapping itself around his bed. He can almost taste his own fear. The whole bed is shaking now with his terror. And he’s tired, he’s so tired. So many nights have been spent like this in the cold, the dark, the fear. He knows that he’s almost tired enough to fall asleep.

The light that comes to him is small and faint, but bursting with possibility like a candle flame with a wealth of available wick. It slides under the blankets and rests on one white knuckle as gentle as a moth. The flame grows until it just touches the boy’s eyes.

“Courage, lad,” it whispers to him.

The boy opens his eyes now. He stares into the flame and finds some courage there. At least enough to unwrap one hand from his knee and touch the flame resting on his other hand. It warms him past his skin and deep into his soul. He unclenches the other hand from his knee and turns it over so the flame is resting in his palm. It’s bigger now, a ball of fire that fits his hand.

It whispers to him again. “Courage. They have not won.”

The boy hesitates for a long moment. Then he pushes the blankets off and puts his feet on the cold floor. The darkness under the bed gibbers and reaches for him, but the flame has grown now into a sword. Its edge is sharp and his aim is true. With a screech of pain the reaching fingers retreat back under the bed. The boy is shaking so hard that he almost drops his flaming sword, but he makes himself go to the closet door. And open it.

The darkness inside roars, a cold blast of wind that slams into the boy and eats at his courage. The sword in his hand blazes in response, dark against light, cold against heat. The boy stands before the open door. He’s so small, almost fragile. The darkness within the closet is all the frightening things that haunt our nights and our sleep. It’s a thousand years of savagery and terror. A giant, swirling ball of fear that towers over the boy standing against it.

Tears are running down his face, but he doesn’t turn away or yield. The boy knows who stands with him.

The sword made of fire grows until it is a column wrapping around the boy, between him and the evil. It blazes until every corner of the room is flooded with fire and light. The evil in the closet screams in fear, anger, pain. A voice thunders from the fire. “GO! NOW!” The beast in the closet tries to fight, but it lost this battle as soon as it picked this boy to terrorize. All the cold and darkness melts from the closet until none is left.

The blazing fire shrinks again until it is a small candle flame in the boy’s hand. He closes the closet door and gets back into bed. The flame floats up to rest on the headboard and watches the boy sleep the whole night through.