Waiting

I've been very resistant to showing up for my creativity recently! In an attempt to touch it again, I sometimes find it helpful to write the beginnings of things. Maybe because there's little commitment : ) and/or maybe because it just helps to get the creative juices flowing. These three little pieces came out all connected to the idea of waiting. Maybe this is really a love letter to my creativity, saying I will wait, I will be here, when you are ready.

The door kept creaking after he slammed it, walking through. On her stomach, in bed, she felt her breath slowing. She hadn't realized it had gotten so fast. There was no reason to get up and stop the creak. It comforted her anyway – a friend in the slow silence. The light, well, the light was soft and clean and reminded her of that day in the laundromat when a man who looked like Jesus, or at least how he looked in the typical rendering, had walked in and smiled at her. Now a spider twisted in the corner of the window, hanging from a thread and she waited, waited for something to change that would make her body move again.

The elevator to the top cleared out the higher up they got. John stared down at his feet for most of the ride. Cindy had been right, he should have shined his shoes. This was a big day. She would even have done it for him. The dull sheen reminded him of his old man. There was always a lackluster sense to his shoes. A bit of dust and crud. When he was little, John often begged his dad to stop at the shoe shine man in Grand Central. He wanted to sit in those high chairs and watch the cloth go back and forth. He wanted to get close to the smell, but they never did. John knew now it was because of the extra expense on top of raising a family of five, but back then he though his dad was just mean and always in a hurry. The ding of the 59th floor brought him back, and he was alone in the glass box. One more to go and his own family's fate would be decided.

Andy shifted back and forth on the park bench, the slats were uneven and uncomfortable. He was watching the pond before him and the way the ducks seemed to have formed their own, very distinct cliques. There was a lone swan who seemed both exquisite and out of place. A thought surprised him. He wondered what it would feel like to take the swan's neck in his own hands. To unbend it, to break it. Crushing the downy beauty. He felt immediately ashamed and wished he could take it back. A man in a brown coat walked past, missing the trash can with his crumpled up bit of paper. Leaves fell. Andy watched the wind take them and checked his watch. His stomach felt very unsettled and he hoped Amy would show up soon. She had sounded so tense and distant on the phone.