Mountain Bike (Advanced Writing Workshop Timed Freewrite)

October 27

That was really something special. Big, fluffy flakes falling all around us. Climbing elevation into deeper and deeper snow yet we never slowed our pace. We never worried about getting in over our heads. It went by so fast. Before I knew it we were on our way back, covered in mud. I remember you snapping that picture at the pass. The lookout was rendered a blank, gray canvas by snow flurries. You had a huge smile on your face.
I’m still muddy. But now it’s dried into clumps and water stains. I’m pretty stiff too. Let me know when you ready to head out again. I just need a little air.

November 19 

Congratulations! You’re actually doing it. You’ve been talking about grad school forever. All those times we laid at the top of Evergreen Mountain and talked to God about it. You kept asking how you were going to do it. I was beginning to think you were all talk… I’m glad you proved me wrong. We’ve always made it through the rough stuff. And even if we didn’t; we got back up. We should get out and celebrate.

November 25 

So good. Thanks for letting me come along with you and your mom. I can see where you get your love for the outdoors. She didn’t seem to mind the cold at all. Just picked up her pace and soaked in the views. Too bad we couldn’t have stayed out longer. The wind wasn’t that bad, and the mud didn’t bother me.

December 25 

I heard you and the family this morning. Sounded great. The kid’s excitement was obvious. Good job, dad. So, are you taking any time off? Maybe before school starts we could head out together. It’s been awhile. You walk by and don’t even look at me. Just the other day you reached right over me and didn’t seem to notice I was there. I’m caked with mud; it’s not the best thing for me, you know. Well, merry Christmas.

January 27

I saw you got your skis out this morning. How was it? Be honest. Probably wasn’t too bad; you took the kids with you. Look, we need to talk. It’s been over a month and I’m still dirty. And I need some air. All this is not good for me. We could talk on the way to work. It doesn’t have to be a big thing. Maybe just on the way to the store. I’d be okay if the kids came along.
I remember when you were committed. Every Tuesday and Thursday at 6:30 am. I could set a watch by it. Those cold mornings before the sun broke the horizon, we saw deer and elk, but never a single other person. Don’t you miss those times? Don’t you miss playing on rocks, racing down trails, staring out at distant peaks and deep forests?

March 17 

Have you just given up? I think you’re purposely ignoring me. I see you went skiing today. You just threw your wet gear on the floor in front of me and walked away. No hello. No smile. Did you even enjoy skiing?
Are you enjoying anything? I see you staring at the wall a lot. And you’ve got to take it easy on the kids. They’re just kids, you know? Maybe we should all get outside for a bit. We could head down to the park.

April 15 

So now I’m not allowed in the house? I mean it’s a nice shed, you did a nice job. But come on… I’ve always been inside with you. You know what they say, “Out of sight, out of mind.”
Have you noticed days are getting longer? Maybe we could get away for an early morning. I just need a little air. I don’t even mind being dirty. Let me know. Okay?

Past, Present, Future (Advanced Writing Workshop Timed Freewrite)

Against the sidewalk her soles click with a confident rhythm. Her jacket and uniform shudder softly with each step. The up tempo pace is right on schedule—she is not late, in fact she is early. I’m a step ahead she sings to herself. A thin firm smile appears. Her eyes glimmer. She straightens her back and raises her chest.

Two blocks from the bus stop to her building. It takes 15 minutes. The winter had made the walk down right miserable at times, but spring now bathed the old brick facades in soft pink. The air is crisp. She feels the chill of winter being shaken off. There is an electricity in the air too. Trees and plants are budding. Birds chatter.

The key slides into the lock and the bolt moves with a pleasant weight. Inside the small vestibule the dust hangs in the air. The pink of the morning frames diagonals in the lazy dust particles. Her shoes make a different sound. They’re tinny. Their echo in the vestibule pulls the dark chipping wood closer.

She pauses for a moment beside the door. Looking up the steps she pictures her two daughters clutching blankets and stuffed animals. Their mouths relaxed and open inhaling and exhaling deeply. Sunlight seeping into their room from behind the baby blanket hung in front of their window. She thinks of her son. His eyes looking back at her then looking at the ground. His jaw loose pulling the skin down from his soft cheeks. His thick hair a black mop on his head. She wishes he would do something with it.

Her sister she knows is crumpled on the couch. Her butt will be lodged high into the back of the middle cushion. Likewise knees driven down. One arm tucked in her chest and the other dangling over the edge with finger tips near a fashion magazine. She chuckles at the thought of her sister with a crook in her neck, hair in her face, clutching a mug of coffee. She is excited to tell her the news.

She takes the first flight of stairs quickly. Here in the stairwell the building is darker. The glass ceiling above the fifth floor is caked with dirt that diffuses the sun and casts a brown shade on the walls. She rounds the second flight of steps slowing on the third flight. The dark wood is well worn and dull. Here the air is stale. By the fourth flight of steps she is using the hand rail. Three steps from her landing she is startled by him. Mr. Alvarez I think she says to herself.

He stares down at her. His entire body is set in a rigid hunch. The dull rumpled clothes are cartoonish. He appears as a caricature to her. He opens his dry mouth and rolls his jaw slowly. He says nothing.

“Good morning Mr. Alvarez.”

A low dismissive grunt.

“Spring is most definitely here.” She pauses. “The bus driver said the city gardens are bursting; the tulips are gorgeous!”

Nothing.

“Well if you will excuse me. I am going to head to my door.”

“Your boy. He’s the one with the mess of hair.”

“Yes.” She chuckles. “I’ve been after him to get a haircut.”

“He should mind himself. Tell him to stay off the roof. He’s no business up there.”

“I’m sorry. I…”

“It’s dangerous. He could fall over the ledge.” He huffed. “I hear him running about up there. Don’t know what he’s doing.”

“Mr. Alvarez!” she declares. “I am sure he is quite fine. I will speak with him. Thank you for your concern.” ending brusquely.

“It’s no wonder with his mother out all night…” he mutters.

Red flushes her face as she glares up at his looming figure. A thousand words tumble through her mind. Her lips quiver trying to organize her response. Her grip on the rail presses the blood from her hand. His listless frame seems to fill with black. His face fades away. She feels her eyes drawing back at the edges. They strain. Crashing into her tumbling words she hears other voices. Shouts and accusations. Questions and cursing. She is shrinking. Falling back down the steps. Her head is swimming.

Suddenly she burst out, “What about you old man! What are you doing up there? I hear you dragging around furniture day in and day out. What are you up to? You crazy bat!” She heaves to inhale. “You hide up there all day. Never once have you shown a stitch of kindness! Never once have you asked about us! You think you’re better than us? What are you doing up there dragging around God knows what?” She is now spent. The previous day’s shift followed by the long night shift now catches up to her. She is exhausted. She is fighting back tears. He will not see her cry.

He only half hears her. He is lost, thinking where it might be. Did he look behind the record console? Did he put it in a shoe box… or maybe that envelope? The envelope with his wife’s handwriting—where was the envelope? Why can’t he remember?

He sees her panting. She is looking at his shoes. Is she crying? He remembers his wife’s cry. She gasped and shuddered when she would cry. The woman below him cries into herself. Softly.

She pushes past him and races to her door. Keys fumble in hand. The keyhole refuses to cooperate. Her sister sweeps the door open and she plunges through. The door slams with a dead weight.

He stands still trying to remember the photo. The details fill in, black and white, slightly out of focus at first, then color, then focused. He sees her looking up at him. Smiling. Her eyes squinting in the warm noon sun but they still gleam. She is bent over a planter with trowel in hand. Her gloves are speckled by moist dark earth. He remembers the cool breeze on the rooftop. The white pillows of clouds on the horizon. He clutches the memory, but it begins to fade.

Peter (Advanced Writing Workshop Timed Freewrite)

The whistle gathered itself inside the kettle before its voice peaked at the tip of the pour spout. Peter let it whistle for a moment unwilling to take his hands away from the proximity of the stove’s flame. His body was hunched slightly towards the small appliance. Eventually the scalding water was poured into a tin mug. He held it in both hands even though it was uncomfortably hot. Peter gazed out the large window and down to the low brick buildings and cobblestone street. He looked past the scene disregarding details only noting gray angular shapes and empty spaces in the early morning light. He was looking into his thoughts.

Peter turned them over and over in his mind. It was difficult to hold them still. One side of his thoughts felt lightweight, easy to handle, optimistic. But just as they seemed to take root and fix his view the thoughts turned over. The other side became unbearably heavy and oozed through his mind’s grasp. It spread out and folded behind itself. He lost the whole view and parts began to blur. He could feel his insides sinking. He turned from the window.

A lamp flicked yellow across a haphazard table. A small meal of cold meat, pickled vegetables, and stale cheese alongside a small collection of letters interrupted its featureless surface. The handwriting with its familiar long, angled strokes activated his body and Peter moved in close to the letters sitting down and lowering his head till face and the upturned fold of the top letter almost touched. There was intimacy being so close to the words and phrases. It stirred his insides. Peter shifted in his seat. The food was a satisfactory distraction. He nibbled at the vegetables and gulped the cheese and meat down. His warm drink washed his mouth of the pungent tastes and thick grease.

Her father was still. His body rigid under the many blankets and quilts. His gaze was fixed to the ceiling as if the movement of his eyes might alert the day to begin. His ears pulsed in the silence of the predawn. He could hear the cold hanging in the air. His wife lie motionless next to him, her warmth small and persistent. The room was getting slowly lighter, shades of cool gray were melting away and the browns of the little wooden mantle awoke. The cream of the walls began to appear. A sliver of yellow slid across the window pane. For a few moments the room was bathed in an orange hue. But the cold refused to relinquish its hold and the orange faded away. Now the shadows began to evaporate as the day’s light slid into the room.

He refused to move, his thoughts fixed on his daughter. Their love was not in question. He recognized its familiar sounds and motions as well as its silence and stillness. Had he not loved his wife so he might have diagnosed his daughter with an illness. But there was no mistake. Thought it could be a mistake. The world could be mistaken. Certainly none of it would pause and adjust for these two youths. He arched his back and clenched his fists.

He accepted Peter. He even justified Peter. The young man would alleviate her father’s own failing body. No longer could he punish his frame with relentless hours of toil to produce what his family needed. Nor could he rely on orders to come as they always had. The effortless momentum of his world was stumbling and swirling in eddies of unrest. Peter might be the able hands and sturdy back that could allow him time to think. Allow him time to unpack it all and put it back together. With great effort he rocked himself up and onto the edge of the bed. His wife’s eyes opened and watched him quietly. He would need to hurry he thought to reach the station on time. There were tasks to complete. Today Peter would arrive on the train and tomorrow… Maybe he could put it all back together again.

---


His head rolled back and forth with the swaying of the passenger car. Its watery weight felt detached from the rest of himself like a large melon inside a sock. Maybe it was the roof rocking back and forth. Puffs of frosty breath spurted erratically from his open mouth. His back skewed a ridge between two worn valleys in the wooden floor. Bits of something floated aimlessly in the air. At first he thought it was snow, but a bit perched on his swollen tongue and didn’t melt. The sound of the train rolling along the tracks seemed strangely muffled from his low vantage point. The train’s pace responded to invisible terrain. Steady, then slowing, then quickening, quickening more–his eyes widened and he felt the extremities of his limbs awake and react on their own. As the train steadied they fell asleep once more. He was beginning to shiver from the cold.


On the platform a few soldiers stared at him in the absence of the train. Their gaze was naked–they had nothing else to possess them. Eyes gray and round. Puffy red noses. Lips stuck to pathetic looking cigarettes. Their cold stare was meaningless. The pitiless cold of winter was far worse. His eyes looked out across a gray scene of formless clouds and comatose fields with dark stands of trees. Nothing out there moved. He swayed a little, but the fabric against his skin was too cold for him to move much. The whistle from the train split the air, but then the cold swallowed it up. People began to shift. A weathered, hunched woman gathered her tattered fabric bundles. A mother pressed the backs of two small boys gripping her heavy overcoat around her thighs. And the soldiers moved their weight from the wall to their rifles.


He couldn’t tell what time it was. The bits in the air seemed to have stopped moving, suspended and lit by brighter light that moved over and around and behind them. He heard a whisper. It was something like newsprint crinkling, but then it was gone. Time was making the passenger car go in circles. It ran down the rails only to follow the car ahead back to those same parallels. He heard the whisper again. It was like silver shimmering. It rose and fell like water. His eyes finally closed. The muffled sounds moved farther away and the train kept circling. He felt his lips moving and heard the whisper again, but he couldn’t make out what he was saying. And then it stopped.


The nests of men crying revolution had riddled the train with bullets. Their machine guns had showered the engine and passenger cars and box cars so that wood splintered and glass shattered and iron perforated. The upholstery had popped and puffed sending bits of stuffing into the air. But the dynamite never heaved the final blow. The train bumbled past the ambush with its handful of passengers slowly dying or dead. It stumbled through the terrain as if looking for a place to collapse and sleep though it had no mind to know how to stop. So it kept going. Past vast browned fields. Past dark sober trunks with arms and fingers spread out achingly in the cold. Gaining speed down mild slopes and slowing as it neared the crest of small ridges. The formless gray clouds and wide flat horizon seemed to suck the train forward towards no destination. It was a restless procession of emptiness.