My Pocket

I was sure that hope had abandoned me. I lay in bed pondering my hopelessness, and a part of me did have to wonder if perhaps I had been the one to abandon hope, but that only fueled my self-loathing. I stared up at the ceiling, tossing the blame back and forth between myself and hope. Tears tickled their way down my temples and around the back of my head, cold darkness enveloping me as I drifted to the bottom of a bottomless pit.

Tomorrow was gone. Now didn't matter anymore. Yesterday was over. I had reached the end of everything.

I sat up, despising my uprightness, and slipped my feet into the shoes by my bed. A cruel chuckle tumbled from my chest, mocking myself for bothering with shoes at all. It was a short walk, but perhaps I needed two shoes so that one could be found a few yards from the body, as usually happens in cases like mine.

My sleep pants did little to stop the icy morning breeze outside. I pulled the front door closed for the last time. Impulsively I reached into my empty pockets looking for the keys, then turned my back on the unlocked door.

On the sidewalk up ahead a mother and her small daughter approached. The toddler's attention was fixed on something in her hands and she only glanced up when she stumbled into my heavy shadow. She did a double-take, her eyes darting back to her hands and landing on my face as I gazed down at her little world. She looked back to her hands, where her tiny fingers carefully cradled a smooth rock, not much larger than a pebble. She considered the rock, then regarded me, then slowly extended an open hand to me, silently offering me her prized common stone resting luxuriously on the soft pillow of her palm.

I was exposed, drifting loose in the open air of the world. Unattached to a locked home, untethered and burdened only by my sorrows. I finally felt free and light, the resolve of my irreparable heart at last having found the end of everything and now... a rock?

She strained to extend her hand closer, a hint of tears welling up in her sparkling eyes. So I took the rock, shoved it in my pocket, and left, taking quick, heavy steps away from the scene that had burned itself into my mind. I wondered if it would be the thing I saw when I closed my eyes for the last time.

My march carried me through a park, its winding footpath weaving around hills and through gentle valleys. My pace was slow but determined as I cut through to the bridge.

The late morning air was thin and cool. A few scattered citizens roamed the green pocket of nature, tucking themselves into a hollow dream of peace amid the busy forest of concrete and glass. This was their escape, but it was just the gate to mine.

At the edge of the park I paused. Up head a great road of trusses and asphalt spanned over a vast river. On the other bank of the river a busy highway passed under the bridge, six lanes of high speed killing machines rushing about frantically, filling the air with stress and tension. I stared at the river of steel and rubber and glass, the distant drone of their hurry kissing my ears softly while my tired heart pounded angrily in my chest.

I hardly noticed the old woman cracking and creaking as she battled her way off a nearby park bench. She was nothing more than the breeze dragging its sharp fingers through the leaves as she grunted and made the agonizing motions to stoop by the bench to pluck something from the ground. I entirely missed her slow, belabored approach as she hobbled into my view holding a little yellow dandelion. She extended a shaking hand weakly pinching the recently deceased weed, a hint of milky liquid dripping from the soft, snapped stem. Her bony, decrepit fingers were deeply wrinkled and spotted with dark freckles. Her yellow fingernails nearly matched the pincushion of petals blooming from the ravenous weed she offered me. She trembled violently and her voice cracked as she weakly forced air through her dusty vocal chords.

I didn't want her to speak. I had nothing to hear from her. I took the flower and stuffed it into my pocket, storming away under my heavy cloud.

Wind rushed over and under the bridge, whipping my loose sleepwear and tugging at my hair. The din of racing cars and rushing trucks gradually grew louder as I kicked the path behind myself, one step at a time. I stood still and the world rolled beneath me, a pinprick of nothing drifting over the surface of a scarred and dirtied globe.

Up ahead, leaning against the chain link cage keeping me from leaping into the lazy, slow river, a smog covered man huddled under a ragged blanket. His tattered felt hat was almost indistinguishable from a heap of mud and dung piled on his head. He had a worn, soggy cardboard box by his feet, some plea for help scrawled into the side. I glanced down into the box as I approached, counting just two small coins and a short length of string filling the space inside.

Against my will I slowed my pace and came to a halt before him, my mind demanding a long, lingering moment to take in his world. He groaned and lifted his gaze to meet mine. His cracked, chapped cheeks caked in smut and dirt pulled, impossibly, into a smile as his bright, deep eyes settled on me. His weathered lips were peeling in great, painful flakes. His long, matted hair was filled with soil and decay. His utter destitution shocked me, the heavy reality of his own dreary existence contrasting much more sharply with mine than I wished. His ruin was complete, and yet here he was.

I mindlessly reached into my pocket, perhaps some subconscious instinct to see what I could offer him. My hand closed around a cold, dead flower and a hard, almost smooth rock. The rock had been offered on a tender, warm cushion of love. It had once been the most prized possession of a vivacious young princess, and now it felt like a warm gem in my sweaty palm. The flower, regarded as most to be a pesky weed and a nuisance, had been laboriously hand picked and delivered by a woman painfully living out the final moments of her twilight years noticing invisible people in a park.

My pocket had no coins for his box, but it did contain something better. I collapsed to the ground and leaned against the man and his fence, tears running over my tight, smiling cheeks. Hope had not abandoned me after all. I had tomorrow in my pocket.