Seeking Refuge

The city would be her refuge. It was a big one, with plenty of hiding places. North of Buffalo, south of nowhere. Always posing as New York or Boston. Or a small town in Illinois.  

She flew there with her spark, giving him the window seat, to seek refuge from the same-old, same-old. The constant, burning heat at family picnics. The old trees that always dripped moss onto her grandmother’s rocking chair and her forest-green house that never saw snow. 

She’d see snow in the city. 

The plane touched down when fall was trying to shake summer off its leg. The wind chilled the sweat on the back of her neck.  

Welcome, Bienvenue, it whispered as she stepped out of the airport. She tucked its words deep in her lungs. How light, how cool they felt. Just as she hoped they would. 

Her spark followed after her, with his yellow, wheely suitcase. His mouth widened to a smile.

How exciting, he said.

Down the street they went, gazing at mirrors tall and wide, which scraped the sky and sat beside squat, brick edifices from a time gone by. Her eyes bounced between them like a hummingbird as each person walking past became two, three, four. They got caught in the pedestrian current, surrounded by rushing tires and whirring sirens. The smell of fresh bread whisked her spark away, followed by the glares of others tucked away in briefcases and backpacks. She was swept another way, down a street with a strange name. She saw her spark’s reflection picked up by the wind and sail toward the clouds. She reached for him, but she was pinned. Swirling in the whirlpool of passersby, fizzing beneath the magnified eyes of each sleek facade. 

When at last her outstretched fingers met his, they raced the remaining blocks to her dorm and shut the door.  

How thrilling, said her spark. She bent over to catch her breath.

The school would be her refuge, she decided. The first week was another wave of new faces, big maps, and tall stacks of things to unpack. She smiled placing the last pair of socks in their new home in her closet. She extended a hand to her long-haired roommate. They were the only ones who spoke English on the floor. 

It’s not a dorm, it’s a res, her roommate soon told her, tossing the sheet of hair behind her shoulders. It’s not a college, it’s a university. She tilted her head after a beat. Why did you come here anyway?

Her spark puffed his chest, but she stepped in front of him. The first night came and went. The morning brought her breakfast laced with poison.

But she and her spark had never stepped down cobbled streets so beautiful, even beneath the grey blanket of sky. The dark, mottled stones shone as they dodged other students’ black umbrellas. Her spark tucked in behind her to avoid bumping shoulders. Not one face was recognizable through the mist. Not one in the entire city.

She pulled her blue and white jacket sleeves down past her fingers and plowed on. Marbled Georgian castles housed classes stuffed with button-ups who’d already studied the allegory of the cave and who’d already read the Consolation of Philosophy.  

Why did you come here?

This seat’s taken. 

Sorry.

That morning, it was a sea of 1,500 grains of sand. Not one in blue. Not one in white. Not one at all beside her.

Oh well, said her spark, shimmering his eyes at the domed Baroque ceiling. How different. How new. How lucky we are to be here. 

Okay, she thought, her routine would be her refuge. It was freedom, after all. Her very first taste. Get up, go to class, come back with fingers crossed that the room was empty. Hide her spark in the closet and get lost in a screen of other lives lived in other places. 

The first winter brought more snow than anyone had seen in the past fifteen years. The sky teased her with patches of light that reflected off her boots as she walked to class. Her breath would catch. She’d lift her eyes. And in that instant, the sky would soak them up again like a dirty paper towel. She’d never known a sky so dark. Her mind filled with thoughts of dripping moss perfectly shadowing a set of front porch rocking chairs.

Her spark flickered. It’s alright. It’s new. It’s different. How lucky we are. 

On mornings when she knew the icy wind would whip her cheeks raw and the thin socks she’d brought would soak through, she’d stay in bed. 

Aren’t you going to class? The long hair was half-hidden by a hat today. (It’s not a ‘hat’.) 

Questions became her drug. How, how, how, was her every moment. Head on her pillow, she’d stare across the room at that garish poster of a half-naked woman with a gash across her back. 

It’s art, the long hair had claimed.

Where, where, where. All-day long, it was a speeding subway train. Maybe this, maybe that, maybe this, maybe that. 

The grey sky beat into her as the wind scraped a fingernail down the glass of the window. Tu es a moi. 

She pulled the blanket over her and her spark.

When the year crawled to an end, they left the city. The summer came, the summer went. Her spark fit in his window seat again.

And they returned to the city. 

It drew them back like a tight set of spiny fingers. There was something, wasn’t there, to living in a city? Especially this one, her spark would say. Museums and theaters to visit. Classes to take, hobbies to learn, foods to taste. All she had to do was try something.  

She would try all these things. 

Trying would become her refuge. 

She spent her grocery money on a ticket to Les Mis and walked with her best maroon dress among the chattering couples at intermission. Her spark rested on her shoulder.

She took and passed a painting class by a teacher with half-moon eyes. Her spark brushed on the finishing purple swirl. She opened her phone and stared, fingers suspended over a new message, until the screen went black. She slid it back in her pocket.

Trying could only be done in the in-between. Class in, class out, everyone had something to get to. She stepped down creaking halls that had inspired worlds of fantasy in other minds. Her spark tucked its legs beneath the top strap of her backpack and breathed deep the smell of old paper and glue.

How different. How lucky we are. His voice echoed down the dark, empty hall. 

She had moved to a tiny, grey house with burnt shutters, full of strangers. Her room was at the top of the second spindly stairwell. When she’d lugged their suitcases to the top, she shoved them aside and leaned against the door. Her spark hopped to the duct-taped window and watched students scurry like ants along the street below. The carpet smelled of sweat.

Downstairs, in a room off the hall, there was a girl with puffy, brown hair and a soft, Italian face. When she felt like it, the girl would leave her door open for chats on her worn, flower comforter. The girl had a spark that was tall and quiet, always tipping its head against the wall and gazing at them with its eyelids low. 

When she came home, she’d look for that open door, skipping through while her own spark peered in around the baseboards. But eventually, her laughter lifted his smile, and he hopped in to join them, rolling in a little ball around the hardwood floor. 

You’ll have to come to my family’s house for the holiday, the girl told them. The tall, quiet spark smirked. Her own spark danced.

The girl introduced her to a boy with curly, black hair and skin like smooth leather. And that was that, for her. He took her to the orchard and put rose petals on her bed. They chased each other to the lake, running until their chests were tight. His hands were strong. And their laughter bounced between the skyscrapers. 

Her spark climbed clumsily atop her head as they all looked across the water, and made her sway. 

And she’d forget, in those moments, of the grey-blanket sky. And the wind’s words turned sweet in her memory: tu es a moi.

Moments would be her refuge. 

They would come on Sunday nights, singing hymns in a church down the street with the girl. They would come on frozen afternoons, eating street-cooked beef at the library with the boy. They would come in bests, in mosts, and in yous. 

She wrapped her arms around her spark at night, and they breathed in unison.

But when winter clung to spring that year, the bare trees forgot to blossom. The girl’s room was empty, and the boy was gone. 

And her spark tumbled down the crack beside her bed and crawled beneath a sock in the corner.

Day after day went by, and she gave up on her refuge. Nothing would be it, she decided. 

A strangled gasp met her ear like a little fly fighting its capture in a web. She craned and listened. 

She waited. 

Nothing.

Months came, months went, and she couldn’t find her spark. She didn’t know it was lying there, beneath the heavy sock, hidden by a tired chemistry notebook and trying not to breathe in all the air that was left. 

Every solo venture in the cold saw salt-stained peacoats rushing by like black cats across her path. Torn flyers like swooping ravens took flight from their lamp-post perches and dove around her. 

Volunteers wanted--

--union hours, 9 am-3 pm

Join the--

 The same old grey-blanket sky hovered over her, tempting her back to her room, where she found her cheek resting once again on the hard, knotted carpet. She let the fibers sink into her skin and wondered if the creases that would be there when she woke would ever stop fading away. Her eyes closed. 

Opening them later in the evening light, she noticed the things that had taken refuge under the mattress. She dragged out a yellow highlighter, three bobby pins, the chemistry notebook, and a scratched CD. Then she grabbed the sock. 

And her spark was there. 

She hurried to her knees and scooped it into her hands. Tears ran from her eyes to splash his dusty face and trailed down to where his tiny hand was clasped against his chest, rising and falling in shallow waves. She blew on him gently and waited.

His eyes opened. And then she had an idea. 

A week later, she sat picking at her fingernails in a hand-me-down living room, waiting for the others to arrive. So many words for it on the flyer: a fellowship, a group. Would it be anything to her? Her spark tugged at a thread in the back pocket of her jeans. 

They steeled themselves for the strangers who came in, one after another, to start and end as hellos. The usual verbal currency was exchanged.

But at the end, a thin girl with short, blonde hair asked, Will we see you next week?

Her spark ducked down into her pocket. But she nodded.

Night after night with these strangers at coffee shops and libraries, they held their breath. Gliding with them on skating rinks or strolling through museums, they walked behind and watched. When they had lunch, her spark gripped her hand under the table. 

Weeks came, weeks went. Dodging umbrellas on the cobbled streets, a voice lifted her gaze. She recognized the face of the thin, blonde-haired girl.

Want to walk together?

Her spark peeked out from his snug spot beneath her coat collar and inhaled. 

Then the strangers started staying late for one more game or a heart-to-heart or some I know what you means and us toos. And her spark let his shoulders fall.

When spring came again, and the trees finally remembered to blossom, the familiar strangers settled in for another year of coffee shops and libraries. Of frozen memories and laughter that painted the streets yellow. 

But only when she had finally shaken hands with that mirror-glazed city, when she’d said goodbye to the scurrying peacoats and that grey-blanket sky, would she turn to take one last glance and spot the word she’d been looking for. Only once she squinted to look back all those months ago to that hand-me-down living room, where each of those now-familiar faces would walk in and say hello, did she realize. 

She had found her refuge.