Ink

{ Crossing his legs on the corner of a bench in his favorite park about a block from his apartment, he propped his notebook up against his knee and proceeded to jot down his feelings for the day. Looking up only a few times to make sense of his thoughts by gazing into mesh of colors that made up the tie-dyed horizon, he maintained a steady conversion of memories to ink until the surface of the paper reflected exactly what existed in his mind. With each new sentence, a new smirk emerged on his face as he the relationship he had with himself continued to evolve.

Meanwhile the earth continued to revolve, revealing less and less of the sunlight that allowed this boy to make the most important connections of his life. With the wind picking up slightly along with a drop in temperature as the sun left the sky, he scribbled his last words for the day. He slipped the pen in his right-hand pocket and after closing his notebook, he placed it at the very edge of bench to his left. Being in a relatively good mood without having to be anywhere else, he figured he'd enjoy the peacefulness of the area until the moon came out. He knew it wasn't yet in the first quarter, so he wouldn't have to wait long. He pivoted his body clockwise, lifted his feet up onto the bench, laid back, and folded his arms on his chest as he gazed East into the sky where the moon would soon become visible.

As it became dark enough, the lights throughout the park started to flicker on, one by one. There was a light at every bench, separated by about forty yards along the sidewalk which cut through the center of the park. It was a different place at night. Simultaneously quaint and mysterious, he felt as if the park encompassed the personality of something or someone he longed for. If he just waited there long enough, he would be able to communicate with the night, bridging the gap from the previous day in which he discovered himself. He closed his eyes for a brief moment in an honest attempt.

A shriek of wind stirred at the very end of the walkway and he sat up with a start. A chill shot up his spine when it happened again. He stared down the sidewalk to the last light he could see. Each burst of wind became increasingly louder, sounding more similar to screams as their intensity grew. All of a sudden, as if contained within a funnel from where the sound emitted from, a gust of wind spiraled his way, knocking his notebook to the ground. The pages flipped and eventually landed on the entry he had just finished writing. While pondering this for a second, he heard a light bulb burst in the distance. After a second, another one broke. Like a row of firecrackers, the lights exploded in quick succession toward him, adding a new layer of darkness to the night.

It all happened so fast he didn't have time to react. Like a deer in the headlights, he had no choice but to stand there and watch fate unfolded in front of him. He glanced down at his notebook and read the last seven words of his entry, "my imagination will never cease to exist". And just like that, there was silence. He looked up and witnessed a vast tidal wave of darkness that stretched to the edge of the park down to the last line of his journal entry. He took his pen out of his right pocket, unscrewed the top, and held it out in front of him. The ink condensed and made its way back to where it belonged, revealing the sidewalk and the lights that illuminated it.

Opening his eyes, he didn't see the moon to the East where he was facing, but to the West. It was smiling at him, and he was smiling back. } - A short story by Jordan