His aggression didn’t sit well with me at first. It seemed to prod at me like a thorn in my side, but I considered his position and respected his ambition. After all, we were two very different minds. Any worries I had about my sister dealing with that aggression soon disbanded when I remembered that she was my sister after all, and I felt that he and I hadn’t spoken before and it was good, and fine that he spoke his mind, and I enjoyed the tales of his father. The fact that I remember his stories atones to his telling. Then there was my brother—an expert at being present and emitting an air of coolness without saying a thing. We were speaking about life, and how twisted it was. I knew for a fact he was just as confused as we were, if not more so, and just as disturbed. He had more options than the two of us, probably more opinions too, yet he remained silent.
The homes were old—built into the side of the hill. Every driveway separate and unique, remnants of a time before track-homes. It was a time when homes were custom-built because they had to be. Days of finer materials, and artisans who took pride in their work. We marveled at the old wooden doors, some round, some square, that were doubled in stone walls and covered in the same moss as the trees—entrances to old basements that connected to the weathered homes. “Our morning coffee in that kitchen,” we thought, “that would be something.”
We love to dream. It is one of our favorite pastimes.
We pulled to the side of the road. A foggy feeling shook me. It was a feeling I hadn’t felt since we had left California. Direction. Purpose. The tall moss-covered trees coupled with the clouds made me giddy. I was glad to stop. Happy to breathe. I remembered the long treks in the rainforests on the coast. “I miss the sea,” I thought. I had thought that so many times now. I underestimated how much it meant to me to be there, beside her. The thought was but a glimpse—there and gone in an instant. Before I knew it, I was lost in daydreams of grizzlies and arrows flying through those trees. I was overjoyed to be in the forest. I wanted to stay. I wanted to explore. I wanted to run, barebacked and armed, as though it was 1812, and I was living there amongst my brothers.
The most alarming and recurring instance of my early twenties has been my increased perception of time (more specifically, the passing thereof.) It’s as though a large clock is ticking away inside my brain—the metal pendulum swaying back and forth, crashing into either side of my head again and again. Time passes and the World moves but I do nothing but float here, in my apartment of pushing carts, seemingly the best job I can land using my degree. My scalp is raw and bloody, but I still scratch. I scratch in my sleep: bad dreams. I scratch in the day: terrible thoughts. I want to be free from the floating. I want to dive down. I want to swim. I want to fly as the leviathans do. Graceful giants who do not share my worries. It has been said that their eyes speak to men.
I wonder what those eyes would say to me now.