When
I left my house, the air was stale—silenced and waiting; for the thunder and
rain and the flowers wanted wetness and life and eventually they would continue
to bloom and lead mature adult-like lives. The flowers wanted responsibility;
they lusted for the air to become stale because they knew what was coming,
wetness, the flowers asked for sips of philitre. The Calibrachoa that were
potted and perched in the branch-arms of an old oak asked for wetness. The
lilies in the cracked soil cackled and threatened to wilt away if they did not
get their water. The peonies pleaded for philitre, drops of life, thunderstorms,
and a resonant nightmare for the easily stirred. Awaken the earthworms and all
variants of summer soils.
The
place I live, I have come to realize after the extent of my travels is rather
small. You can have the entire city gridded out and constructed like a map intrinsic
within the brain. I left the house on my forest green glider-bike at half
passed eight on any old night, crossed the train tracks on Kingsway and
continued to glide my way throughout the river neighbourhood. It does not take
long to see a familiar face, so we stop and hop off our bikes, greeting each
other with hesitant yet kindred gestures.
We part ways, I glide towards the river, along the winding road and
decide of my own volition to take a wide right, startling a speeding silver
vehicle in the near distance pace, for perhaps if she were a bullet, she would
be shedding shrapnel and I would see white powder dusting out of the exhaust
engine instead. She slowed her pace while I increased mine, continuing the
neighborhood glide-about. On Cordova
Street I began to dawdle, as did a toddler and mother on the sidewalk parallel
to me, the young girl appearing to be gliding for the first time, on her pink
and purple training wheeled bike. She lets out a bellowing “Screeeee” of painfully
endearing elation. Her mother has caramel curls, and the small girl has curls
of cocoa. They laugh together, and I glide
off towards my home, my backyard, and back into the secluded state of
restlessness and anxiety of possessing my future.
