Sketch
By Jeff Brendle

The young man sits quietly, alone, his legs dangling over the cement top of the rough-hewn stone wall, like countless generations of young men before him. Faded, ripped jeans, his uniform of the day, and every day, cover his taut, muscular legs, aching from yet another day of wandering, as they swing back and forth in a rhythm known only to him. Another nite.

Behind him, the symbol of learning, the lighted bell tower of Old Main is striking some quarter hour, he has forgotten which, and in front the streets he knows, oh so well. Slowly, deliberately, he begins to take out a Camel. "One, two, ... three... dammit, not again..." he says, barely audibly under his breath, while placing one between his lips. Almost automatically, a hand reaches into the pocket that should hold what he needs...and comes out empty. He lets go a loud, cynical laugh and starts, a look of suprise on his face at the sound coming from his own throat. A quick glance reassures him, he was not heard. "They will have to do..." he thinks to himself, familar as he is with having no money.

With a flick, a soft glow, and a dancing flame, his Zippo gives him his burning cherry, his fix. For a moment, the pensive inhalation, the feel of the smoke tumbling into his lungs, the welcome rush of nicotine, he forgets. The faint crackle, the heat. Exhale. The smoke drifts slowly about him. He notices the wetness... a tear.... But the yellow stains on his fingers betray him, this was not the first time the cigarette has stung his eyes. Indeed, that tear is an old friend, one of many that have done him the same bad turn.

Ordinary. Desperately, painfully ordinary, that's all he is, and he knows. Nothing remarkable: average height, medium build, fair complexion, brown hair and blue eyes. He knows he is just like so many people he's watched all night, walking by. And yet, he feels nothing, not a damned thing in common with any of them, no one, for none of them could possibly know.

He glances up, staring, as if for the first time at the moon, a halo of light, the textured, gray clouds framing it, standing above the facades of the buildings opposite him...peaceful. A series of darting glances, he takes everything in again... the lamp post, eerily lighting the branches of the tall ash tree, its leaves, a glittering, glowing mass of jades, moved slowly by the light summer breeze of evening. He cocks his head, straining to make out another passing conversation. Futile.

"At this time of night, they're all the same, anyway," he thinks to himself...joyous voices, drunken revelry with the echo of bar bands and booze, reckless abandon, and desire. "Ah, 'desire'...desire and frustration and disappointment and..." flashes through his mind. He watches. Some walking alone, some with friends, some arm in arm.... Exhale, and he's still alone. Alone! "How can you know you are alone if you have never BEEN?" He interrupts the thought. He knows there's no use... "never been, never had anything...never will" he thought that many times before...a forceful exhale stabs uselessly at the dark sky.

"Boredom, that's what it is," he decides. A life of endless sameness. "Each day, wake up late, worship the television, though watching nothing in particular, and then, coming to hang out downtown... it is..." he says to himself. "This is the life!" says the cynic in his head. He is sure there must be a reason to it, or there must be something more, but he's long since forgotten what.

He coughs dryly, and spits, another chunk of phlegm in the puddle that has grown below his feet. He's tired of trying, and of not trying. With a flick, the firey butt flies, turning over and over until it lands in a spray of red sparks in the dying grass. Too late, he thinks to toss it at the hippie walking by... a sudden thought: "Reject!" He pauses...thinking... but of what? A fragmentary, familar thought, but hardly one of which he is aware anymore. He raises a hand to push his long bangs away from his eyes and securely back under his dirty, old baseball cap, and sighs. He knows.

"No one else gets it..." he says to himself, a rising bitterness in his inner voice. Sure, he's right... no one else sees that the world was born out of shit; goes by, day by day as a pile of stinking, steaming, worm-infested filth; and passes into a sewer of endless streams of putrid, brown shit...endless...worthless, do they? The world...his life. "Pathetic," and he says no more. He begins to play nervously with his lighter, unthinkingly. Click. Click. Click! It registers...he stops, staring emptily at the sidewalk.

"If only I had the ambition. The drive.... Either way." Louder still, his mind racing, the freqent demand: "Do something!" He's thought all of this before, too.

He smiles faintly, knowingly, at the joke he's made in his mind. "Yeah, then it would be all over...." he finally says, with a hint of longing, no longer caring if he is heard. And with that, he begins to rouse himself, noticing suddenly the streets have somehow emptied. "How long has it been?" he wonders.

The few passing cars traveling under the flashing yellow glow of the signal lights, and the light rain he sat in, and failed to notice, fail to calm him. "At least the grass eventually gets what it needs," he says angrily.

With some effort and a final spit, he stands...takes in a deep breath of the cool, moist air, and begins his slow, determined walk, and stops thinking and just IS.