The song had just fadded into the air. The lyrics and chorus still hanging in the crisp air. The DJ came on the radio as I walked along the Highway overpass... boombox press to my ear. There siting on the rail, was a girl... my age, no older... Light brown hair cropped short, loose denim jacket. She was smokin' a cigarette in the sun. Her face captured my mind. I can't remember anything else about her, even though I would sit with her for the next hour...
I asked if I could bum a cigarette and sat there smoking with her... I never found out her name. She had the far-away look, like she was buried deep in her mind, or perhaps just in another world.
"What are you thinking...?" I asked.
"Just listenin' to the song as you walked up. That line 'she's thinkin' of jumpin'.' It echoes in my head... Do you think they meant it that way... to hang in you mind?"
"Beats the hell out of me... I guess, yeah, they must of, 'cause it does the same to me."
"What would you do if I tried to jump?" She asked it smiling.
"Whadda ya mean? I'd stop you, wouldn't anyone? Besides, whadda ya doing thinking about dying on a day like this? The air is crisp and cool. Even the sky's clear enough that the birds can sing. You can't sit there talkin' like that... It's just not right."
She smiled again, offering me another cig. It was like she knew peace in that monment. That smile was not the smile of one saying "you have no clue." She understood.
"Your life is so great that you never think of Jumpin?" Her voice didn't have a sarcastic edge to it.
"Yeah, of course, it's hard, but Killing my self... No thanks. I'd rather be alive in a box than dead in one." I smiled.
"The Eternal Dead Guys... and they don't even know it... Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, right?"
"You KNOW it! cool."
"Don't you have a place... you can share mine. It's got a couch, not much, but it's no big deal"
She understood, and slowly shook her head. And, then, she smiled an odd, weak smile as if to say "I wish you hadn't asked... I didn't want to burden you with it." There was an absurd laugh... The image of her tossing her head back in the light. A blur of motion as she push away from the rail... Flying out into that endless space.
Untitled as yet...
By Nick Jones
Inspired by the song "Round Here" by the Counting Crows
The conversation edged away from all those topics of Death and Life, drifted into how Shakespeare's sonnets can be read to a blues beat and how you can never get the styrofrom popcorn to stop sticking to you. I sat there looking into the eyes of someone... I don't know... at peace for the momment. Maybe the next second she would flit off like a butterfly, but for now she was here.
It about 3:30 that afternoon. The light began to take on that golden glow that's so thick, when you stick you arm into the air, it leaves a shadow. I asked where she was going, and she looked at me blankly.
There was silence. A scrap of paper blew across my vision, tumbling along the road. . .
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