Beautiful Disaster
An eternity within a single moment. Incomparable ecstasy that decades of experience may never quite compare itself to.
I was sitting at the back end of the train. On a seat facing inward with my nose buried in my book when I saw someone tall stumbling back towards the double seat just across and up from me. I only happened to glance up for a moment, just as he was sitting down in the seat, backing into it so our eyes met briefly and we both cracked a forced smile at each other.
For the entire train ride, I could think of nothing else but this person sitting across the aisle. Every movement. Every page turn. It all seemed to blur in my mind as my eyes seemed only to go back to him.
He was about 6’1”. A skinny boy of maybe twenty-four. His eyes seemed so much older though that judging his age was a complete uncertainty. I don’t mean the physical appearance of them, but the depths at which I sank into them in that nano-second when we saw each other.
His long sleeves were rolled up and his shirt and pants were both earth-toned. With brown shoes that were worn, but shiny at the same time. A straggling piece of thread from the bottom of the left pant leg dangling about. Around his shoulder he had strapped a small bag that cross over from the right and rested down on his left hip until he had sat down.
His hair was a dirty brown, looking as if the summer sun had begun to bleach it. It was slightly grown out and pushed forward, coming together in small points throughout and all going forward to the front which was tussled about repeatedly throughout the ride by his hand, yet never once seemed to lose it’s place even as it moved. It seemed it could fall anywhere and still look like it was exactly where it was supposed to be.
His eyes were amazing. I cannot think of how to describe them without making some cheesy metaphor about the Pleiades or Halley’s comet. They were such a sight that only divine intent could have forged them. His eye lids seemed like dark frames holding within it prizes equal to the Mona Lisa. His lashes stretched forth in soft bursts. His mouth moved as he seemed to speak to himself or sing the lyrics to his music ever so softly. The blue ear phones anchored over his ears playing some mystery music I will never know of.
The woman in the seat across and facing me undoubtedly saw my attention become locked the minute he sat down and I will never be certain if she derived amusement or disgust from my obvious longings. Halfway through our journey, a crazed homeless man came into our car and began a speech about his poverty. Stinking of the streets and of sweat that had been ripening for days. The boy took off one of his ear phones and listened for a minute, then placed it back and shook his head ever so slightly with a degree of discompassionate intent.
It was then that he dug into his small bag and pulled out a small notebook and a pen, flipped to a blank page and seemed to torture himself for words... thoughts... some expression that was torturing his brain and he could not find. It was followed shortly by the emergence of a second notebook, slightly bigger and tapped on all four edges of the cover with what almost appeared to be black electrical or duct tape. On the cover was on odd picture. It seemed to be a mock rendition of some 19th or early 20th century painting of a boy with a giant teddy bear. He opened it and along with the pages of writing there were stickers and papers taped or glued into it.
In a few more minutes after he studied this book he pulled out an even larger one. The kind with the two-toned cover that almost resembles the skin of some African animal. I had a black and white one myself when I went to San Diego. His was red and black and he flipped through it in seeming frustrated agony. Turning himself to look out the window and escape the violation of the man sitting next to him in the seat.
He seemed to be a billion light years away and yet all at once trapped within a shrinking, suffocating shell. His turmoil was some vindictive paradox that poured through in his actions and his eyes and the subtle chattering of his lips. I have seen such agony. I have experienced such agony. When words cannot be found and the voice within can do nothing else but scream for release.
Soon after another notebook followed. This one appeared to be black and white just like the one I have. In it he began to write. Keeping a steady hand as the train rocked and lurched. Writing and writing. Looking up and outside. Spinning around for an odd moment seeing what the woman across from me was reading. Taking a quick, crazed glance at me once that I only caught the end of. And, he wrote and chattered to himself silently.
As we got to Addison he began collecting together the stacks of notebooks and stuffing them in his bag. Pausing momentarily to look at his CD player. As the train headed for Irving he seemed to be filled with a desperation to exit his seat and leapt past the man next to him. Going towards the doors and grabbing a bar on each side rocking himself slightly and examining his surroundings.
I felt awkward now putting my book away and getting ready to exit as well feeling as if everyone knew I was staring at him. As if even he knew which I am sure he must have.
The train pulled in and stopped prematurely. The motion forced all his weight onto his left foot and with a seeming purity of motion he spun around once in the center of the doorways. It was not goofy or effeminate. It simply was a motion and it flowed with grace.
I exited behind him as I could see he was still writing ten thousand pages a second in his mind. He seemed to be in a trance. Another place and stepped to the side as if he wanted me to pass him. I am sure it had nothing to do with me, but I felt he thought I was following him so I hurried past and went ahead of him. Hearing his slow foot steps on the stairs behind me and seeing his vague shape through the bars as I turned towards the turn-style exit.
He must have exited the opposite way because that was the last I saw of him. He was magnificent.
I was sitting at the back end of the train. On a seat facing inward with my nose buried in my book when I saw someone tall stumbling back towards the double seat just across and up from me. I only happened to glance up for a moment, just as he was sitting down in the seat, backing into it so our eyes met briefly and we both cracked a forced smile at each other.
For the entire train ride, I could think of nothing else but this person sitting across the aisle. Every movement. Every page turn. It all seemed to blur in my mind as my eyes seemed only to go back to him.
He was about 6’1”. A skinny boy of maybe twenty-four. His eyes seemed so much older though that judging his age was a complete uncertainty. I don’t mean the physical appearance of them, but the depths at which I sank into them in that nano-second when we saw each other.
His long sleeves were rolled up and his shirt and pants were both earth-toned. With brown shoes that were worn, but shiny at the same time. A straggling piece of thread from the bottom of the left pant leg dangling about. Around his shoulder he had strapped a small bag that cross over from the right and rested down on his left hip until he had sat down.
His hair was a dirty brown, looking as if the summer sun had begun to bleach it. It was slightly grown out and pushed forward, coming together in small points throughout and all going forward to the front which was tussled about repeatedly throughout the ride by his hand, yet never once seemed to lose it’s place even as it moved. It seemed it could fall anywhere and still look like it was exactly where it was supposed to be.
His eyes were amazing. I cannot think of how to describe them without making some cheesy metaphor about the Pleiades or Halley’s comet. They were such a sight that only divine intent could have forged them. His eye lids seemed like dark frames holding within it prizes equal to the Mona Lisa. His lashes stretched forth in soft bursts. His mouth moved as he seemed to speak to himself or sing the lyrics to his music ever so softly. The blue ear phones anchored over his ears playing some mystery music I will never know of.
The woman in the seat across and facing me undoubtedly saw my attention become locked the minute he sat down and I will never be certain if she derived amusement or disgust from my obvious longings. Halfway through our journey, a crazed homeless man came into our car and began a speech about his poverty. Stinking of the streets and of sweat that had been ripening for days. The boy took off one of his ear phones and listened for a minute, then placed it back and shook his head ever so slightly with a degree of discompassionate intent.
It was then that he dug into his small bag and pulled out a small notebook and a pen, flipped to a blank page and seemed to torture himself for words... thoughts... some expression that was torturing his brain and he could not find. It was followed shortly by the emergence of a second notebook, slightly bigger and tapped on all four edges of the cover with what almost appeared to be black electrical or duct tape. On the cover was on odd picture. It seemed to be a mock rendition of some 19th or early 20th century painting of a boy with a giant teddy bear. He opened it and along with the pages of writing there were stickers and papers taped or glued into it.
In a few more minutes after he studied this book he pulled out an even larger one. The kind with the two-toned cover that almost resembles the skin of some African animal. I had a black and white one myself when I went to San Diego. His was red and black and he flipped through it in seeming frustrated agony. Turning himself to look out the window and escape the violation of the man sitting next to him in the seat.
He seemed to be a billion light years away and yet all at once trapped within a shrinking, suffocating shell. His turmoil was some vindictive paradox that poured through in his actions and his eyes and the subtle chattering of his lips. I have seen such agony. I have experienced such agony. When words cannot be found and the voice within can do nothing else but scream for release.
Soon after another notebook followed. This one appeared to be black and white just like the one I have. In it he began to write. Keeping a steady hand as the train rocked and lurched. Writing and writing. Looking up and outside. Spinning around for an odd moment seeing what the woman across from me was reading. Taking a quick, crazed glance at me once that I only caught the end of. And, he wrote and chattered to himself silently.
As we got to Addison he began collecting together the stacks of notebooks and stuffing them in his bag. Pausing momentarily to look at his CD player. As the train headed for Irving he seemed to be filled with a desperation to exit his seat and leapt past the man next to him. Going towards the doors and grabbing a bar on each side rocking himself slightly and examining his surroundings.
I felt awkward now putting my book away and getting ready to exit as well feeling as if everyone knew I was staring at him. As if even he knew which I am sure he must have.
The train pulled in and stopped prematurely. The motion forced all his weight onto his left foot and with a seeming purity of motion he spun around once in the center of the doorways. It was not goofy or effeminate. It simply was a motion and it flowed with grace.
I exited behind him as I could see he was still writing ten thousand pages a second in his mind. He seemed to be in a trance. Another place and stepped to the side as if he wanted me to pass him. I am sure it had nothing to do with me, but I felt he thought I was following him so I hurried past and went ahead of him. Hearing his slow foot steps on the stairs behind me and seeing his vague shape through the bars as I turned towards the turn-style exit.
He must have exited the opposite way because that was the last I saw of him. He was magnificent.