LETTERS 

So now the writer made his way down the crowded street known as College Avenue, past Lewin's Metaphysical Bookstore and Dream Fluff Donuts and the bike shop and old theatre, down into the surrounding neighborhood where he spent his most extraordinary days. It was among the denizens and venerable trees and holes animals had made while burrowing the ground. He usually arrived with a notepad and pen or two or three books he had purchased at Shakespeare and Company not wanting to leave the nook he found back where the philosophy tomes were. Gods of the obscure mind, gods of the light. Well, it was a good place. They were all good places that played Handl in the background.

But now he had nothing and was effected by his old friend and his tales from the mountain. He had an indescribable desire to know more, to go to the apartment and listen to these tales and think about the strange people who lived there. He knew instantly that it was gone, now; the people perhpas wandering uselessly from town to town or settling in some tent off the blue highways where owls and Indians ruled. He had a knawing feeling that he, too, should have gone into the mountains and danced to the delights of the moon and got skilled in some useful instrument.

The park was cut square behind the old junior high school, up from the infamous street that always reminded him of tear gas and refugee camps. Today it was alone. Other days he had seen plays and movies being made and jokesters and children. Today it was alone but for two dogs who chased after each other in wild, long looping paths until one stopped suddenly and began to charge the other direction.

The writer watched and took a familiar spot under an oak tree and imagined, sometimes, that he was Isaac Newton about to discover the law of gravity. It was a lovely spot and already filled with the writers previous dreams that seemed to linger around even though he had told himself, no more.

He watched the dogs and could see their excited eyes and lolling tongues. It went on for some minutes and then he caught her and quickly mounted her. Just as suddenly he heard a woman's voice from off the park scold the dogs and call for them back to her.

© 2000 David Eide. All rights reserved.

David Eide
July 27, 2000
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