Laura

Day 2, Word: Corpse

In the beginning, I just watched. And it wasn’t until the ice had frozen over on the ponds that I saw her playfully skidding her high heels across a half frozen puddle on her way to work, like poor man’s ice skates, that I had actually touched her. I had been walking just a little too closely, but thank god I was, because as she lost balance, she reached back to stop herself from falling, and I grabbed her arm, and pulled her back up again. She had grinned at me, and although she was in her early 30s, she looked childlike, and it was so unbearable that I almost forgot I was on a busy street. I almost called her by name. Laura. I only know this from the one day where she left her credit card in a bar, and a man ran out yelling her name. Laura. Such a beautiful name.

Today I can feel the sun beaming down on my face, the birds are chirping loudly on this late August afternoon. I can smell the earth, and the trees, and the flowers blowing in the wind, gently. The young kids are laughing, as I watch them play in Central Park, and I am at peace. I love this time of year, when summer is ending, and the feeling of new is coming. The moon is turning, and the stars are brighter. Soon the children will go back to school, and the season will change, and the air will start to get crisp, and I will begin to feel that eager feeling again, and I will begin to search.

But for now, I sit on this bench, and I feel the sun’s rays coming down like a positive wave over my body, and I feel so good. An elderly woman sits down next to me and with my eyes shut and giant smile on my face, I say “Wonderful day we are blessed with, isn’t it?”.

“Well yes, it is!” she says with a happy old shaky voice that has endured many summers just like this. I sit and think of her life, how many years have passed, how many things she has seen. I imagine her wedding day, her children being born, her grandkids being born. What a life she must have had. I start to imagine her young, jovial, spirited, in her high heels walking to work. I imagine her in the springtime, her white dress clinging to her body, her nipples just barely showing when the light hits the fabric just right. And it is then, that I remember, and I feel excited again thinking of it.

My mind immediately goes to Laura. I start to get even more excited as I remember myself with her for the first time. How long I had waited to introduce myself. The timing had to be perfect, and the moment had to be right. But when I finally touched her, with an ungloved hand, I cannot even describe the feeling of it. I felt overwhelmed with love. I gently stroked her face. And then my hands around her throat, and feeling the warmth leaking out into the sky. Her eyes as the life left her. I think of the scene in my mind, with my eyes shut and my grin is so big I cannot contain myself. Laura, I whisper to myself.

It is then I feel a presence next to me, a male presence. I open my eyes, startled, and see a man sitting on the bench next to me looking so disgusted that he can’t even change his expression when I catch him. Quickly, I throw my hat over my crotch. I got too carried away. I cannot let this happen again.

I try to regain my composure, and inconspicuously I get up and start down the busy New York streets. It’s going to rain, I can smell it. And I am so alive. I love this time in the city, I think to myself, when the feeling of new is coming, and I will begin to search.