Tuesday, May 10, 2011

The Door Within the Tree's Trunk

       Teddy had left his apartment very early that morning. After having awoken in his, suddenly less than comfortable, bed at 5:47 he felt a sudden urge for what others might call spontaneity, but he disagreed. He had done what he intended on doing many, many times before and, although it was not premeditated, he saw his body's rude awakening as a message. It was just letting him know that something's been added to the schedule.
       He quickly got dressed and prepared a simple breakfast of two pieces of toast and a simple turkey and roast beef sandwich with an apple for lunch. He stared at his perpetually still window, that always seemed to stare back at him, and took a deep breath as he walked towards the door. He opened his door and stepped into the stale hallway. For a moment, the smell caught his memory and he reminisced of his high school hallways in a passing thought. He came to a crossroads and, responding to a force that felt slightly thicker than air, decided that, today, the stairs would be perfect for his purpose.
      Teddy cascaded the seven stories of stairs, stepping slowly but not too slowly; just long enough to emphasize each step. On these days, he took careful advantage of every moment and enjoyed the eager anticipation that came with embarking on these trips. He took in the calm silence that he knew would be interrupted by the noisy storm of morning workers before he was even halfway through his descent. And, as he predicted, upon arriving on the bottom of the fourth floor he could hear the usual noises begin. Doors were opening and closing, romances were giving out their daily farewells and the people were chattering quietly. And then, Teddy Geisel heard three sounds in quick succession that were rather out of the ordinary. A hard thud, a screech of tires and the scream of a woman.
       He stopped. And then he listened . He listened as a crowd grew and surrounded the commotion, thus increasing the volume of their collective voices. He opened the door to the detached fire escape and picked out words from the sentences but could not gather a full story. So far he had gathered that an unnamed man had been hit by a bus. He heard witnesses yell their accounts of the story with some saying that he slipped while others were determined that he ran in front of it on his own. Teddy walked away from the excitement slightly disturbed by this anonymous man's sudden end and continued down the stairs, his step lacking the reverie it held before. Before reaching the bottom of the stairs and the adjacent back door of Watershed Heights, he thought of life and wondered if maybe, at that very moment, he was walking towards the end of his own. Though not afraid of death, Teddy had always somewhat hoped that Death would extend him the courtesy of a warning. And then he thought about that uncomfortable yet familiar feeling from that morning and questioned that, when Death did come for him, would he be able to recognize its call? And would the momentum foreshadowing his dreadful end begin with the familiar or the unknown?
         He stepped outside and the wind instantly surrounded him with a gentle breeze, calming his now-tense nerves and reminding him of his original intent. With this reminder, Teddy denied his morbid thoughts and continued across Kush Lane and into the forest, absorbing the brief subtle sunlight forming above him that would soon be covered by clouds. It started to drizzle. Teddy walked through the initial wood and over the train tracks to the final clearing before the trees became dense. On the way, he gazed at the sky every so often and during one of these glances, he heard the flapping of wings and turned to see a flock of pigeons flying with a single crow in the center. A strange sight, he thought. The rain had picked up quickly and when arrived at the bordering field, he looked up at the clouds and realized it would soon be a heavy shower. He was glad. The ceiling of treetops would serve as a suitable shelter and a surrounding wall of rain would brilliantly serve the purpose of his woodland retreat.
       As soon as he entered the deep forestry, he felt it. What he had sought after. The feeling that had pulled him out of bed was within him. The feeling of complete and utter solitude. He craved this feeling but only in moderation because he feared that he might lose it. There was something so extremely comforting about being completely hidden. That in a community, such as the one surrounding his humble abode, where everyone is everywhere, that there is a place where one can be with only himself.
       Currently, this was Teddy Geisel's one quirk. He approached his favorite tree that he always gambled to search for and began to climb. This specific tree had no significant differences from the many others around it or elsewhere within the forest but he could always tell when he found it. After climbing about twenty feet, he stopped on a sturdy branch and sat. He pulled out his turkey and roast beef sandwich and his apple and placed them beside him. He thought about the forest behind his childhood home, he thought about the first time he climbed a tree, and then he thought for a long while about Claire. While staring forward into the foliage, deep in the thought, Teddy reached over to pick up his sandwich. He missed and knocked over his apple. It fell to the ground quickly and he heard it thud to a stop. However when he looked to the ground, the apple had disappeared from sight. He picked up his sandwich, this time with no trouble, and thought, And so concludes Apple's inevitable fate. Then Teddy Geisel took a bite.

Monday, May 9, 2011

Habitual Rituals

        Teddy stood from his relaxed position in his bed that morning and tried to focus on what he had to do that day. Breakfast, lunch, dinner. Pick up eggs. Visit Claire... He was not looking forward to that but, as they say, old habits...
         He walked to the window and gazed out, his eyes fixed on the grass below. He focused his vision intently but abstained from processing that which he viewed, effectively procrastinating even the planning of any actual work. However, everything that rises must converge and after a few moments of peaceful indulgence, his routine lack of thought was disturbed by an unfortunate looking man with a routine lack of clothing. Regrettably, this visual encounter had also become increasingly periodic. The stranger's anatomy had been making appearances at least twice a week now in, what Teddy considered, his very own back yard. So rude, he thought.
        After dressing and sufficiently preparing for the expected atmosphere outside, Teddy Geisel departed from his "cozy" home and began his 10-minute walk to Deena's for breakfast, just as he did every Sunday. Teddy had recognized his life's gradual turn towards the monotonous and perhaps led to it intentionally, if not consciously. In his mind, the well established day-to-day was considered comfortable, not boring. He arrived in the lobby and continued to think about the nature of monotony. It was as if the old adage that practice makes perfect applied to life and that his forever repeating loops would eventually, and gradually, lead to a form of mastery in his small corner of the universe.
        As he walked away from the sound of Ms. Pigg's sousaphone, Teddy thought that he'd done pretty well for himself. Relatively.