Monthly Archives: March 2013

I watched the rain fall…and it was beautiful.

Each drop was filled with energy, growing as they fell to the ground. Light shone in the center of every last drop, light of every color imaginable…even of those that are not. The light radiated warmth, small and gentle, but strong, which multiplied with the millions of rain drops to create an atmosphere of pure, mindless happiness.

I smiled as the drops hit the earth.

They landed in every place imaginable; some fell to the soil, their moisture spreading out, becoming the center for the sprout that emerged immediately after. Some fell to rocks scattered through the land; the moisture spread, but nothing grew, and eventually the rock became dry again. I observed birds flying through the watery skies and realized that other drops clung to their wings, carried away without ever seeing the earth below them. Still, the rain fell, covering the world in sprouts, each more beautiful than the last while at the same time just as beautiful as the first. I watched it all and just smiled.

Then something changed – a single drop. It became an ember as it fell.

Concerned, I stretched out my palm and caught the dying ember. It vanished as it touched my skin. Its light, its warmth, its beauty…all gone. Not a trace remained. I looked up to the clouds, searching for any other drops of embers…and was horrified at what I saw.

The rain was set on fire.

Flames roamed around a single cloud, igniting the rain as it fell, burning away all of its beauty and leaving nothing but a downpour of embers. Not every drop got caught in the inferno, but the blaze grew, slowly spreading to other clouds nearby. At first the flames were not strong enough to burn away each raindrop, but their strength increased with each cloud they alighted. As I continued to watch in disbelief, more droplets were set on fire, until the air was filled with a sickening red light. No more did the rain fall; no more did water touch the earth.

A tear rolled down my cheek.

As my tear hit the ground, I noticed that the air was not as void of matter as I once thought. Ash fell from the burning rain, smothering the earth, burying the sprouts that sprang up from earlier showers. The plants grew still, but twisted and distorted. Some grew to shine brightly with life, a lush sight to fight against the deathly atmosphere. Others grew to be dark giants, stretching up to the flaming clouds, fueling the inferno, intensifying it.

My stomach churned at the sight. A second tear fell. Then another.

Tears flowed down my face as I wept, wept for the burning rain, wept for the blackened trees, wept for the few sprouts that continued to thrive. They fell to the earth and gathered together, growing faster than my single body could produce. A final drop fell from my eyes and struck the pool of tears beneath my feet, and with it, the pool began to swirl. The swirl was slow, but built speed, until it became a massive whirlpool of sadness and pity. It reared up to the sky, reaching out to the raging flames surrounding the clouds. As the descending embers connected with my surging tears, the fire was quenched from them and the whirlpool grew even further. I urged it onwards to meet the source of the burning rain…until the tip of the whirlpool touched, briefly, a flicker of the troublesome fire. It was if the whirlpool exploded; tears scattered across the sky, quenching every fire and saturating every cloud. The two forces clashed until all flames were extinguished.

I watched it all…and when it was over, I found that I was able to smile once again.

Raining Tear

He draped his arms gently over her shoulders, crossing over her chest. He embraced her from behind, drawing their bodies together, and lowered his head to be level with hers. “Stay with me, sweetie. Just stay with me,” he pleaded in a low voice.

“There are other girls.” Her reply was firm, but not uncaring.

“But why should I keep looking when who I want most is right here?” He countered, breathing every word into her cheek. “I don’t want anyone else but you, and you know that.”

“Maybe that’s the problem,” was her response. “Maybe you’re just too stuck on me. I think you should meet more women.”

“I’ve met too many women. Long before you and long after you, even up until today, I’ve been looking as you suggested. Everyone I meet is the same. It’s always ‘Oh, I have a boyfriend’ or ‘Oh, I’m not interested in black guys’ or even ‘Oh, you’re a great friend but I’m just not interested in you’. I meet every woman that’s unavailable to me and none who are.”

“Maybe you should go out more then,” she answered him.

He tried to press his point further, but nothing came to mind. He didn’t have the heart. It was the same conversation every time, the same arguments, the same results. No matter what he chose to say, she would be resolute in her mind.

To ease his mind, he focused on the moment, on being there with her in this space and time. He breathed in the scent of her long, dark hair. It filled him, stimulated him, intoxicated him. It was this scent that drew him, each time they met, into a deeper longing for her. He squeezed her body gently in his arms, careful not to invade the space of her womanhood, remembering every inch of it he had explored – and imagining those inches he did not. He brushed his lips against the exposed soft skin of her neck, feeling, through that scant contact, that she was soft everywhere else. His hands rubbed over the gentle curve of her stomach, feeling the warmth and strength that lay there. He laid his head against the side of her face and closed his eyes in near complete contentment.

He loves her. She knows it. Why can’t it be?

She called out her nickname for him, the one he treasured most. “Are you falling asleep on me?” she asked, moving her head to look at his face with a slow growing smile. His heart melted. Never has another sight made him feel so…moved. He couldn’t pin down any word to describe what he was experiencing at that instant. If only she could see what he saw! He thought. If only she could share that timeless, breathless, wordless instance, where nothing else matters but now…what a powerful connection it would be!

With a heavy smile he closed his thoughts. “No,” he replied, “I’m just enjoying being here with you.” He kissed the side of her head. “One day I will have you, I promise you that.”

She turned away, pulling slightly from his arms. Slightly.

“I don’t know what I will want in the future,” she said, “that’s why I don’t want you to stick with me. Right now I’m not interested in anyone. I don’t want a relationship until I have a good job or start my business.”

“I know,” he said, somewhat dejected. “But I still hope that when you are ready, you will turn to me. I will wait for you.”

“I don’t want you to wait for me though, because I don’t know what I will want later,” she quickly responded. “I think you will be happier with someone else. I want you to be happy.”

“I will be happiest with you, and I will wait for as long as I need to.” His voice was strong with determination, but his mind wavered with uncertainty. What if she’s right? What if his waiting is all a waste of time?

But…what if it’s not?

“No…” she spoke softly, as if trying to work up the heart to push him away and failing. They stood together for a while, saying nothing more.

She touched his arm lightly. He released her from his embrace and helped to settle her belongings. Her train had arrived.

As the doors closed, she turned and gave him a smile that warmed him from head to toe. She waved. And then she was gone.

Tormented Heart

The Climb – Revision The Climb – Cover Letter Revised

Dear Readers,

This essay was probably one of the more interesting and fun essays I have written in my long career as a student. I have never tried to write in this particular structure before, but I am confident that it will be quite rewarding after some revision. Instead of following the usual flow of “introduction, body, ending” I decided to flip things around – “ending, body, introduction.” I wanted to see if it was possible to write a piece where readers would see the ending, the point of the story, first, and then work backwards to the starting point, the reason why the point had to be made.

In writing this piece I tried to imagine a story where such a reversal may work. Only two events in my life sprang to mind: the first time I’ve flown on a plane by myself, and the first time I went hiking. Since I don’t remember too clearly what happened on that plane flight, I decided to go with the hiking trip (besides, the hiking story could be much more easily broken into segments I can rearrange). The point of the story, which is to trust your instinct when you feel you need to prepare, was delivered at the beginning through the final scene of the story. The ending spoke of the reason why I did not prepare properly, which is the actual beginning of the story. The roles have been completely reversed.

I hope that readers will find this experiment to be entertaining at the least, because I certainly did. I personally liked how the draft turned out, and plan to include a lot more in the revision, particularly about the individual characteristics of my friends, who are only mentioned briefly. It was a necessary sacrifice in my opinion, to not give too much information about them at this stage in order to remain close to my objective, but I will take pleasure in filling them out satisfactorily later on.

The Climb – Cover Letter

The Climb

We should have prepared for this.

I looked around at my Bros, taking long, deep breaths, measuring just how close we were to collapsing. Our lips were tinged with blue. The sweat on our bodies was old and evaporating; we didn’t have it in us to produce new droplets. That trail was a much greater demand on us than we imagined it to be.

But of course, we thought we could handle it.

We’re New Yorkers, after all.

Finally resting in shade for the first time in two hours, our bickering reached its peak. Mike snapped at me as I recorded the end of our journey. Josh stood off by himself, trying to keep his cool. George ignored us all, opting instead to talk on the phone, presumably to his girlfriend back in New York. All of us just wanted some water at the very least. Thankfully, it seemed that whoever turned this path into a popular hiking trail thought to build a water fountain nearby for all travelers.

Too bad it was filled with the worst tasting water we’ve ever had.

The descent was treacherous. It was close to noon when we started down the mountain, with not a single cloud in sight. The view was certainly beautiful, with all the light we needed to see for miles. There was just that tiny little matter of the sun bearing down on us with its full intensity. Not to mention we were down to our last half bottle of water.

Let me correct that: we were down to my last bottle of water. No one else thought of bringing more than a cup or two of lemon flavored H2O from the gym section of our hotel resort. Fools.

Every step we took had to be calculated, exact. It was much different from climbing up, where all we had to do was step to the side to find a new spot to pull ourselves up; this time around we needed to step to the side, look around, and slowly lower our bodies to each rock below us or risk serious injury. Our parched throats and burning muscles only made the task more difficult, and our tempers shorter. We tried to push ahead, tried to break our limits, to get back to where we started for that cool, refreshing liquid of life. I have to admit, it was definitely a challenge to move as quickly as possible without sliding down the face of the mountain.

Then again, I was the only one who failed that challenge.

I just had to be the only one. Yeah.

Halfway down the trail, as we traversed a particularly slick patch of rock, I missed a step and slid. Funny thing was, only five seconds beforehand I was teasing Mike about being careful not to slide into the other hikers. The more experienced hikers. The ones who actually knew what they were doing. I didn’t want us to look like bigger fools in front of them than we already did. Too late for that.

We never climbed a mountain before. Fine, technically speaking we were hiking, not mountain climbing, but for a city dweller like me it may as well have been the same thing. I wasn’t used to the intense physical activity of walking up those hugely disproportionate stairs at the beginning of the trail. I actually thought the stairs were going to be the worst of the hike.

Wow was I wrong.

Mike, Josh, George and I acted like the normal tourists, stopping and taking pictures every few yards. We snapped shots of the rocks. The cacti. The desert rabbits. The rocks that looked like rabbits. The rabbits that looked like rocks. The rocks that we could fit inside of. Lots and lots of rocks. Being New Yorkers, we didn’t get to see so many…rocks and stuff. At least, not any like these.

And then we hit the big ones. The rocks that we actually had to climb.

See, hiking on Camelback Mountain has a mix of walking, hopping, and nearly seventy-degree rock climbing. We looked at that rock face and thought to ourselves, no way on earth can we do that.

Fine, I was the only one thinking it, but we all hesitated nonetheless.

But one by one, pushing each other one, we began to climb.

I open the door. The room is a little dark, but not so much that I can’t see. My vision is accustomed to the light because I stayed up most of the night, watching the sky change colors from deep purple to the dark blue of dawn. I wake up my friends, reminding them of the task we set for the day. We are going to climb Camelback Mountain.

After an hour of bustling about, putting on clothes and rubbing the sleep from our eyes, we set off to get a taxi. On the way out of the complexities of the hotel resort, I say to my friends, “Um, guys? Shouldn’t we stock up on water? It is Arizona, after all.”

They reply with shrugs, suggesting in light words that we will get what we need before going anywhere. Not trusting their behavior, but not wanting to hold them back, I fill up two bottles of my own and rushed to join them. Walking away from the water fountain, I have only one thought.

We really ought to prepare.

The Climb – Draft