Great job!! I like your use of fantastical feats and expressive gestures of prose. Very creative indeed!

Well, I've NEVER had a girlfriend and at the time that I wrote this, I was feeling really lonely because I had no significant other. I still don't, but I've realized that even without "her", I've been loved all along by my friends and even longer by my family members. I neglected that, but now I embrace it with a warm heart. Now, all I'm doin' is enjoying life as it comes and I'm waiting with open arms...Content, but open arms....

I hope the length doesn't bother anybody, but I don't think it should. It isn't as long as other works I've seen here, but for the sake of courtesy, I feel like I should warn you. Without further ado (and a lot of yakkin' :P)....


The Lonely Hope



A thing to ponder about, as he sits in his chair near a bed with a squeaky headboard. He'd been meaning to get the darn thing fixed, but for some reason the squeak appeals to him in the sense that its sound comforts him through discomfort. He sleeps soundly knowing that the squeak is dependable. It will be there in the morning, waiting for him to stretch and give it a voice through a long night of stillness and in the night while he tries to sleep in a bed that although comfortable, still feels alien.

A peculiar mood had set in that night. He had a class in the morning, but didn't study for the probable discussion. He didn't feel like he needed to. Not that he was arrogant and thought himself above studying a subject he thought he knew everything about. Its just that, for some reason studying didn't feel "right". Few things did feel right these past few days, he began to notice. Did he really need them to feel right? Did feeling "right" make him feel better? Knowing the answers to both questions, he sits back in his chair, leans forwards in his laptop and loses himself in thought.

"Why did the headboard come to mind?", he puzzled as he turned the thought over in his head and mentally shook himself, like the hypertensive salt addict trying to flavor a steak with a mountain of tiny, white stroke crystals. Dependability, he thought to himself as he grasped the origins for the abstract blurb of a mental concept. That's what he lacked. Not in himself or in his friends. But in someone he didn't know. Someone he'd been wanting to meet since before his first shave. A bad analogy, he thought to himself, as he'd shaved a little later than the other kids he knew therefore decreasing his time of want, but an effective one nonetheless.

That feeling of the necessity towards dependability was not new to him, as he'd felt it before and could feel the cold absence of its lack thereof from time to time, but as of lately it had not emerged its lonesome face, like the blue moon that rises from its abode far in the horizon. "The moon…there's something you can count on..", he muttered to himself. He wasn't angry or upset, but just….lonely. His friend, a burly fellow with a love for theme songs, tells him that in due time, that loneliness will fade away leaving behind something far more valuable and worth the wait. He hopes…knows, in his heart, that his friend is right, as usual (and he better appreciate the fact that he's admitting to it, he jests at himself), but the wait seems so much longer and lonelier when you have to sleep alone.

"Sleep alone..", he chuckled at the thought. He'd been doing something so mundane for so long, that he didn't realize the true meaning of what he'd done these many years. Its kind of like when you're a little kid again and you don't want to leave mommy and daddy's room to sleep in the scary cave of shadows that you call your room in the sunny day. When shadows made your hands sweat and house noises made your blood run cold, you fled to them like doves fleeing the hunter on a windy September day, against the wind with the hot, leaden scent in the air. They made things better with a hug and a soft phrase like, "There's nothing to be afraid of. It's only the dark." or "I'm right here. Nothing's gonna hurt you while I'm here."

Sometimes, nothing is as simple as it seems. He missed that feeling, of not being alone…of not having to be afraid. He couldn't very well make his way to them again, through the so called "scary house" with the moving shadows that make the stuff of nightmares seem like a kiddy show. He was older now and that was something that he could never do again. Besides, it was not that kind of fear. Not the kind that makes you sweat cold bullets or makes your heart beat jack-rabbit quick, but the one that makes your blood thicken and your eyes shift with uncertainty. It's the subtle fears that get you, he noticed, not the obvious ones.

But that feeling. The one the parents gave. The one that makes the heart say, "Everything WILL be alright. Rest easy and be at peace." He missed having someone to say that to him. Sure his parents do comfort him in his time of need as do his two best friends from his new school, the burly one and the skinny "dark" one. He appreciates their comfort with an open heart, and truly loves them for offering a bit of light in this world where dark seems to spread like ripples in a pond of uncertainty. They do their best, and as he pointed out before, he appreciates it, but he wants…needs something different.

From someone whom he doesn't consider family, he needs to hear those words. From someone he can repeat those words to in a warm, loving embrace only he can offer, with the firm promise that everything will be all right. "Even in my solitude I think of offering comfort to others.", he chuckles lightly at his notion. The mutual comfort that comes from hearing these words from someone unknown but existent, and for making someone's burden a bit lighter with love and a warm embrace, is almost enough to make a tear form. Almost…He'd finished weeping some time ago.

Now he waits instead, with the same interior burden, but with a stronger sense of self. The burly one tells him, as does the skinny one, from time to time that he should look on the bright side. There is the advantage of not having "her". Being "alone" doesn't have to be a bad thing. He knows it doesn't have to, as he can be quite happy if not happier than those he knows are "together", but that still doesn't make the loneliness that much lesser. In fact, he would not mind a life with just them, skinny and burly, with the "alone". "That would be pretty damn good", he thought to himself. A life without them, and without the ones that are still in the far off place of a home he used to call home, would be unbearable at best.

He snaps out of his thoughts. Its been over an hour and its late. There's no moon out tonight. The land isn't lit by the goddess of the night, with her silvery, hopeful eyeshine. She is still there, he knows as she doesn't leave, she just chooses to hide. He likes to think that even though he can't see her, she can see him. That, at least, is dependable.

He looks at his bed. Notices that the covers are ruffled and unkempt, but still warm and comfortable. He only sleeps on one side of it, as the marks from his weight are evident in its shape. It's a full size bed, but he still only sleeps on one side. Four pillows. Two for each side. He sleeps with three, keeping the fourth for someone. Someone unknown.

Taking off his glasses, placing them where he knows they will fall at the slightest drop of a feather. He always does that somehow, even if he places them in the center of the desk beside his bed yet somehow they always fall when he fumbles for them in the soft morning light. "Damn scratches.", he mutters as he fold them places them in the center of the desk and climbs into bed.

The bed is soft, as he knew it is despite what others may think. He sits up momentarily, takes his shirt off, and lays back down on his side with the covers up to his shoulders. He looks at the pillows to his right. One is bigger than the other. A slight difference in size, but bigger nonetheless.

Should he? Will it help? These questions run through his mind as he grabs the pillow while shifting his position from his side to his back, bringing the pillow to his left side, draping his left arm over its front. He settles. Soon the pillow is warm from his body heat, and a slight alleviation overcomes him. At times, when he is between the barrier of sleep and reality; the one that makes the mind blur and the senses dull, he can swear the pillow is warmer than usual. It may even sometimes feel softer or more smooth at times. As he drifts to sleep, he feels some of the "alone" leave his mind. His last thought, before he drifts to the planes where reality warps and non-sequitars rule supreme, was that he wished, just for a second, that pillows do indeed say, "Everything will be alright."

Me? Well, I couldn't be better at the moment. I've got some good tunes playin' (a bit of Queen and Eric Clapton) and I'm in my favorite pair of shorts.

Thanks for the welcoming comittee.

So, hey what's up everybody? I've never tried this sort of thing before, but everybody says its fun. I said, "Why not?", so here I am.

How's everybody tonight?