Writing Sample #1 - Fiction

He had a face that would have been expressive if occupied by another soul at some other point in time, but the face was occupied by him here and now and, as such, remained immobile. Lines around his eyes and mouth insisted that this hadn’t always been the case. They were adamant that this stoicism was situational, not characterizational. His eyes, however, respectfully disagreed; they gazed, blue and flat, at his black and white shoes.

The bench shifted underneath him to accommodate the new weight of a man sitting down to his left, and a pair of brown, leather shoes settled in aside his own.

“What a cliché.” He said without looking up.

“Two old men sitting on a park bench.” Replied the brown shoes.

They were quite for awhile.

“How are the kids?” Asked the man.

“They’re all fine.” Said the brown shoes. A round, paper package slid into his vision. “Cold cut.”

The man took it, and the crinkle seemed obscenely loud. He straightened up slowly and leaned back against the bench, looking straight ahead. They began to eat.

“Julia called us last night.” Said the brown shoes around a mouth full of bread.

He continued to chew and said nothing. There was nothing to say.

“She’s in Colorado now.” He seemed to be waiting, but only stale silence found him. “Anyway…”

A breeze meandered between them, carrying a literary platitude of children’s laughter and the scent of sunshine. The man registered a trickle of sweat bead down his hairline. His joints ached.

“I’m retiring.” He said when he’d finished his sandwich and leaned back over his knees to watch his shoes.

The brown shoes now took on the unnatural stillness. “Alright.” They said.

“I’m tired.” Said the man.

There was no reply.

“It’s time.”

Nothing. The man’s long nose itched. As he reached up to scratch it, he felt something wet dissolve between his gnarled fingers and was surprised.

“What will you do?” Asked the brown shoes finally.

The man did not answer right away. He watched the wetness evaporate in the breeze and sunshine. “I don’t know.” He said at last. “I’ll watch television.” He regretted the words as soon as they reached his ears sounding hollow and brittle, reflecting him too honestly. “I’ll sleep.”

“You’ll sleep?” The brown shoes had an uncomfortable finality.

The man thought to himself about how old he was. How old they both were.

“Yes. I think I’ll sleep.”

“You could take that trip to Florida.” Suggested the brown shoes hastily. “You always talked about traveling.”

“No, I don’t think so” The man sighed. “She was the one who wanted to travel, I was always happiest at home.”

Happiest didn’t seem like the right word, but he couldn’t think of a better one.

The brown shoes were silent again and the man raised his head to look out over the park. When did parks become a refuge for youth? he wondered to himself. Everywhere he looked was a sea of children with their dogs and twenty year old executives in pinstriped suits. Young men and women were holding hands, playing Frisbee, strumming their guitars under the cypress.

The man could have sworn that the parks of his own youth had been filled with old men. Nothing but old men who played chess, smoked cigars and talked loudly at each other about politics. As a boy, they had seemed like aliens; like creatures from a distant planet who came to earth to smell funny and talk funny, who always carried with them some kind of magical twinkle along with the caramels in their pockets. They had been smiling.

There were no caramels in his pockets.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea.” The brown shoes spoke up.

“That’s okay.” Said the man. He watched as an ant tried to burrow underneath his sole. “I didn’t expect you would.”

“So why tell me?”

“Small talk.” He said, sinking his head further between his shoulder blades in a motion reminiscent of a shrug. “Forty odd years of mutual, personal interest.”

“Not to talk you out of it?” Asked the brown shoes.

“No.” The small smile felt foreign, more like a grimace on the man’s thin lips. The ant gave up and began the long trek around his heel.

“Well then…” The brown shoes moved further into the pathway as the man in them leaned back and extended his legs. The groan was so familiar that he barely registered it. “Come to dinner.”

The voice was lackluster. The man thought about this request, and about how many times it had been made before. Through the years, sitting at a dinner table with other human beings had become a concept, a philosophy read about in books and academic journals. The way of the future, perhaps, but old dogs and new tricks…

“No. Thank you.”

“No,” agreed the brown shoes.