The Satellite

As I opened the door into the cold morning air I listened intently to the reason why my friend had dressed so nicely. When I see one of my peers dressed up I feel like something is going to go very wrong because I'm wearing a pair of unwashed jeans.

Apparently it was career day. A day where booth after booth take resume after resume. "Look fresh, they won't want to hire you if you look normal." I thought to myself.

To my dismay I had to walk past all of that to turn in some pointless homework I just copied onto paper. As I walked by, the sun put its hands over my eyes as if to keep me from seeing anyone who belonged there.

Every booth had the same kind of person sweating and standing behind them. Their ties performing tracheotomies as they stood there taking and giving papers with a toothy grin on their face, each one of them concerned with the simple default pleasures in life: money, children, status. I looked at the cobble stones as I walked to avoid seeing everyone around me succeeding. My brow sweating I finally arrived to the drop box.

I arrived the same time a quiet woman did. I took my time taking my homework out to see what slot she would slide her papers into. Coincidentally she held the very homework for the very class that I had walked across campus for. We left, I behind her, and walked through the career fair like small boats passing and ignoring enormous islands.

What she looked like as she walked through the breezes resembled an object being pushed through empty space, even gravity failed to control her. Her skirt floated around her waist like a halo, each blush of wind slightly lifting each bend and curl, eluding to the subtle curvature in her tanned legs. You could almost see the perpetual growth of her hair as it flew closely behind her face. She turned her head to make sure a bike wasn't about to ruin my moment with her and her hair swam to the front of her face forcing her to flutter her eyes. While time was still stopped she began walking again. Her sandals, the birds, the suited androids; they all remained silent as she moved.

I didn't want to believe that someday, a girl like that was going to be pinned down by a black pencil skirt and the endless ordeal of earning a paycheck. I didn't want to believe that this moment or this woman was going to deteriorate and crumble into a lifeless skeleton someday. I didn't want to believe. I never wanted to believe. This got me thinking about the damned career fair.

I thought "Was I to be doomed like those robots too? Put in a cotton leash and thrown into a work camp? Did everything have to crumble to the ugly, honest, dull core inside?" She veered onto her own path and just like that I was thrown back onto my terrible and real earth, once again searching through that giant box of gray for something bright and colorful.

The Women

Buying something new has a renewing quality to it. These pants, this shirt, these shoes; they don't know me yet, and I don't know them. It's new, different. Fueled by the frustration of the daily droll, I searched for something new to buy.

I tore up the store looking for something that I told myself that I needed. After a while however, I came to the realization that I really didn't even need any of it, so I digressed and moped around my sister, waiting for her to choose what she wanted to trade some money for. "How about this shirt" she said "what do you think? Is it worth twenty four?" "This shirt, does it look like death?" "Yes. Maybe. No." Her choices were made and we walked toward the cashier.

I wasn't buying anything so I felt I was free to look at those last minute things at the cashier's counter. A box of mints, nail polish, themed bandages; nothing anyone really needed, but something people thought they needed. So I sat looking at these things and I heard a woman ask my sister if that was all she wanted to buy. I looked up to see a woman holding my sister's immaturely wrinkled money in her ring adorned fingers.

You could tell that it had been a long shift because her black hair was beginning to spill from her bun to the sides of her face, as if to wrap it in preparation for sleep. Her v-neck was very low cut and you could just see the faint raise in her chest where her breasts were and a mole that ornamented her collar bones. The shirt was tucked into these black skinny jeans that were wrapped around her fragile legs, revealing the very slight collection of fat that sat atop her abdomen. This made her seem real, attainable, but I knew deep down that she wasn't.

She didn't look at me. I didn't expect her to, or any other woman to for that matter. I thought that all I could hope for was this series of seconds for me to admire her. The trade was made, the bag was filled, and the all too familiar tapping of shoes began again as we left the store.

We went to some other stores afterwards in search of a birthday present for my sister's friend. The last store we went to was abrasive to say the least. Abrasive but warm. These people that shopped here and worked here, you could tell that they confided in each other, that they felt comfortable here. We walk over to a wall of shirts and look for the perfect one for the birthday girl. I looked around to see what other options there were and found something much more enticing. It was her again. She was visiting one of her friends that was working there. It seemed weird to see her outside of the act of taking money, bagging clothes, and giving money. There wasn't that wall of stupid mints and nail polish anymore. I was compelled to say something, to exist.

It would be nice for me to say that I mustered the courage to talk to her and get her name, maybe even more time, but that didn't happen. It never happens, and I can't blame anyone but myself for it.

"I think she'll like this one. I know she will. What do you think?" I say sure. My sister trades more torn money for clothes and we leave for good this time. As we walk back to my car, I beat myself up for not introducing myself, but then I think: what if I had? Would we have had that coffee, or giggled at that joke, or laid awake late into a night talking about nothing that mattered for the sake of hearing each others' voices? No. None of that would have happened, none of that ever happens. Those seconds that came from thin air were all that I could really hope for, and I cherished them as much as I could have. I'm content with that. I'm afraid of being content with that, but the time has past and that is all I can do. Until next time of course.

The Plane Crash

I can't be late today. Something horrible and important is happening in lecture today and it's essential that I stay to endure this horrible and important thing. Today is the day I get to spill my beans onto a sheet filled with unanswered questions to suggest to the people above me that they should reconsider denouncing me as someone that can contribute to society.

I walk in and the lecture hall is littered with people shuffling their papers like ants eating a strawberry ten times their size: frantic from realizing how large the strawberry actually is up close. They still have a few minutes to squeeze in as many bites as they can before it's taken away for their examination. The professor walks in and I can see everyone surrendering to him with their eyes. "Hello passengers, this is your pilot speaking, I'm sorry to have to inform you of this, but the plane is plummeting into the ocean and there is nothing I can do about it."

The professor's servants pass out the papers with looks of ease on their face. I always find myself so envious of their stressless position in this merciless knowledge chamber. There is a surge of shuffling and the test has begun. You can almost here the pencils dancing just above the paper as their wielders fearfully realize how much of the strawberry was left uneaten. There is more shuffling as the room searches for some light in the dark, unknown abyss that is the exam. The interior's of the students are beginning to crumble. Watching my peers take their tests around me is like watching kamikaze jets make their final plunge for the sake of their grades. Do everything you can. Write whatever you can think of.

"Pencils down" the professor says, as if to imply that that entire test was just a simulation. A simulation we didn't know we were partaking in. We all look up from the wreckage to see if the people we boarded the plane with are still alive. Oh yes there is the fat man with the hawaiian shirt, and the woman who complained about the food. They are all here.

The heat from the blazing fire of anxiety departs with my face. It's all out of our hands now. The plane has crashed and I'm not allowed to go back so might as well help this flaming debris off this poor man's leg. We all knew we couldn't go back in time, and we relish all the comfort that that offers. We turn our tests into the nonchalant servants and exit the simulation to go about our regular business with one less dilemma haranguing our minds. Until the next trip of course.