The sound of the heart monitor reached his ears before he saw him there. Unconscious, without any visible blemishes on his body. But then again Glioma brain tumors usually didn’t show on the outside.

Michael couldn’t touch him. Be he had to, he had to see if this was real. He reached his hand slowly out and grabbed Rick’s upper arm. Rick jerked awake at the touch, looked up and saw Michael. A huge grin split across Rick’s face and he began to laugh. Michael was shocked.

“What are you doing?” asked Michael.

Rick just laughed all the harder. Michael couldn’t see what was so funny but began to smile at his protégé’s glee. Pretty soon they both were laughing uncontrollably, oblivious to the judgmental looks of the patients in the next bed. When they had stopped laughing, Michael looked at Rick as seriously as he could.

“How are you doing?” asked Michael.

“Been better.” replied Rick. For the first time, Michael noticed a spasm of fear cross Rick’s face, but before he had time to register it, it was gone.

“Are you nervous?” asked Michael.

“About dying? Yeah.. A little.” Rick admitted. “They came in here with some pastor and he was trying to talk me through it.”

Michael managed a smile, “What did you think?”

“I think it sounded a lot better coming from you when I was in eleventh grade. I didn’t even know this guy, I couldn’t tell if he was just saying words or if he meant it…” Michael was touched into silence.

The two sat together quietly for the next hour, until Rick started drifting off into sleep.

“I’ll be here when you wake up,” said Michael firmly.

“I’m not stupid Michael. I know whats happening,” said Rick.

Michael knew as well. He could almost see the life seeming from Rick’s eyes.

“Any regrets?”

“I do wish I had asked Chrissy to prom that one time.”

“That was thirty years ago.”

Rick smiled again. “I’m not scared. People are scared because they don’t know where they are going. And that isn’t the case.”

Michael knew the times when Rick was lying, he always had a tendency of chewing on his thumb. Rick’s hands remained on his chest. This was one of those times.

“There are so many worse things you know,” said Rick.

The thought crossed Michael’s mind that maybe it was actually Rick that was teaching Michael about dying.

“Tell me what He looks like, okay?” whispered Michael.

“Beautiful,” answered Rick smiling weakly and resting his eyes. Michael noticed how small Rick looked in death.

The heart monitor held a single note as Michael stood and exited through the the double teal-green doors.

“Hola? Carlos?”

“Hello, this is Al.”

“Carlos?”

“No, I think you have the wrong number. This is Al,” he paused.

“No hablar in espanolo,” said Al slowly.

“Oh. Gracias.” said the voice. Click.

Al put the slightly damp phone back on the receiver. Of course it had been the wrong number. Who would he have been expecting to call him?

Al’s chest rose and fell as he took a deep breath and looked around the kitchen. There was a reason why he hadn’t left the bedroom in a few days and he remembered it as a hollow feeling in his stomach grew as he looked at all the family pictures on the walls. One in particular he found himself staring at, almost hungrily. His wife, or rather his ex-wife, Marie, was bent over with laughter at some long forgotten joke with her arms wrapped tightly around two tiny girls with identical blonde hair.

“That really dates the picture,” thought Al.

“Marie never laughs anymore.”

Two weeks ago the court had made its decision. A father with no job was not deemed fit to have custody of the children. Marie had wasted no time in obliterating every possible connection they had to their father that she could legally destroy. Any story book that he had read to them was trashed, the dog was put up for adoption and all of their toys were left behind at what was now the house solely owned by Al. It was more than he could bear.

He walked back to the bedroom and got dressed. Maybe a drive would get his mind cleared. Al was a man of action. When he was laid off two months previously, he immediately put in for as many positions as he could find. After sitting in the bedroom for three days straight, a drive would do him good, make him feel as if he had a destination.

Al drove past the local college, almost hitting a couple as they happily walked out into the road without bothering to look before stepping out.

“You’ll learn” he thought. “You’ll learn that at her core she is a back-stabbing water buffalo who will run you down in a heartbeat if it suits her.” Al considered this for a moment, maybe he should have hit him. He looked up at the light. It was green. He had to pick which way to go.

“Can’t go wrong with right!” he said happily to himself. Things were great. He was driving. He picked a happy song on his iPod. Al hummed to himself.

“Water buffalo, that’s a good one.” Al said to himself.

“If she was a water buffalo at her core, what am I?” His smile faltered.

The iPod beeped to signify that it was out of battery. The song died mid-lyric.

“Who am I?

Al slowed down the car. He looked out the window. He was above a river, there was a father and son fishing, standing in the current. What looked like a group of boys trying to show off for their girls were behind them on the beach. It all struck Al as very nice.

It was feeling far to stuffy in here. The sun, so comforting mere seconds ago now seemed like it was intruding on him, hurting his eyes. Al hopped out of the car. Immediately the lane behind him came alive with sounds of horns blaring. A Toyota almost ran over his left foot. Al shut the door and walked over to the bridge’s guard rail to look at the river more closely. The heat continued to beat down on him, the sun’s rays getting caught in his eyes, giving everything a reddish tint. Before he knew what he was doing, Al had climbed up on the guard raid of the bridge, looking out over top of the water. The hollow feeling in his stomach was back. The horns kept beeping and people were starting to yell. Al looked back. Traffic was backed up for as far as he could see. Al looked back to the river. The child was pointing to him on the bridge. The father looked up and immediately scooped up his child and began sloshing back to the beach.

Al thought what was at his center. About how his world had been stripped away from him. About how the only thing he knew was pain. That the hollow feeling in his stomach he would gladly have traded for physical needles in his flesh. He thought of all of this and inexplicably thought of the man who was probably unawarely cursing whatever was making him sit in traffic. He looked out at the water once more and closed his eyes.

Al was a man of action.

Ryan Greenwood

Prompt: Make use of these prompts or trigger lines for easy freewrites. Pick one of them- quickly; don’t think about it too much- write it down and keep writing. Anything at all. Whatever the prompt suggests. Keep going. A little bit more.

“The first thing I want in the morning…”

The first thing I want in the morning most of the time is to go back to sleep, but then again who doesn’t? Someone once told me that most people don’t want to get out of bed because they don’t want to face the day. I don’t know if that is true or not. I hope not, that seems a very sad way to go about living life. I think I don’t want to get out of bed because it is warm and feels nice. Plus I’m tired. Usually the next thing I try to do is have a quiet time. Either just going through some book I the bible or just open up to a random page. This morning I read 1 Peter 2. It talked about a lot of things, but what I took the most from it was that Jesus was totally and one hundred percent a volunteer and not a victim of circumstance. It was his mission from the very beginning to come and die so that people have the possibility to be back in a right relationship with God. Right now my hands smell like baby. My friend Cliff and his wife had their first child this past Monday. I went to their house earlier today to see him. His name is Keller. He smells like baby. We were just talking about what it was like for him to have a child. He said that he hardly ever pictured Jesus as a baby. I agreed. Why in the world would God pour all of his glory into something so small? That doesn’t even have motor control yet. Then we sat in silence for a while. Cliff said that one time he tried to picture allowing his son to be crucified. He said he cried. Its not even my baby and I think I would have too if I allowed myself to think about it. God must love us more than I think. At this point I’m not even sure if I am doing this prompt right. It asked what do I want in the morning. I usually like coffee in the morning. But coffee as it turns out gets really expensive really quickly. So does food in general. At this point I am over the four hundred word mark and am looking for a significant thought or phrase to end this ramble on. Nothing is coming to mind, so I’ll use the stand by.

Great moments. Come from great opportunities. And thats what you’ve got here tonight boys. That’s what you’ve earned here tonight. One game. If we played them ten times they might win nine. But not this game. Not tonight. Tonight, we skate with them. Tonight, we play with them. And we shut them down because we can. You were born to be hockey players. Every one of ya. And you were meant to be here tonight. This is your time. Their time? It’s done. It’s ov-er. I’m sick and tired of hearing about what a great hockey team the Soviets have. Screw ‘em! This is your time. No go out there and take it!!!

I did not come up with this. This is the speech from Miracle, so I’m not plagiarizing. But I did memorize it. And that counts for something.

1. An overheard conversation, and what happens next, include speculation on the participants, based on your observations (dress, hair styles, hair color–if it gets your attention, and/or if it doesn’t– scars, piercings, where they are when you overhear them, voice tones…).

“Ouch! Watch it Adam!” He jumps as his friend grabs his arm. He slowly rolls up the sleeve of his green and yellow flannel to reveal the nastiest of bruises, the lump on his forearm matching the color of his shirt. The young man was unusually large for his age, the fabric of his shirt stretched slightly across his chest and arms. A black duffle bag slung over his good arm.

“What happened?” asked his friend.

“Don’t worry about it bro” he responded, already lowering his sleeve and trying to hide the limp in his walk. The two made their way down William Street and turned the corner. “There is no way you got that thing from practice, Coach told us to wear pads.”

“You’re right, I didn’t get it from practice. Now drop it.” he said the tone in his voice hinting at aggression.

“Now that I think about it, you haven’t been to practice in over a week now. Patrick, what’s been going—?”

“I’ll see you later.” said Patrick cutting him short.

They had reached a dinged up Civic. Patrick climbed in unceremoniously and shut the door. Twisting the key in the ignition, the car came to live and drove off, leaving a very offended Adam on the side of the road. He felt a twinge of regret as he passed another of his teammates walking towards the party that Patrick had no intention of going to. Patrick pressed on the radio, the silence being to loud for his thoughts. But even then, he still could not keep the brief and haunting images from flashing in front of his mind. At first it was fine, thoughts that could be banished at the summoning of a little will power, but as Patrick drove, they became longer and more prolong, until it was like watching a movie in his head. The overly broken in green sofa. The smell of intoxicated friends. A still body laying on the camp bed. His older brother walking uneasily down the stairs. Patrick stood up, he had enough. “Kevin!”

The drunken man looked up. His eyes focused in on his younger brother standing defensively above the green couch.
“What?” he answered stupidly.

“That’s enough, I’m leaving. And I’m taking the girl with me.”

Patrick unfolded his arms and swept past his brother upstairs. He opened the door.

Several cars were honking behind him. “How long had the light been green?” Patrick thought, “How did I get to Central Park?”

“Maybe I should call the police” he said out loud. Not that he cared about his brother anymore, but was starting to realize the consequences of the actions he had stood by and watched take place for so long.

“I should do it soon.”

Again, Patrick rolled up the sleeve of his green and yellow flannel and found the bruise underneath. The bruise that he would show the police. The bruise he got using his arm to catch himself on the concrete stairs as his brother’s friends tossed him from his two bedroom apartment, one of which was being occupied by an unconscious girl, surrounded by strangers.

I opened the small black latch,
warmed by the sun
and stepped over the threshold.
My heart cracked,
like a bone bit in two,
as I saw the still matted body
of my oldest friend.

Ryan Greenwood

So like strolling on a glass littered floor was
walking with a friend so heavily ladened
with chains worn as jewelry,
and apathetic towards someone to save him.

Never realizing that his broken
center could be swapped for another
pure heart to call his own.
If only he would become my adopted brother.

Ryan Greenwood

I dejectedly gazed around the room,
taking in the cobwebbed corners
and the scuffled dust where
a nameless henchmen
was thrown to the ground in rage.
Seven minutes to go,
and still the dank house was mute.
I could not punish them,
for that would remove my skeletal mask,
but just for today,
perhaps,
that would not be so bad.
Reality seeps in,
like cold air through the
once enchanting windows.
It lies,
“They are followers,
not friends.”

I lit several small flames,
I extinguished them alone.

-Tom

Ryan Greenwood

Remember how my heart would race
at the heavy growl of the motor,
the daily rescue.
Remember how I would scramble
into the rusty brick cab,
and the smell of tobacco and old leather would greet.
Remember that small box in the middle seat,
where surprise candy bars and other riches were held.
Remember the open windows
that made flight possible
for us both.
Remember the clutch,
quivering with possibilites.

But ages were woven in that fence,
Causing the metal to
brown and flake;
Look at the wrinkled steel,
sliced open, for the rescue.
Look at the cab, the smell of asphalt and ache.
Look at the splintered box,
and its strewn trinkets.
Look at the shattered windows,
so like a sparrow
with clipped wings.
The gearshift is fractured and
can never teach again.

A greasy man walks out
and opens the hood,
hooking a chain around the block,
strangling it.
But that’s okay,
that heavy heart left a long time ago.
And natural mourning clocks in,
Right.
On.
Time.

The fence sways at my release.
A final goodbye
to the rusty truck that taught me so much,
shunned by the crowd
who never knew what it was like
to ride with open windows
and rust holes.

-Ryan Greenwood