Our Thoughts

Charlie sat, his feathered blond hair pressing against the wooden bedpost. His mind wandered aimlessly from one mythical landscape to the next. His pale, boney hand traveled across the page, putting his wild thoughts into whimsical interpretations in graphite. Endless, dizzying spirals. That was all he’d been able to draw for a while now. Only tangled knots, even the most careful of fingers couldn’t pick apart. He glanced up and out the open window, his eyes unable to stay glued to the page. 

The pale pines and seemingly ancient cobblestone walkways of Portland, Maine felt bland and lifeless compared to the indescribable flora of his subconscious. He was used to that, the monotonous grey tide that was the real world to him. He’d forgotten the days when it had been anything but. And so the ashen, clouded glasses stayed perched on his nose. A thin sigh escaped his lips and his eyes fell shut, his awareness receding back into the comfort of fiction and fantasy.

Charlie flinched as her quiet voice penetrated his empty thoughts. Sarah. She always seemed to come to him around 2:43 in the afternoon, though he couldn’t remember why the time was relevant. Perhaps it wasn’t. He’d come to think of her as a nuisance, a moth flitting around his head, dashing a better daydream. 

“Come on, Charlie!” she cried eagerly, her thin frame flanking the door to his small dorm room.

“Yeah, yeah. Coming…” Charlie replied, as he set down his sketchpad and B3 pencil. His shoes scuffed the perpetually stained carpet as he followed her out the door.

As Sarah drifted through the many pedestrians along the sidewalk, Charlie wandered lazily after her, his arms crossed stiffly across his chest against the cold March air. He couldn’t help but wish he had worn more than a T-shirt. He vaguely wondered why Sarah didn’t seem the slightest bit bothered by the chill, considering all she had to cover her arms was a thin, white cotton blouse.

She skipped and spun her way through the throngs of people, her bright burgundy hair hanging in flowing waves, dancing rhythmically down across her back and shoulders. To Charlie, her red hair and snowy blouse seemed like the only light in the dull, shapeless landscape. Standing out like a torch amidst the grey. 

Charlie’s mind drifted as a puff of steam erupted from his lips, and the brick storefronts and restaurants around him seemed to shift and blur. Sarah’s bright silhouette in the distance pulsed like a heartbeat, and came into deeper focus. The city around him became a dense forest, not unlike those of his subconscious. The sound of taxis and the clatter of many moving bodies filtered through his thoughts, purified by the quiet chatter of a breeze rustling through thick foliage. 

      “Hurry up, Charlie!” Sarah giggled as she fled behind a large maple, the dead leaves beneath her feet not even uttering a whisper as she twirled over them. Charlie finally let loose a chuckle and ran after her, sneaking behind the tree and jumping out in an attempt to scare her. She had vanished. A sweet sing-song voice weaved through the maze of branches, dousing his confusion. She was way too good at this game.

He sprinted after her. Her bright scarlet hair seemed to leave a trail weaving around, behind and between the thick trunks. Charlie skidded to a halt, the various dried leaves parting around his feet like the Red Sea. He panted, his chest rising and falling, puffs of steam rolling from his throat.

“Sarah?” Charlie called out with a wheeze. Stumbling forward, he grabbed a knee-height, rounded stone and leaned against it in an attempt to catch his breath. As hunched over himself, cursing his asthma, he wondered at the stone's odd shape, its too smooth surface. 

After a few ragged breaths, he straightened his spine. He glanced from tree to tree, his eyes nervously swiveling in search of her. All of a sudden, his vision seemed to pale and gray, color fading from the forest around him, into something akin to old, cracked pavement. Fog rolled in, creeping forward between the roots of the trees, and curling about his feet, encircling him like curious snakes. Charlie stumbled backward, forgetting the odd rock that stood at his knees. Tumbling over it, the thick words carved into its surface finally caught his attention.

Sarah Marie Moore

1997-2009

Forever in our thoughts.