if only

chapter 1

october

When writers block reaches its peak, I close my laptop, grab my bag, and drive to a park to sketch clouds.

It's something I've always done, since I was a kid. I used to lay on my back and make a game of it; capturing the shape of the cloud on paper before it raced away from me, morphing into something new entirely.

But that was when I lived in the Midwest, and blue skies full of white, fluffy cumuli were the norm. In Los Angeles, however, the ever present oppressive smog made it difficult to play my little game. Thankfully, writer's block hadn't been much of an issue since I'd been in school. We were given so many prompts, projects, topics on a regular basis that I'd found myself mostly in my tiny apartment, cranking out paper after paper.

On Thursday, I'd been given a new assignment: write about the last intense feeling you had. That was it; the entire context was based on the last time I was struck by something, or someone. What made it even worse were the parameters: it could be as long or as short as we desired, in any form we chose; poetry, essay, or otherwise.

It was too loose, too abstract. I paced the short hallway of my apartment for hours, music blaring and all basic needs neglected.

Finally, despite the smog that hung oppressively over the city that bleak afternoon, I threw my laptop into my bag, dragged a pair of basketball shorts up my skinny legs, and headed for my car.

I knew of one park very close by; I passed it almost daily on my way to school. It was pretty small, but looked secluded, surrounded only by a neighborhood of small houses looking in on it. It had a tiny baseball field, but otherwise, only several trees and lots of greenspace. Plenty of room for me to lay out on a blanket and pretend there were clouds to sketch.

I pulled into the parking lot and got out of my little car, heading to the trunk to get an old blanket I kept for just such occasions. The park looked deserted, and as I walked I took note of grassy areas ideal for lonesome artistry. There was one group of teenagers frolicking near a patch of trees, but they didn't bother me enough to avoid them. I had headphones, and if I didnt have clouds to focus on, I would use the towering old oak trees as my new muses, so I headed in their direction.

I settled my blanket some 50 feet from the trees, just far enough that I wouldn't seem creepy to the screaming teens, but close enough to get a decent perspective. I pulled out all my necessary paraphernalia; a drawing pad, airpods, and a case full of pencils, pens, erasers. I settled down cross legged on the blanket, and stared at the trees.

I was no artist, by any means; not when it came to this sort of thing, at least. Words were my comfort zone, but drawing was just a comfort. I played around for a while with a pencil, trying a serious silhouette of the tree nearest me, easily becoming frustrated when the perpsective of the lines didn't settle the way I wanted them to. So I switched it up, letting my hand loosen, my strokes become cartoonish, and finished my tree with a silly little face. I admired my goofy handiwork, until the shrieks became loud enough to hear over my earbuds.

I glanced up, and found the teenagers tackling one another in the grass. There were 4 of them in all, 3 girls and one boy. One of the girls swung from a hammock strung between two trees, but was abruptly overturned by another, her black hair flying wildly around her as she fell to the ground. She screamed, and dove at the girl who'd done it, tackling her to the blanket nearby.

As I watched them, smiling a little to myself, I realized they weren't teens at all, but probably closer to my age. I squinted, and suddenly recognized another of them, a girl with bright yellow hair who danced nearby. We'd taken a class together this semester; I remembered her being the girl forever crocheting in the back row while the professor lectured. I watched her awhile, trying to remember her name, when she turned toward me, and after a moment, waved.