I'll Keep It With Mine

As I Went Out One Morning

She's a hypnotist collector, you are a walking antique. All through her life there had been a strong element of the abstract, the unique, and the obscure. She once had a dwarf cat with a paw and a half on each foot. Her first best friend was a Quaker girl with dreadlocks, she was from massechussetts. She has a strong dislike of Velcro, and would often drop everything and stop to record her far fetched thoughts. She was an anthropologist for obscure things.
Her favorite place to go to collect these obscurities was The City. She could find Rastafarian ballad singers, runaway harmonica players, transients, lost children of the sun. Artists, and poets alike. Both of which took up residence in street corners and Café stages. It was one night, dusk was seeping in from the bay, and the basins of the hills we're pooled in ambiguity. She found herself outside of a small café in north beach, it was lit up with yellow incandescent lights on the outside. The fog kept the lights dim for the most part. She tried to light a cigarette but her lighter had died earlier that day, though she frequently attempted to use it up until that point.
"Need a light?" a stranger asked.
She nodded and looked up. Before her she saw a weary rambler. He was still young, no older than she. The lines of an older man's troubles had already started to sink into his face. He struck a match and lit her cigarette for her. She took a drag and pulled it from her lips, leaving a whispy trail of smoke trailing behind.
"Where are you from?" she asked, feeling his wariness in her bones.
He looked off into the fog and took a drag of his own cigarette, "I've been all over." he said, his voice as cold as ice.
She looked at him questioningly, "I know, but where are you from?" she asked.
"That doesn't matter. It's what I've experienced that's shaped me." he said.
"Okay, then where have you been?" she asked.
"South of here. It's not the way you'd think anyone lives." He said, shuttering at his own words.
He still had spirit, that she saw in his eyes, so alive, alylizing everything they touched. "What have you seen blue eyes?" she asked him, unknowing of his name.
He looked over at her, but she didn't know what kind of look it was. "Nothing a girl like you would want to see. Injustices that have scarred me a million times over." he sighed.
"Hold on now, if you're talking about injustices, I assume you don't mean to be pushing one on me, assuming I'm just a faint hearted woman." she said dragging her cigarette.
"I don't think you'd want to see any of it." he said.
"Well who wants to?" she asked, "but the thing is, we should, shouldn't we?"
He pursed his lips, "Why do you women always put yourselves in the middle of a firestorm?"
"Because men can do it, and we can do it just as good. Because we feel just as strongly if not more then men do." she explained, "I've seen some things myself. I can't say what, but for a different reason. You may think differently of me if you knew."
"Why does it matter what I think?" he asked.
"Because you're a stranger, but you're not strange." she said, in a simple gesture of kindness.
Just like that she'd given him a rainbow, as payment for his unique character. A bountiful trait to hold in her eyes. He had already begun to view her as a darling girl, innocent in such simplistic ways. She had an unhindered and clean perspective, childlike in that sense. He willed to bring her traveling, but feared to damage her delicate psyche. He could not take her away, but the thought was exciting enough. She suddenly broke the silence and smiled warmly, "It's so nice to meet you. I can't help but see, you seem much older than you likely are. Wiser."
He looked down at his feet, dragging his cigarette and throwing it down to step on it, "Worried mind." he said.
"That makes you smarter than the rest." she said knowingly.
"Also, the lonesomest one." he added.
She thought for a moment, wondering how to temper his woe. It took her only a minute to think, but she pulled out a book from her bag, her favorite book. She tore a page from it, and wrote something on it. Then she folded it up and write something else on it. Then she handed it to him.
He took it so softly from her grasp, and read the front, "Do not open until that lonesome feeling comes."
He looked at her with disbelief. Then He paused for a minute and smiled, because he suddenly noticed that he was not feeling as lonesome as he was. She smiled back, dropped her cigarette on the sidewalk, and stomped it out. Without a word she left, disappearing back into the mist.

It wasn't ten minutes later that the feeling of nirvana slipped away from him. He still stood there staring into the mist, pondering what had happened. He unfolded the page, and the message read, "Remember who loves you." and underneath was her telephone number. So he walked to the nearest pay phone and dropped a dime into it. He got her voicemail, "Hi it's me, just, Thank you. I'd like to tell you about it sometime. Hopefully we'll meet again." he said, and then hung up. He sat down against the wall and played his harmonica. A bluesy riff that had some element of joy in it. Like there was still some hope in this world yet.

She stared hard at him from across the table. He couldn't help but fidget on the inside, for suddenly he remembered who she was. That long, dark, hair which curls and falls all down her breast. Her dark eyes which seemed to glow in the most uncertain of nights. It was the first time he had ever been nervous around her; nervous that life made too much sense, that it would all come rushing back like blood to the surface. There was a suffocating lump in his throat, she expected him to say something to her but he just couldn't. He could only nod or shake his head, he could only breathe, or choke on his own tongue. There were only two choices in this moment, two choices as it has always been that way in his life; to tell her, or not to tell her.

He let out a trembling sigh. "What's wrong?" she asked him, finally catching onto his disorientation of the moment. He had started sweating. He rubbed his eyes, which were bothering him

"I've got one for you." he said, very low, as it was the only way he could talk without his throat seizing up.

"What's that?" She asked.

"We met a long time ago." he said.

A shocked expression froze on her face, he couldn't help but almost laugh. She sat frozen in time, trying to remember him, from another day, another time. "When?" She faintly asked, as it was the only thing she could manage to get out.

Once again he was chained to silence, he leaned his elbow on the table with his chin in his hand, fingers brushing over his lips. He dug into his left front pocket without moving his eyes from the table. He pulled out a little copper snuff box, his fingers shook as he grasped it. He examined it for a moment, and carefully placed it on the table and slid it over to her. Her stomach was in her throat, she quickly grabbed his hand and held it, it didn't startle him at all. He just held her hand back and looked into her eyes with an indescribable look that could have been anything from extreme joy, to extreme sadness, with a little bit of fear, and reassurance peppered in. The thing about the look on his face was that she thought she might have seen him make that face somewhere before, but she did not recall the situation. It scared her to the bone.

She popped open the lid to the snuff box, it had a folded up piece of paper inside. It was the type of paper they use for books. She unfolded it, then she saw it. It was a page from the very end of Jack Kerouac's book, Big Sur. It held the solution to all problems as she called it. It was the single most important piece of literature that she owned, it had brought on many realizations. She had added one more that she had learned preceding the book, just for him. "Remember who loves you." She sighed, "Why did you never call me after that first time?" She asked.

He raised his eyebrows, fingers still pressing his lips, "I can't say I'm superstitious, but I will admit that this sort of thing happens. I just never thought it would happen quite like this."