Solitary

Lost conversation

it was late June in the city of New York and for months now you've been suspecting a promotion from your job any day now and you think today will be your day.

"Johnathan!" you hear as you open up a bag of sugar to pour yourself a cup of coffee before you start your day

"yes sir?" you respond as you slowly peek your head around the corner of the break room door and begin to stare at your boss looking at you dreadfully.

As you begin walking towards him you begin to wonder what he could want with you this time.

"Johnathan you has been tasked to write today's news column and this time i dont want any of your stupid mystery pieces like you've been putting on my desk for the past three months"

As you listen to Mr.peter talk your ear off about the normal, you begin to day dream about what crazy thing could happen to you today out in new york and a smile creeps across your face"

"Hey are you listening to me ?"He says staring at you with his cigar leaning out of his mouth

"Yes sir i got it no wild mysteries" you say knowing you're a pretty good liar

As you get up to leave from his office you grab your camera and head out to a world of mysteries.You take the stairs instead of the old rusted lift the landlord keeps in your office building because he thinks it "vintage".You open the door for a package delivery boy as you see he has boxes stacked to the ceiling and you head on your way to central park where most of your stories come from.

Your decide to take the 5th street bus today thinking about the traffic to come and trying to ride a bike through all of that would be chaos. The bus comes and you dig the spare change out of your pocket and take your seat.As you sit down you take a gland upwards and lay your eyes on a woman, there is nothing special about her but you cant keep your eyes away and in the midst of your staring you hear.

"excuse me"she says as you realize shes standing in front of you

"Yes?" You say

"Is this seat taken?"she says as she points down at your camera taking up the extra seat

"um..no" you explain as you move your camera to your lap.

She smiles and sits next to you as you start to stare out the window but cant help but look at her just a bit.As your eyes lean over she spots you and smiles and as your eyes are glued to each others you decide to try and say something.

"Hi i'm Johnathan" you say.

"HI im lily, nice to meet you"she says staring at your camera

"So whats the deal with that camera?"she ask

"Oh i work for city 5 the local newspaper here" you say trying to make your job sound somewhat important

"sounds fun" she says smiling at you gently

As you look at her and try to find something to keep the conversation going you realize your stop is coming up.

"well this is where i get off"you say unwillingly and pull the cord above you

"well maybe we can continue this conversation another day then" she says as she gets up and lets you pass her

"maybe we should" you say as the bus comes to a halt and the doors swing open

"bye"you say slowly

"so long"she says with a wave

You get off the bus as and watch the doors close and as the bus pulls off you realize you never asked for her number or anything about her.

"Well that's one draw back to living one of the largest cities of them all, i guess conversations never last long.

As you walk into the park you notice the old man doing yoga and the local kids playing basketball and you notice you can smell smoke and start to follow the smell. You circle around a big oak tree and cross the old brick bridge and see a group of homeless men warming there clothes by the fire. You decide since your boss wanted no mystery and just normal stories you'd give him this instead.

As you start taking picture a few of the homeless men leave, you suppose it was because they felt ashamed so you stop taking pictures and start moving more towards the front end of the park but then you hear a groaning noise.