Pieces

Journal

Chapter One

Journal

He kept his journal discreet and never spoke a morsel of it, his nose buried in the pale pages constantly darting his eyes up and down with the fasting motion of his hand scribbling every which way, he made subtle sounds but then returned to silence when he had achieved a potential point in his writing.

I caught a glimpse of his passages from time to time, astonished with every twisting and twirling from the four corners of the paper he managed to cover leaving no spaces blank. He would sometimes sense a wave of paranoia and close it quickly before flashing an awkward smile and chuckling. He was quite secretive and relentless to show me what was written, but I had no desire to question him or whether I'm allowed to shuffle through it, I just left him be.

When we traveled around to destinations either sprung onto us spontaneously or were required for our line of work, he always brought his bounded book anywhere and everywhere with us no matter the length of the trip. It was by his side clasped in his hand or pressed hard against his chest, it was a part of him and he couldn't bear to lose it.

With every passing of the years the tattered leather journal began to fade beyond repair, becoming unbinded as the strings weakened and the leather cracked from the obsession of squashing it into bags and back pockets. It's once mocha color now transformed into a caramel hue as it got flung around through the best and worst of times, but it never lost it's potential to him.

It became a person to him instead rather then a journal.

He started to inscribe things on it, the words one and only were scribbled along the spine and the word please was on the front flap, he even gave it a sea of stars to appear picturesque to add more depth to it's character. Every chance he got he tried to explain to me how real it was to him and how it meant everything to him, I always stared at him in a puzzled way as he rambled on.

He was fantasizing to witness in his designated state of mind, he was beautiful and content with the fascination of capturing every moment and share it solely between himself and his journal. He told me at times that one day when he passes on that it will belong to me, that I will be the caretaker, he said that I was to be the only person he trusted to have his journal.

I always worried about him though, he was constantly drawn inside it closing himself off from the world and I was for some reason, questioned if I should help him or not but I never did, it was never really my business I found that this was his way of expressing himself, a way to escape from the world.

His mind must have been a wondrous place to explore and his eyes glossed with radiate as he visioned no evil but rather compassion.

But as we continued on, the day he told me about happened and I swore to myself that it wouldn't come true. He was lost and never found and I was now the keeper of the journal, the person to it. He had left the earth only leaving behind a crummy book with the written memories forever inked for me to read.

He no longer would exist, he no longer would be that boy surrounding himself in pages with ink smudges on his nose and he would no longer be my other half.

What I held in my hand was all I had of him and I was finally given a chance to wander inside his enthralling mind, the mind he distant not only the world from but me as well.

As I stood on the balcony with the book balanced between my thumb and fingers I glanced up at the twilight sky and for every star I said a wish, a wish for him to come back, but he never showed, he never snuck behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist or rest his head on my shoulders and softly sang to me, he never kissed the small wrinkles in between my eyebrows when I tensed up from his warm embrace, he never showed up.

I was alone with only the moon accompanying me in my wounded time of need, I collapsed down onto a chair left in the corner outside and turned the knob on our lights to dim the area just enough to not bother the neighbors and to where I was easily able to read.

I unsettling snugged the book spine on my legs and breathed in and out slowly before lifting the edge of the front cover flap open. The pages were covered in blotches of ink and smudges of pencil and smelled of him.

The corner of my eyes began to sting and I sniffled quietly as I flipped through the crinkled pages. I appeared on a page labeled with my name and I knew that I had arrived at the starting point of my journey, my journey into his brown leather journal.