Losing Heart

Chapter 1: First Encounter

 Escanor scratched the base of his neck. "No, that's no good." He grumbled to himself then tore the page from his notepad, tossing it onto the table along with the many others he had discarded from his book. He continued again with his writing, starting another idea similar to the last as his pencil scratched away at the blue and yellow lined paper, then stopped.

Escanor wrinkled his nose, ultimately cringing at his thoughts once he saw them in writing. He ripped the page from the book and crumpled up the paper. He kept at this routine for a while; writing down an idea, tearing it out, crumbling it up then tossing it aside to the table until he could finally admit to himself that he had hit writer's block- not that this a new routine, it's been like this for some time.

He sat at a small table for two by the large window, the logo The Boar Hat spread across it in reverse in bold green letters.

He should just quit, he thinks. There was no use to this anymore, all his ideas had run dry like the desert, he wasn't sure if he could find the passion for this anymore; poetry.

Sometimes he wonders why he had even began writing it, It was becoming a nuisance, and more frustrating than anything; taking up his free time and keeping him up at night, lying awake thinking and rethinking the right words just to start over.

His reasons would eventually return to him however. It would strike him again with a slight pang in his chest; the faint memory of his father and mother, and his life as a child. He can remember the near fireplace and the cracking sound it made against the burning wood. He remembered the frame of it, gold and metal rim, and how it would curve into spirals. He could remember his living room, and the orange and yellow flickers of the fireplace lighting the dim room. He would sit on the couch where he could see his fathers' lounge chair in front of the fireplace, and the small felt cushioned foot rest that sat beside it. A low coffee table with his fathers paper and hot steaming coffee cup beside it. He remembered- practically hear his father's voice, and the faint sound of his mother tapping away at the piano keys while his father would recite a poem; Edgar Allen Poe's ''Raven." The mellow and even tone of his voice as he said every line. If only he could remember their faces.

A red dress, heels and ankles crossed to the side, seated on the long bench at the Piano, and standing beside her a pair of legs, his father's legs, nicely pressed slacks and newly polished dress shoes. But what he could no longer remember, where the faces that belonged to them. He never remembers from the waist up, and he fears that over time, even these faint memories would slip away from him more and more, like a dream that he would have, and after waking, every passing moment, a little bit more slips away, like sand through his fingers, until it's all gone.

A muffled him from a city bus startled Escanor and pulled him from his thoughts. His heart skipping a beat as his thoughts escaped him, the image bleeding out into his surroundings until they disappeared completely. Suddenly the world was filled with sounds all around him. He heard the jingle and sway of the glass door as customers would go in and out of the shop. Customers taking orders at the counter, voices chatting amongst themselves while entering and exiting, the sound of traffic outside flooding inside the shop when the door was pushed open, then going muffled again upon closing. Escanor looked up from the blank paper, pushing aside his frustration for losing focus, remembering the reason he was sitting here in the first place. His eyes spot the clock above the counter.

9;47 AM it read.

Escanor looked out of the window into the busy world. He watched many people pass by the window on the red cobblestone sidewalk, and further down he watched the busy streets and traffic; red lights turning green, green lights turning yellow, then red. Cars would stop and people would walk across the white painted lines. Bypassers would cross over his view of the world, a woman on a jog, a child young and their mother, a man with a briefcase, a group of friends, two boys riding their bikes down the curb, three girls chuckling to themselves as they turned the corner, people waiting at the stop sign. And soon, a large city bus would stop at a stop light and block his view of the daily life in the city.