Print of rejection and disappointment on my face. "No girl is worth beating yourself up."
"That's where you're wrong," I told him. "Jenny's different."
"Yeah, yeah. Just like Sandra was different. Just like Karen was different."
"You don't understand. Jenny's not like the others." She wasn't. She was worth it.
I decided to give her a call. After dialing, I got a recording telling me my call could not be completed as dialed. I tried again. Same thing. Steven was looking at me from across the room. He knew just as well as I did. She'd blocked my number.
"Problem with the phone?" Steven asked, mockingly.
"I'm just not trying hard enough," I said as I stepped back onto the treadmill.

1736 6/24/08

 

Main Street

"I wish to get to Main Street. Do you know the way?" The man had been standing on the corner, asking that question to each passerby, for approximately fifteen minutes before someone finally gave him an answer.

"Main Street, you say?" the woman asked.

"Oh yes, please, do tell." The man was so eager for a response that he failed to notice the woman's peculiar appearance. To any other onlooker, it was apparent she was very different from the other men and women wandering the streets, doing the weekly shopping or looking for a bite to eat. This woman had obviously not bathed in weeks, possibly longer. Her clothes were tattered and worn. She held a brown paper bag in her left hand, probably containing liquor of some sort, and gestured wildly with it at no one in particular. After a fit of spasms, she seemed to remember the man in front of her.

"Main Street.." she said thoughtfully. The man stood patiently, assuming she was trying to calculate the best route. "Ah yes! Climb that ladder," she said, pointing to the fire escape of a nearby building. "Yes, climb that ladder, all the way to the roof. May sure you go all the way up, now. Then spin 'round in a circle three times, yes three times. Cluck like a chicken. Then come back down." A grin spread across her demented face.

"I'm sorry. Then I'll be right back where I started, right where I am now. I need to get to Main Street." The man was very disheartened. He desperately needed directions, and this woman seemed to be playing some sort of cruel joke on him.

The woman started laughing maniacally as she skipped down the sidewalk. At the corner, about ten feet from where the man was standing, was a street sign. As the woman's cackling got louder, she circled the sign in an almost religious-like dance. The man, having followed her path with his gaze, read the street sign aloud.

"Main Street," he said slowly, sounding it out. Then suddenly, he realized what he'd said. "Main Street!" he exclaimed. He made his way toward the sign and the dancing woman. When her circle brought her close to him, he linked his arms with hers and joined in on her dance. "Main Street, Main Street!" he chanted.

The woman, thinking it a fun game, took up the song, as well. "Main Street, Main Street!" they chorused.

After a few more times around the street sign, the man slowed and pulled away. "Oh dear," he said, and checked his watch. "I really must be going, or I will be late. Thank you so much for your help."

The man turned right, and walked down Main Street toward his appointment. When he reached the corner at Second Street, he paused to check his watch again. "Thank goodness," he said to himself. "Right on time." Out of his pocket, he pulled a very strange-looking key. About three times the size of a normal key, it was made entirely out of wood. The man glanced at the ground, approximated four feet up, then blindly inserted his key into thin air. Thinking he felt the click he was expecting, he turned the key a quarter turn to the right. Pulling forward with the key, he saw the usual shimmer. He took his key back, stepped into the portal, closed it behind him, and disappeared.

1547 6/25/08