Free Parking

    “I really liked your story,” a voice called.



    X sat at his desk in the back corner of the classroom, by the windows. He supposed this had been a habit of his since childhood- to sit by the windows. He preferred natural light to artificial light, particularly because the superiority of the former over the latter was wordless- it could not be explained. It simply felt better. More real.

    As the professor lectured, X noticed that his left foot was curled inward in his shoe, his toes in a tight ball, in a vice grip one might say, were his toes actually capable of gripping anything with the strength of a vice. Uncurling them, he knew he would find them curled again soon. They often were. And his hands were often clenched in fists, or shoved stiffly into pockets, his muscles somehow grown tense without his being aware of their doing so. X was feeling uncomfortable in general, lately. And he’d been having trouble parking. He didn’t know why this was significant, but he sensed that it was. He’d park too close to one car or the other when pulling in between them, or too far away from the curb, or slightly diagonal in parking spaces. Maybe he was overthinking it- who could say. Either way, he just couldn’t park right.

  He looked out the window and saw the yellow-green field of grass below, saw the sun lighting it up, so that if he squinted his eyes it looked, for brief, hazy seconds, like a field of molten gold. The trees were bare, black figures against the skyline, having shed their red and yellow leaves months before. It was early February, and his New Jersey hometown was still in the throes of winter; an odd winter, with unexpected lukewarm, muggy days. But such days were outliers, anomalies amidst weeks of bitter cold.

  The holidays were over, the forced good cheer, the annual brave face Americans put on as they prepared for the cold, had given way to grudging acceptance. X had made no resolutions on New Years Eve. These were the dog days now, the days of anticipation, impatience, and longing for the spring. But X had never liked the spring. His romantic relationships often dissipated during those hazy, lukewarm days, giving way to long, hot summers- summers of isolation, and of reformation, and painful, fruitless soul-searching. In the summer, he would take two steps forward, three back, several to either side, but no steps at all that ever made him feel like he was really getting anywhere. It was only in the autumn that X, for a too-short instant, found himself.

  He had to stretch his toes again, as they had once more curled up in his shoe.

  The class was Creative Writing I, the professor an eccentric old man with a kind Irish face, who read examples of poetry and prose with a theatrical, spritely flair, breathing emotion into pieces where there was none, and life into pages bereft of it. X admired the man, and often hung on his words. He himself was an aspiring writer, and so this was one of the few classes he was taking in which he had a personal stake in learning. Most of the others were requirements for his major: technical courses, courses on business or chemistry, calculus or computer science. The lectures in these were difficult for him to follow; he often felt lost and sad, knowing as he bit his lip and struggled to choke down the information being provided that it would do him no good, that none of it hinted at Truth or Beauty, none of it made him more of a human being.

    Y sat in her desk two rows to X’s left, and slightly in front of him. He could see her profile, and the tumble of her light brown hair, which she had braided today, but which often fell in loose curls to the center of her back. Her fingernails were unpainted; they drummed silently against the faux-wood surface of her desk, moving simply to move, to be doing something. She wore a tight white tank-top under a gray winter cardigan, and high-waisted, dark blue jeans, tucked into big, worn brown boots which, though rugged, were rugged in a way that seemed stylish. Folded by her feet was her scarf and jacket. She did not carry a purse, instead there was a knit satchel tucked under her chair. Her pink lips were absent of lipstick, but a thin layer of gloss made them shimmer, catching tiny sparks of the sun and holding them there, against her skin.

  Having sensed his gaze, Y looked in his direction just long enough for him to get a glimpse of her eyes- dark brown eyes, which crinkled up with genuine goodwill when she laughed. They were the rare sort of eyes which seemed to offer up incontrovertible evidence of the human soul. He saw untold depths of emotion and warmth in them, often wondering whether it was really there, or if it was simply the projection of his hopes, a symptom of the irrationally high esteem in which he held her, this girl that he had done nothing more than exchange a few casual greetings with.

  He didn’t know her, but he loved her.

  He loved the timbre of her voice, the way it was smooth and gentle, and seemed to dance along the air that carried it, rather than cut through it like some voices did. He loved the smell of her perfume, which was not at all sexy, but was soft, feminine, and, above all else, comforting (and was sexy for these reasons). He loved that she swayed slowly from side to side when she waited outside the classroom door for the professor to arrive before the beginning of class, as though listening to a song that only she could hear. Sometimes, when seeing this, he found himself swaying in response, and had to catch himself, and lean against a wall, or shove his hands into his pockets and look elsewhere… just as he did now, when she met his gaze in class.

  His eyes leapt away as soon as they locked with hers. He was terrified to think that she had noticed him staring.

  “I’m not going to stay with you because I feel sorry for you, X,” he remembered his ex-girlfriend muttering, as she sat in the passenger seat of his car in front of his parents’ house on Easter.

  She had said this, then removed the old flannel shirt which he had given her, which she was wearing that day- removed it and placed it in a pile on his lap, and opened the car door and got out, and got into hers and drove away.

  “...and in Heller’s novel, Something Happened, it can be argued that nothing at all really happens, per say,” the professor was saying, pacing vigorously in front of his podium. “Nothing significant occurs in terms of plot. There is no dynamism. But it is a beautiful piece, all the same- a sharp, painful examination of an everyman’s existence. Which is why it is the perfect example of great writing that adheres to none of the typical rules of great writing. There is very little action or external progression, our protagonist learns nothing, the struggle is not resolved... and yet it is a masterpiece.”

    X’s hand seemed to raise of its own accord, the thoughts in his head still half-formed.

  “Yes, X?” asked the professor, his kind, bespectacled eyes now focused on him.

  “Well, I don’t know if this is an answerable question, so much as just an impression,” said X. “But isn’t it a shame if a book introduces a stagnant, suffering character, and ends with him in the same place he started? What would be the point of reading it?”

  The professor tittered, seemingly delighted. “What a wonderfully framed question! But of course you are right, it is not a question that I can answer with any definity- although it could be argued that those are the best sorts of questions- but that is, unfortunately, fare for a Philosophy class, not Creative Writing. Where was I? Oh yes, I was digressing. My apologies. What I was going to say is I can only offer you my perspective: which is that the point of a book like Something Happened is in the experience itself. You learn from the protagonist- you suffer with him, feel his woes, chomp at your fingernails, pull for him all the while, and feel your heart break with his when he still can’t climb out of the predicament he’s in. And you hope that in that place that exists after a writer’s words are at an end, the character eventually figures it out. And if he doesn’t- oh well, it was a lovely ride anyway.

  “And now, moving on…”

  But X did not move on. He sat in his desk and pondered the professor’s words, unable to decide whether or not he agreed with them. Something about stories with unhappy endings had never sat well with him, but he didn’t know why. Even when such endings were beautiful, they seemed unfinished to him in the sense that they did not hint at some kind of lasting peace. He brooded over this some more, coming no closer to arriving at a conclusion, until his brooding eventually led him back to the memory of sitting alone in his car on Easter, coping with a hurt that was, at the time, fresh and unfamiliar.

    He’d started running a few weeks after that, pushing himself so hard in the beginning that he sometimes threw up after getting off the treadmill. But he couldn’t let up. He imagined that every step led him further away from his ex, and his failures, and all the people he had known whom he’d disappointed in one way or another.

    He kept track of the miles as he ran, watched them build with time, from the single digits, to fifty, to a hundred, until, eventually, he lost track of them. Now he no longer knew how far he’d gone. But for the last few weeks, when he ran, he thought not of his ex, of his failures, or running away, but of Y. Nothing in particular- no elaborate fantasies, no detailed, well-drawn hopes- just the half-remembered image of her face, or the ghost of her perfume, or the small smile she’d given him one day in passing, when they’d recognized each other walking between buildings. Her essence- and a rotating circuit of playlists- was enough to keep him moving.

    The one thing that X disliked the most about being alone, though, was that he often felt compelled to make romantic playlists, but had no practical reason for doing so. Only he would be listening to them, were he to go through the trouble of compiling songs. It wouldn’t be the same, to make one just for himself. But sometimes, when he sat in class, sneaking quick looks at Y, he would think of a few songs, and tuck them away in his mind, imagining that someday they might listen to them together. He wondered what she would think about them, were he to show her. Would she appreciate them? Would she hear the story that they told, when carefully placed together, one after the other? He had made these kinds of playlists before- had made one for his ex. They had never listened to it together. He remembered her saying she liked it when he asked, a few days after giving it to her, but she never went into detail. If she’d gleaned any meaning from the songs he’d picked- if they told her anything- she’d kept it to herself.

    The racket of shifting desks derailed the train running through X’s mind. He looked up, saw that the others were forming a circle. The workshop portion of the class had begun, it seemed. He moved his desk, wedging it between a slightly overweight girl who always wore black and usually wrote about vampires, and the quiet young man who sat in front of him, who said very little, and seemed, somehow, to hardly be there at all. He often wondered what this other was thinking about- he saw no depth in the boy’s eyes, and his stories and projects were terse, barren things, offering little if any personal essence. Could it be possible that the boy was so thinly drawn in reality, or was, hidden behind that plain, unreadable face, a world as rich, strange, dark, and troubling as X’s own?

  “Last Thursday, I asked you all to write a parable, from the perspective of an animal, or something- anything- that isn’t necessarily human,” said the professor. “Does anyone recall the literary term for this process?”

  “Personification?” the vampire girl asked, more than answered.

  “Correct,” the professor replied, leaning against his podium. “Anthropomorphism also applies. It is an ancient technique, particularly advantageous in the sense that it allows more room for symbolism. Parables in general are an excellent literary medium for symbolism- often that is all parables are: an elaborate metaphor for a phenomenon of the human condition. What I’m hoping to see today are animals or objects carefully selected, picked to embody different types of people, or emotional states, or stations in life. When you listen, think about what these things have represented in myth and legend, how they are typically perceived by society at large. And pay attention, not to what they physically do, but to what their actions might represent. That is the nature and purpose of the parable.”

  “Professor, don’t you think we’re a little old to be reading fairy tales to each other?” asked a boy in an Adidas windbreaker.

  “Only if you’re too old to learn how to invent an extended metaphor for something you’ve experienced that meant something to you.” The professor smiled. “Symbolism permeates all literature, and is often incredibly subtle. ‘Fairy tales’ are one of the more simplistic forms of this technique. But you have to start somewhere, right? Right! So, what brave soul cares to bear their breast before their peers first? Hm?”

    X tuned in and out as the others read, marvelling at how few of them seemed to genuinely understand the purpose of the assignment. Their stories were cutesy, or unnecessarily violent, or designed to garner laughs, but none hinted at any kind of underlying moral framework, none revealed what sort of person the writer might have been, what they might have been thinking or feeling as they set pen to paper. Their stories only made X feel more alone, less connected than ever to the people around him.

  His ex-girlfriend had told him that he was too serious, though. That it was exhausting listening to him, sometimes. Maybe he was the one who was in the wrong- maybe he had been his whole life. He never knew whether or not to trust his own judgment.

  He noticed that his arms were stiff, hands shoved deep into his pockets, and had to make a conscious effort to relax his body, and settle into a comfortable position.

  Y’s voice brought him back to the classroom. He looked up- she was sitting across from him in the circle. Her legs were crossed, and she was visibly nervous with all eyes on her, but X could not look away.

  Y’s story was about a duckling who was separated from her parents and nestmates at a young age, and, as a result, grew up apart from other ducks. She spent all of her time swimming in the water, watching the fish. She thought she ought to be one of them, as she hadn’t ever met any ducks, not since she was too little to remember. So she tried to go underwater, to join the fish in their lively interactions, but could only ever maintain this for a few seconds at a time, before inevitably floating back to the surface. Her life continued on this way for years, until finally she encountered another duck, who, seeing her futile efforts, explained that she was not a fish, and could never live her life underwater with them. But if she wanted to, she could fly.

  All the while, as she read, the professor was beaming. X, too, hid a small smile. When she was finished, Y looked at her hands, nodding at the comments and criticisms she received, smiling at the professor’s praise. X, however, was too frightened to say anything, even though her story had been lovely, and full of hope. He just couldn’t find any words to offer her.

  Then it was his turn to read.

  His story was about a hamster in a pet store. The hamster was somewhat smug, as he had free run of the store, albeit, by means of a hamster ball which he was always inside of, except in the mornings and evenings, when he was returned for a brief time to his cage. Most of the other animals were kept in cages all day long, and could not really go anywhere. The hamster didn’t envy them. However, though he was proud of his mobility, he was also all too aware of the ball that always encased him, that prevented him from ever truly coming into contact with anything or anyone. At least some of the other animals were housed with others of their kind- him, he was always alone in that ball. Wherever he went, he was inside of it, even when the day came that he managed to escape the pet store, seizing his opportunity in the form of a forgotten, slightly-ajar front door. He made his way out into the street, past cars and passersby, running and running inside his ball, until he finally stopped for breath at the edge of a beautiful forest. It was unlike anything he had ever seen before. It made his eyes tear up just to look at it. Tentatively, he took his first steps into this incredible place, among the boughs of proud trees- unfathomably large- and whispering streams, and vibrant wildflowers. But when the hamster stopped to sniff his first flower, he realized that he could not smell it. He was still inside his ball.



  “I really liked your story,” a voice called.

  X turned, caught off-guard, and saw Y standing a few feet away, leaning against her car.

  “Y-yeah?” he asked, nervous.

  “Yeah,” said Y. “I mean, it was kind of sad. I thought it was sort of funny, or ironic, I guess, how you told the professor you didn’t really like stories where the protagonist stays the same, then wrote one where that is exactly what happens.”

  X shrugged, lighting a cigarette so he had something to do with his hands.

  “I couldn’t think of any other way to end it.”

  “Well, I guess I’ll just have to hope he eventually finds some way to get out of that ball.”

  “What if I told you he never does?”

  “Oh, I don’t think I’d believe that. It would be a real bummer.” She stood, facing him, swaying faintly from side to side. “So I’ve been hoping you’d ask me to get a coffee with you. I see the way you look at me in class, sometimes.”

  “Jeez, I didn’t know I was so obvious.”

  Y laughed. “You’re not, it’s just that I look at you sometimes, too. So what do you say- coffee? You and me?”

 

  Driving home, he replayed their conversation over and over again in his head. Just the thought of her made him feel nervous. Of course, he had to get coffee with her. It would be crazy if he didn’t.

  When he pulled up in front of his house, he was convinced that he’d done a fine job parking. But when he got out of the car, he saw that he was still a foot away from the curb.