I held my hand strategically across my face in a sprawled starfish formation.  I wedged my shoulder on the flat spot against the wall.  My knees tangled together in a braid.  Moving his full lips with the words as he read them, my thoughts distilled into droplets of anxiety.  I crumpled my eyes shut.  I never heard my ink take a voice form.  Certainly, never that of a man’s voice.  He paused a few times to reappraise my grammatical missteps and spelling errors.  I was in the possession of the knowledge that my left foot was completely in a state of sleep.  Yet, all the coaxing wouldn’t straighten it.  I munched on my bottom lip in a slow grinded. 

            By the second page I had opened one eye and let it periscope about the room.  Night had snuffed out all the natural light.  The lamp cast out a net which caught his face in pleasant hues.  His voice was producing my words with gossamer currents; it curled into the air and twined into a fluid crown before dissipating.  The room ebbed and flowed with his tempo.   I let my second eye open and wiggled my toes.  His chestnut and Mahoney paneled eyes lifted off the page for the first time, and he presented me with a full smile. This was surely the sign of good intentions, I usually received only half.

            At that moment it honestly didn’t matter if became a “writer”.  His face had lent me all the success I ever wanted.  As he spoke he held on to my worn green notebook.  Success is so objective.  The measuring stick constantly changing, happiness in the form of cars, money, degrees, homes, public acknowledgements unicorns of our time.  Someone who my heart respected had read my words and found something with in them to produce joy.  Where ever the currents of life take me, I will sail there on the ship called memory, shaped in the crescent of his smile. 

(With this story I close the chapter.  I have taken all a can from this subject, onwards!)

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