This is for my Comp Class. Its a memoir, as I said above, and I would really appreciate critique on it. We were supposed to right a changing point in our lives and mine was when this happened to me. Sooo, help is appreciated. Thanks =]
The board walk was filled with people. Some carried bags filled with groceries they’d bought from Pike’s Place Market. Others held small knick knacks that they’d found in a tourist trap.
The smell of fresh fish and salt water wafted up to us in a gentle mist. Voices met our ears in a gentle hum making the air feel thick and static filled around us.
And in the midst of it all there stood a man. He blended into the low concrete wall that crouched before him. A dog with long ratty ears sat loyally by his side.
While the rest of my group continued walking, I stood still. He couldn’t see me staring at him from where I hid behind the crowd. I imagined a subway passing in between us, blocking him from view for quick bursts of time only to reveal him again instances later. It was like flipping through a pamphlet of photos, like watching still life photographs bleed together.
This hadn’t been our first stop. The ride in had been miserable. We’d sat in the terminal for hours waiting for the attendants to call our flight to the gates. Dozens of feet shuffled down the tunnel that so much reminded me of a slaughter house cattle ramp back home. The wheels hadn’t even begun to turn and I already felt sick.
The fresh Seattle air greeted me cooly as I exited the airport with my best friend, her brother and his obnoxiously loud friend, and her parents.
We drove from location to location visiting different relatives and getting stuck in numerous tourist traps that could have easily drained us of all of our money if we had the time to let it.
We reached the Oregon coast after several hours of driving. Sand, though the air was cold, was warm as my ankles were surrounded by the millions of tiny grains.
Cool sea air licked at my nose, beckoning me to the water.
Beth danced her way to the waters’ edge, dipped her finger in the water, stuck it in her mouth. I grimaced in response even as I followed her instruction to do the same.
I winced, opening my mouth and laughing at how bitter something so beautiful could feel on my tongue.
And then there were the mountains. We crawled slowly around the bends and turns. Our ears popped and my heart raced. I drummed my fingers on my jeans, trying to ignore that fact that we were now up high enough that most vegetation ceased to grow. Only the Indian Paintbrush remained.
The tiny red and orange flowers perched quietly in their haven of grass. Signs littered the area, each of them reminding visitors of the hundreds of dollars that could quite easily leave their pockets if they so much as stepped on the grass.
My blood was warm. My head spun as I tried to ground myself. Beth twirled happily beside me, kicking up wisps of dust that curled around her feet. Pebbles tumbled to their doom down the side of the cliff. I stepped backward, leaving the cliffs’ edge to threaten someone else.
But still there was the Paintbrush, so beautiful in its rarity. It seemed like the only thing up on the mountain that was safe to look at, where as everything else felt like it might crumble under my gaze.
And lastly the boardwalk. The man still stood there, lounging lazily against the concrete wall, his dog with the ratty ears at his side, and his cardboard sign perched next to his tattered bag. I didn’t know what to think. I only knew that life had changed, because finally I had seen something that wasn’t so beautiful here in this beautiful place. I’d finally seen the truth. The sign was written in black marker, its jagged letters reading Why lie? I need beer.
I left the man there with his cardboard sign and his beat up shoes. I’d make my own truth somewhere else.
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