Why did he almost put on the sweater? Lenny was not sure. He realized that it was not a conscious action. He had not thought about what he was going to wear, but instead reached for the sweater almost unconsciously. He held the sweater in front of him and studied it. The texture and material reminded Lenny of the pink pajamas that children wear, soft, fuzzy, and bright. The sweater was still ugly, now rumpled from being thrown on the floor, but it did look comfortable to wear. The color was brighter, almost fluorescent in the morning sun, which threw rays across the floor and up the wall, creating an elongated projection of the window. The dust motes floated upward in the sunlight and Lenny watched a particularly large one as it drifted up, staying within the light beams, until it disappeared.

What was he doing? He should be heading to the coffee shop. He scolded himself quietly for staring into space and reached up with the sweater to slip it over his head. He caught himself again and threw the sweater onto the ground. Today was not a sweater day. He went into the closet and pulled on a shirt and shorts. There, that was better. He decided that when he returned home, he would put the sweater in the bag with the rest of the clothing he never planned to wear again. That would be the end of that. Lenny walked to his bedroom door and stopped at the door. He turned around and looked at the small pink pile on the floor. He wanted to wear the sweater. Lenny had never wanted to wear anything in his life. Many times, he had been forced to wear clothing—tuxedos for weddings, suits for client meetings—but he had never had a desire to wear a piece of clothing. He usually put on whatever was clean, and rarely worried about matching unless he was meeting Samantha, or one of his more critical ex-girlfriends. What was it with the sweater his aunt gave him?

Lenny did not know where his desire came from. He thought that maybe he wanted to wear it because it was a gift from his aunt. But he dismissed that thought quickly. She had given him many gifts, and while he used and enjoyed many of them, there were others that he pretended to like, only to discard them when he returned home. He could not understand the hold that the sweater had over him. It was a comfortable sweater, but ugly as well. It was too ugly and hot to wear outside.

Yesterday had been a strange day. He remembered at least that much. Part of the day was fuzzy, as he had told Samantha. He remembered bits and pieces of the day, almost as if he had dreamed it and upon waking, the dreams fragmented and he could only recall bits and pieces. He remembered visiting Aunt Elaine and her gift of the sweater. He vaguely remembered dinner with Samantha and Stacy. He couldn’t remember what they talked about, which did not seem particularly strange to Lenny. Normally, he barely listened when Stacy spoke. He remembered some discussions about Andy, but nothing that stuck in his mind. He remembered Stacy’s description of the phone sex extortion from breakfast, but he wasn’t sure if they had discussed it during dinner the previous night. Lenny shook his head to clear it.

Lenny’s head began to hurt and he felt hungry. Caffeine, he thought. That was what he was missing. When the liquid gold raced through his veins, he would feel more normal and get a better sense of what was going on. He turned his back on the sweater and went to grab his bicycle.

Lenny carried his bicycle helmet into the coffee shop. The Pacific Coast Highway had been crowded with bicyclists and he had made good progress drafting behind a few groups. Bicyclists had overrun the coffee shop when he arrived. A bicycling club had chosen this shop as a rest stop for their trip. Most weekends one club or another would do so. While the Pacific Coast Highway was a long road, the bicycle clubs frequented only a few stretches. A requirement for their decision was the availability of a coffee shop or breakfast place. The stretch of highway that Lenny frequented had both.

Lenny waited in line behind the bicyclists who clunked around the shop on their cleat-shod bicycle shoes. They did not give Lenny a second glance, but he felt out of place amongst them. He was wearing a normal shirt and shorts, and sneakers instead of the specially-made bicycle shoe. Almost all of the bicyclists wore tight, bicycling shorts, and competition shirts, some of which were for marathons and others were replicas of professional rider’s shirts, complete with the advertisements. For Lenny, the ride to the coffee shop was a mere thirty minutes. Since it was already well past eleven, most of these riders had probably been riding for three or four hours before coming here to stop.

All of the outside tables and chairs were taken by lounging riders. The inside tables had a mixture of students typing away on laptops, and bikers, stretching and chatting in groups of twos and threes. Lenny brought his coffee and muffin to a table in the corner and sat down to commence his favorite activity. He sipped the tall coffee and watched the people at the other tables, trying to figure out their relations and silently making up stories about their lives. He could usually spend an hour imagining and sketching the various people that came and went from the shop. This was his creative exercise. He would create many mental images of the people and their thoughts, and project those images onto his computer canvas at home. But as hard as he concentrated, he could not focus on thinking through his images. His head hurt and the coffee was not quieting the jitters in his mind. He debated whether he was coming down with something, but he did not feel cold, a usual symptom when he felt sickness creeping up on him.

A tall man entered the coffee shop. He carried a briefcase and wore thick, black sunglasses. He clearly was not a biker and not a regular. Lenny took an interest in him immediately. He began sketching in his head the broad strokes of his face and thick body. The brown, Italian leather briefcase and tailored suit made him an oddity in this part of the city, particularly on a Sunday. He walked past the coffee shop counter and began searching the tables. He walked toward Lenny’s table, his leather, fancy shoes making a loud racket, louder even than the cleats that the bikers wore.

The man approached Lenny’s table and stopped when he stood in front of Lenny.

“Lenny Sooner, I presume,” the man said.

“You presume a bit much. Who are you?” Lenny said. He did not like the look of this man. Lenny, while intimidated, felt bold because of the many bikers and people in the surrounding table. While he did not feel part of the biking clan, he knew that he was closer related to the coffee drinkers than the business-suit clad man.

“I am sorry I missed you in your apartment, but Samantha—is that your wife? Samantha told me I would find you here,” the man said.

Lenny knew that Samantha had left the apartment thirty minutes before he did. He doubted she had returned. “Where did you talk to Samantha?” Lenny said.

The man’s face was stony. It was difficult to see where he was looking because of his thick, black glasses. “I spoke with her at your apartment. I have some bad news about Elaine Sooner. She is your aunt?”

Lenny stood up and felt blood pumping into his stomach. “Is something the matter with Aunt Elaine?”

The man did not say anything for a few minutes.

“Aunt Elaine,” Lenny said. “What bad news do you have?”

The man was still silent. Lenny was about to reach out and strangle the man.

“You visited her yesterday, Mr. Sooner?” the man said.

“Yes,” Lenny said.

“Would it surprise you to know that your aunt had eleven other nieces, nephews, and cousins visit her yesterday?” the main said.

“Yes, that would surprise me. But she’s a popular lady. What is the matter with my aunt?” Lenny did not know why his siblings and cousins would visit his aunt. When he spoke to his sister on Tuesday, she did not mention a visit. But what was stranger was this man asking these questions and knowing that his relatives had visited his aunt.

“Is my aunt in trouble,” Lenny said. He could not imagine what his aunt could do to get in trouble, but his mind was running out of alternatives.

“Did she give you anything yesterday, did she say anything to you yesterday?” the man said.

“What? What is the bad news you were going to tell me,” Lenny said.

“I asked, did she give you anything yesterday, or say anything to you yesterday?” the man repeated.

“Who are you? What is this all about? I’m not going to answer any of your questions until you give me some information,” Lenny said.

“Your aunt is dead,” the man said. “She was found dead in her house at five o’clock this morning. Her neighbors gave me a list of all of her visitors.”

“Are you a cop?” Lenny said.

“What time did you leave her house yesterday,” the man said.

“Let me see your badge, sir. I will not answer any more questions until I do,” Lenny said. He was angry. He knew his aunt did not look good yesterday, but he did not think she was at death’s door. “Wait. Are you saying that someone killed my aunt?”

“I will ask you one more time, Mr. Sooner. Did your aunt give you anything yesterday?” the man said.

Lenny was confused. The man was not making sense. First he told Lenny that his aunt was dead. Then he started asking nonsensical questions. He obviously was not a policeman, or he would have shown his badge. Lenny took out his cell phone. “I am going to call the police now,” Lenny said.

The man’s head went up and down, as if he was examining Lenny and then he turned around and left the coffee shop. Lenny watched him leave, fascinated by his slow walk and his uncaring attitude. He would never have the guts to walk up to a complete stranger and say what this man said. Instead of dialing the police, he called his aunt.

“Hello,” his aunt answered.

“Aunt Elaine?” Lenny said.

“Yes?” his aunt said.

“I just spoke with the strangest guy. He said that you were hurt.” Lenny said.

“No, dear, I am fine. How are you doing? Have you used what I gave you yet?” his aunt said.

“Used? What are you talking about? I am doing fine. I am more worried about you. This man was strange, very strange. He said something about Samantha. I will call you back, Aunt Elaine. I have to find Samantha. He mentioned that he had spoken to her.” Lenny said. He hung up the phone before his aunt could answer and dialed Samantha’s telephone number.

“Hello,” Samantha said.

“Samantha, it’s me. Did you speak to anyone at the apartment today, like a tall man with dark sunglasses?” Lenny said.

“What are you talking about?” Samantha said.

“I just had a strange conversation with a man who walked up to my table at the coffee shop. He knew who I was, knew who you were, and knew Aunt Elaine,” Lenny said.

“Is everything okay?” Samantha said.

“I think so. It was just strange. Call me before you come home. I want to meet you at the apartment,” Lenny said.

“Do you want me to come home now,” Samantha said.

“No. Finish your lunch with Stacy. Just make sure you call me before you get home,” Lenny said.

Word count: 2,021

Caffeination: Tall Mocha

Writing time: approximately 1.5 hours

Feeling: Horrible. I was really looking forward to seeing what was going to happen today, but the writing was forced today. I shouldn’t have stopped yesterday. I’m not happy with where the story went or how it was told. I did fancy editing to get my word count over 2k today. I hope tomorrow is better.

I feel like a hack today. My writing was terrible and if I didn’t force myself to get the 2k words, I would have given up much earlier. I had to write something good today, something poetic and well-written and descriptive and short. I know it’s against my rules, but fuck it. Fuck the rules. I made my 2k, this is for me. I have something to prove and no way to prove it.

The distraction found Lenny before he was aware that it hunted him. The sunlight cascaded across the carpeted floor and climbed the coffee-colored wall. Dust motes hovered lazily across the light, flickering in and out of existence at the light’s boundaries. And then the motes took him. They sucked him into their swirl and dragged him through the light. The clouds, racing across a dying sky, covered the sun and killed the motes. The motes died. Lenny too was lost.

A green tango raised the lonesome seat from its far night’s throne;

Who was this king who claimed dominion over the stars and moon?

The moon laughed at his demands and the stars tittered to themselves;

“I will know you,” the king screamed from his paramount balcony.

Blackened staples held the congealing blood streaming from the wound, leaking like water down a shower’s door.

The air buffeted the man, grasping him in its tendrils.

“Let me fall,” the man yelled. “We will not,” the air howled.

The ground turned its back on the man, telling him,

“I will not help you in your fall. Find another,”

The birds fought the wind and laughed at the receding earth.

“We will help,” the birds chirped. “Grab our wings.”

The man cried, “but this is what I want,”

and twisted under the parachute’s ropes, and tucked under its sheets.

“I will fall,” the man cried.

And the earth, ignoring the wind’s howls, the ground’s indifference,

and the birds’ songs, listened to and embraced the man.

Shut them up. Shut up the yelling through the speakers. My head, my heart, my hands, they all cringe in pain from the isolation, the pain, the reach. My concentration does not split, I find myself searching for calmness, a center that will take me from where I am.

Why does it tease me so? Why must I feel this way? I want to be a genius. I want to be special. I want so many things. I know, can see and touch and feel but cannot accept my limitations. It’s a wall. I see it, a rubber wall that I push against and it pushes back, laughing at my impudence. Why can’t I pierce it? Why can’t I push through it to the other side, where I can set aside my pain and find…what? Why do you think that side is better than this one? Why is it that the brown corduroy sensation not…now what? I reach for words and yet they don’t hold out their hands for me. I reach and the rubber wall, that stretchy, black rubber wall, prevents me from touching that which I most want to touch. Genius. Artistic genius. That is what I crave, what I hunger for. The calculating goodness. The vision to see everything, to know enough to say something. And yet I say nothing. I say nothing with words that are similar, that are repetitive, because I cannot come up with new ones. I thumb the thesaurus and find words that replace what I seek, but those words are empty. They barely hide what I miss. Why do I miss it? Why do I do this that I do? Do I even know? Does cleverness explode on the page or find that which I seek? Others found it. I can see it in them. I can appreciate it and wish it was mine, like a jealous husband raging over a late night phone call not from him. Pink sweaters clog my veins. I cut them open and watch the trickle. There is no heartbeat, no pumping action. Just a trickle of words, the same words, repeated endlessly.

I rant and rant and complain and bitch. I doubt. But I persevere and hope for better days and better words.