Pebbles

Here is a short story from my book Like Ripples in Water (you can purchase the book, if you'd like, here: https://www.amazon.com/Like-Ripples-Water-Collection-Parts/dp/1979629595/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=garrett+willis+like+ripples&qid=1570411434&sr=8-2)

Pebbles

“Some people, in terms of love, are colorblind” was Henry’s favorite line that he had ever written, and it came from his first bestseller Colorblind. The title of his book clearly came from this line, and it took him all of ten minutes to write out the page-long argument that his protagonist makes regarding this statement of people being colorblind. And it took him all of two months to write Colorblind. He never intended for it to sell very well, or well at all, but it turned out that lonely, middle-aged women agreed with Henry (or rather his fictional characters). So that was how he found his audience.

Henry, aware of his audience and what they wanted, was now on the research side for his next novel. He decided that he deserved a little bit of relaxation, so he made his next novel to be set in Paris. Now he would have to go spend some time in and around the Eiffel Tower, gaining knowledge of the city for his novel as well as eating baguettes and drinking coffee. Henry had a fair amount of money from his three published novels and his one published anthology of short stories, so, financially speaking, Henry had no problem staying in Paris for three or four weeks.

The one problem that he did have in leaving was finding someone to watch his six-year-old Shiba Inu. His mother had said no; his sister made up some lame excuse about being in love with a cat owner; and his now-ex girlfriend went back on her agreement after they, well, broke up. As a last resort, he asked his elderly neighbor. His neighbor, a huge fan of his, said she would be honored to watch his dog, and then asked for his autograph.

Being a thirty-seven-year-old bachelor made Henry feel awkward around his neighbors. He still lived in a townhouse apartment, but the tenants around him all seemed to either be married, in a relationship, or widowed. Everyone in his complex thought of him as “Henry the author.” This bugged him, so he decided to label some of the neighbors similarly: George the creep, Betsy the nurse, Ryan the bald, and so on. He disliked the fact that one aspect of his life was his defining characteristic to others, so he did the same to them; he boiled their existences down to one word. This simplification dehydrated one’s humanity, Henry thought. He was more than an author. He was a brother; he was an amateur tennis player; he was a man living with an unfulfilled heart; he was a night owl. 

Life slowed down at night, and things seemed to happen more slowly. Henry welcomed the moon and the stars just as blank pages welcomed his words. It was all so beautiful to him—the way the moon shone lightly on the trees and the roads, but still allowing for darkness in every crevice. He took these elongated nights to build worlds and create lives. But he never felt God to be completely satisfied with his creations, and this may have played a part in his heart being unfulfilled. 

“Thank you again for watching Juhi, Martha,” Henry said.

“It’s no trouble at all,” Martha replied.

Henry began walking toward the sidewalk. The taxi he called for an hour earlier had arrived, and he didn’t want to be late to the airport. He heard his dog bark, so Henry turned around.

“Bye, baby!” he shouted. “Oh, Martha,” he remembered, “can you please watch my car as well?”

“Sure thing, Henry.”

“Thank you.” Henry met the taxi driver by the trunk of the car and the two of them loaded his luggage. He got into the backseat and waved to Martha and his dog as he drove off. He put his arm back into the taxi as it rounded the corner. He sighed.

“Where are you going?” the driver asked, effectively overpowering the sound of the wind coming in from the window.

“Paris,” Henry said, rolling up the window.

“Oh, I love Texas.”

“No, no, France,” Henry said, laughing.

“Oh! Excellent. I’ve always wanted to go.”

“I’ll send you a postcard,” Henry laughed.

The rest of the ride to the airport was like most taxi rides: uneventful. Los Angeles traffic was Los Angeles traffic: eventful. The taxi driver informed Henry about the back-up on the freeway, and about their estimated time of arrival. Henry sighed and returned his vision to outside his window, where he could clearly see the traffic. The sun’s reflection off the car next to him caused his mind to spiral into a weird thought of kids being reflections of their parents. Their parents instill in their children their own morals, ideas, and beliefs, and they also pass on their genetics. So, Henry thought, do parents really instill all these notions into their children, or do they install them, as if their genetics are just strings of code, and the parents are adding to that code?

Henry, within the cave that he resides in, which is in the side of the mountain made out of his nights alone, has thought long and hard about the possibility of life—all of life—merely being a computer simulation. He read about it online one night, and has thought about it a hundred nights since. Déjà vu? Simply glitches in the simulation. Shallow people lacking personalities? Characters created rather quickly—unnecessary additions to the simulation. Henry could probably talk about this “possibility” for a good amount of time, but no one would want to listen to such nonsense, so he has never brought it up in any conversation. So these thoughts remained in Henry’s head, uncriticized by his ex, the taxi driver, and everyone else, whether long-term or momentarily, in his life.

A honk close to the taxi snapped Henry out of his thoughts. He cleared his throat and reached into his bag. After fishing for a moment he produced a glasses case. He opened the case; took out a pair of glasses; and introduced them to his face. He reached into his bag and took out his trusty, and worn-out, journal. He cracked ol’ faithful open and reviewed some of his newest entries. These entries revolved around the plot and character developments for his latest novel.

“‘Setting: Paris, France,’” Henry whispered.   

The taxi driver heard Henry say something, so he looked in his rear view mirror and saw Henry reading to himself.

“‘Time Period: Present-day.’ Whatever the hell that means. ‘Characters: Three male, three female.’ Okay, yeah, I still want that.”

Henry took his pencil from the crease of his journal and underlined the character count. “‘Character names: Undecided.’” Henry thought for a moment. “I still don’t know if I want the characters to be strictly American, strictly French, or a blend of the two. The names rely on this decision.”

“Is everything okay, sir? You seem a bit irritated,” the taxi driver said. This broke Henry’s concentration.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. Just thinking,” Henry replied. He looked back at his journal. “I’ll figure it out once I’m there.” Henry sighed. Henry sighed a sigh fitting for someone of Odysseus’ stature. Thirty-seven looked good on Henry, but living a life where love had consistently alluded him had caused him to think about how it will all eventually weigh down his scale. Henry, in that moment in the taxi, for no identifiable reason, felt his side of the scale sink a minuscule amount. He sighed again, but this time there was an earthquake in his chest, and the vibrations found their way out through his breath. The world is heavy sometimes, Henry thought. He was well aware that many knew this better than he. Atlas came to mind. Henry sighed again.

“Sir, the traffic is clearing up. It shouldn’t be too much longer until we get to the airport.”

Henry closed his journal and thanked the driver. Henry closed his eyes and tried to think about all the good in his life: his publications, the lives he has touched, and his dog. He smiled gently to himself in the backseat of a white taxi that was stuck in traffic. Henry thought about his ability to jump on a plane and spend some time in Paris for “research” for a new novel that he knew would sell quite well, and he thought about the countless nights that he has driven to the nearby mountains to spend time on the hood of his car and gaze up at the stars. He has become friends with many lights in the Milky Way.

But Henry is a romantic. And romantics, for whatever illogical and evolutionarily disadvantageous reason, pine for human connection. Dogs always do their best for people, and Juhi is living proof of this, but for humans there has to be more.

Henry sought more. He sought more in high school, in college, and even in most buildings in Chicago during his short stay there about ten years ago. There were times where Henry was content with his life (usually after receiving a check with a nice sum of money or reading a nice review of his works), but there were other times where Henry craved love and communication (usually after listening to Mumford and Sons or talking to the stars for hours with no reply). His most recent break-up has not helped remedy the metaphorical palpitations of his heart.

But even in seeking more, it is important to be grateful and appreciative for what is already in one’s possession, and this is something that Henry struggled with. Henry was always looking for more, and never at what he already had. Or, rather, he was always looking at the one thing he knew he could not have.

“Pebble.” Henry let this word quietly slip out from the confines of his thoughts. He looked up from his lap and out the window to his right. He was in front of the airport entrance.

“Sir,” the taxi driver began. “We are here. I will grab your luggage for you.”

“Thank you,” Henry replied, still staring out the window. Henry shifted his thoughts to the notion of being stuck on an airplane for nearly eleven hours. Henry sighed once again, as discontent people tend to do, and began putting his journal and other small belongings into his bag. He opened the door of the taxi and got out just as the driver pulled out his last piece of luggage.

“Here you go, sir. Even with the traffic we made it in fair time. I hope you have a safe trip,” the taxi driver said.

Henry pulled out his wallet. “Thank you for the ride,” Henry said, and handed him a fifty dollar bill on top of his cab fee.

“Sir, you handed me too much.”

“No I didn’t.” Henry smiled.

***

After getting through the security line that followed like a tedious argument, Henry found himself in his terminal lobby. As expected, he was over an hour early for boarding, so this gave him ample time to sit down and begin brainstorming some plot lines for his novel. However, now standing in the lobby and looking around, he realized he could pass several hours on the plane doing this instead.

A few seats by some giant windows were vacant, so Henry chose the one closest to the window. He pulled out his phone to see if he needed to plug it in to charge; it was at ninety-five percent, as he had hardly touched it. He had no notifications. One word his neighbors would never associate Henry with would be “popular.” Henry seldom had friends over, and he rarely left for more than an hour or two (depending on traffic) at a time, indicating to his neighbors that he was not out seeing people, but rather shopping or getting some coffee. Some of his neighbors believed fame had gotten to him, as they could sometimes see the stacks of mail he carried into his apartment from time to time. The truth of the matter was that Henry preferred to keep to himself. He kept in contact with a few friends from college, and one or two from high school, but other than them, he mainly kept in contact with himself. 

The only reason he began dating his now ex was because she had recognized him at some coffee shop in a small town he went to in order to get out of the city for a bit and find some new inspiration. She impressed him with her nervous ramblings of various themes that she had found in Colorblind. His stomach now sank each time he thought about how nervous and excited she was when she first met him compared to her cold and distant demeanor when breaking up with him. The feelings seemed like a dichotomy, yet they arose from the same human.

Henry looked away from the window that was to his left and looked to the openness of the terminal lobby. He saw an older man walking toward him.

“Mind if I sit with you?” The stocky senior asked. He had a British accent and a gray mustache. 

Henry looked around to the many open seats both near him and in the other parts of the lobby. “There are plenty of seats, but sure,” Henry said.

“I know. But I’d like to sit next to someone.”

“Are you going to Paris too?” Henry asked as the old man sat down.

“Yes.”

“Then you’ll be sitting next to someone for hours.”

“And I look forward to that too.” The old man smiled.

Henry was slightly taken aback. “Good for you. Well, I’m Henry.”

“I’m Augustine,” the old man said, and brought his right hand over his body for Henry to shake.

Henry shook his hand and then looked down at his own lap for a few moments.

“Why are you going to Paris?” Augustine asked, causing Henry to look at the old man. Augustine was wearing a light blue button up with thin white stripes. His pants were a medium brown, and were accentuated by his brown suspenders. Yeah, he’s old, Henry thought.

“I’m going to do some research for a book I’m writing. It’s going to be based in Paris, and I’d much rather be familiar with the city.”

“You’re a writer, eh? Are you published?”

“Yes. I’ve published a few books and a collection of short stories. I don’t know if I’m that popular in England, though.”

“Oh, I’ve lived all over,” Augustine said. “I’ve lived in the US for the past three years. Before that, I lived in Denmark for a couple years; Egypt before that, and so on. I haven’t lived in the UK for a long time, although I do go visit, of course.”

“How do you afford to travel and live in other places?” Henry felt a little intrusive after asking the question.

Augustine chuckled. “I’m a retired man who made good decisions in this life.”

This resonated with Henry. “I see.”

“What about you? Are you paying for Paris with your book funds?”

Henry smiled and lightly laughed. “Yeah, bound papers with words on them are surprisingly valuable.”

“It’s the words that are valuable, Henry. Your words.”

This surprised Henry. “Thank you” is all Henry managed to say.

“Don’t thank me. Thank your parents or God or whomever you think shaped you into the writer you are,” Augustine said while brushing his mustache with his thumb and index finger.

“What’s taking you to Paris?” Henry asked, almost forgetting that Augustine was going the same way.

“I’m thinking about spending a month or two or three there, and then head back to Brentwood, my hometown, and see some family for a bit. So, just pleasure, as that will be my reason for everything I do in the coming years.”

“That sounds nice,” Henry said, partially to himself.

“It is. As was spending time in other places. Actually, living in Egypt is why I now sit next to people like you in public.”

“How’s that?” Henry asked.

Augustine thought for a moment. “Let me ask you: if you got on a bus, and there was one person sitting in the front, and one sitting in the back, where would you sit, Henry?” Augustine skimped on pronouncing the H in Henry’s name each time he said it.

“I’d probably sit in the middle of the bus,” Henry replied.

“As would most Americans. And most Brits. But in Egypt, they believe that no one should have to be alone. So if you were in Egypt, and that were you sitting in the front or the back, and someone walked on the bus, that person would sit next to you. That way you wouldn’t be alone. I found myself in the company of many wonderful people during my time there, whether it was on a bus or in a bar.”

“So why did you sit by me?”

“You looked lonely, and I felt lonely,” Augustine smiled. “So I thought I could fix both our problems.”

Augustine’s reply struck two chords with Henry: one of annoyance, but another of understanding. Perhaps he was annoyed at the fact that Augustine, and probably other people as well, could tell he was lonely just by looking at him. But Henry understood. Augustine understood, too; that’s why he sat next to Henry.

“Are you married?” Henry asked after a minute of silence.

“I made many good decisions in my life, but I also made bad ones. I have loved, and I have been loved, but I have hurt, and I have been hurt. Marriage, at one time, was a close and realistic concept to me. But things change; people change. I changed. It’s all very vague—I apologize. In short, no, I am not, and have never been, married.”

Henry found himself at a loss for words. The way Augustine spoke was borderline poetic, and it made Henry feel more connected to the universal theme of loneliness.

“Is that why you feel lonely?” Henry asked.

“Could be,” Augustine replied. “I’m not sure. I’m seventy-six years old and I still haven’t figured out how to calm the restless jellyfish in my heart.”

“Jellyfish?”

“Yeah. I find that the thought of a jellyfish swimming around in my heart, brushing my walls with its tentacles, is a good representation of my feeling of loneliness. It might not suit you, but no one ever said loneliness feels one certain way.”

“That’s true,” Henry agreed. He thought about the jellyfish, and began to feel a jellyfish swimming in his own heart. “I feel it too.”

“Feel what?” Augustine asked.

“The damn jellyfish.”

“Write about it.”

“What?”

“Just give me credit.”

Henry looked at Augustine and they both laughed. “Will do.”

Augustine shifted in his seat.

Henry fiddled with his fingers. He felt the silence bring itself down upon them, but no loneliness tagged along as it usually had in Henry’s countless encounters with silence.

“It’s funny,” Henry began. “Talking to you has put me somewhat at ease. I don’t really feel anxious or lonely at the moment.”

“That’s because you’re not alone in your loneliness.” Augustine smiled and looked away. He looked up at the ceiling of the airport. “At least, you’re not alone in your feeling of loneliness. We bear the weight together.”

Henry felt calm. With the conversation between him and Augustine, and the brief intervals of quiet, Henry came to find himself calm for the first time since he read the first critic review of his short stories. Henry sat in silence next to Augustine for a few more moments and then stood up.

“I’m going to go to the bathroom,” Henry said, straightening out his shirt.

“The what?” asked Augustine.

Henry didn’t understand Augustine’s confusion.

“Where are you going?” Augustine spoke up again.

Henry looked at him. “Oh! I’m going to the ‘loo.’”

Augustine laughed, and his stomach rose and fell with his convulsions. “I’m only teasing, mate.”

Slightly embarrassed, Henry chuckled a little and then made his way across the terminal lobby to the restroom. As it typically is for a men’s restroom, there was no line. Henry always wondered why women did not just go into the men’s restroom instead of waiting in line. He had argued internally before that no guy would realistically care if a woman did such a thing. Maybe they’re afraid of being groped or harassed by men in the restroom, Henry thought once. Maybe at a bar that might happen. Women shouldn’t go into a men’s bathroom at any bar. But he never saw a problem with it potentially happening at a restaurant. But even then, none of it really mattered; it’s just a restroom.

The restroom did not smell too pleasant, but it smelled like what an airport restroom ought to smell like in Henry’s mind. He walked over to a urinal and did his business. Two men walked in during the process, and, as it goes, none of the three paid any attention to each other. Henry washed his hands and exited the restroom.

“I watched your bag for you,” Augustine said as Henry approached their seats.

“You’re too kind,” replied Henry.

Augustine combed his hair with his hand. “Henry, are you married?”

“No, I can’t say that I am,” Henry said sullenly.

“But you’ve been in love?”

Henry fiddled with his fingers. “I like to think so.”

“When?”

“I guess college,” Henry said dryly.

“What happened?” asked Augustine.

Henry looked down at his lap and noticed his fidgeting fingerings. He calmed them and thought. “I loved a pebble.”

Augustine furrowed his eyebrows. “What does that mean?”

“The woman—she was a pebble. If my life were a body of water, then she dropped into it and affected everything about me.”

“Interesting.”

“She affected my life like ripples in water.”

“But to do so she had to have an impact in your life.”

“She did. That’s how the ripples came about, naturally. But for her to do so, she had to sink. She sank deep into my heart. The crevices of my heart. But it’s hard to find a particular pebble in a body of water. So she’s still there, in my heart, but there’s nothing I can do about it. All I can do is watch the ripples continue to spread outward.”

“What an image,” Augustine remarked. “You are definitely a writer. But I like that. I guess we all have pebbles in our lives.”

“I believe that to be true.”

Augustine did not wish to press Henry more on his pebble. “So tell me about some of your books. Which one is your favorite?” Augustine asked, lightening the mood.

“Oh, I don’t know about that. Colorblind was my first bestseller. I think that’ll always have a place in my heart.”

“Colorblind?” Augustine asked.

“That’s the title of the book. It’s about when love fails. Or, more correctly, when people fail in love. But most of my readers come out of it thinking love fails.”

“I can see that,” Augustine nodded. “Love doesn’t fail; the people with the love do.”

“Exactly. But maybe putting the blame on this abstract, faceless feeling that we call love makes it easier for people. Takes away the responsibility of failing.”

“And do you address that in the book?” asked Augustine.

“No. And I think that’s why people come out of it thinking love fails. So in my next book I’m going to explore similar themes, but more thoroughly and evolved.”

“Good on you. Where can I buy Colorblind?”

Henry was about to name off three or four generic websites where it could be purchased, but then he remembered the copy in his bag.

“I have a copy in my bag. You can have it,” Henry said, and reached for his bag.

“I don’t want to take your copy.”

Henry laughed. “It’s my book. You can’t take that from me. It’s totally fine.” He handed Augustine the book. 

Augustine held the book with one hand and ran his other hand across the front of the hard cover. The copy itself seemed slightly aged, yet the mostly-white design was clean and nearly blemish-free.

“It has a beautiful cover,” Augustine said sincerely.

“People say it’s a beautiful book.”

“What do you say?” Augustine looked at Henry as he said this.

“I say I put a great deal of myself in this book.”

“Ah. A modern-day Hemingway,” Augustine laughed.

“I wish,” Henry replied, slightly blushing. He wanted to change the subject. “What did you do for a living, Augustine?”

He touched his mustache. “Boring office work that afforded me the comfort of buying pretty ladies flowers whenever they gave me attention. And now, in my retirement, allows me to travel.”

“That sounds pretty nice.” Henry leaned to his left and rested his head on his hand.

“Living off written words sounds even more nice,” Augustine remarked.

“I suppose you’re right.” Henry stared off into the lobby. He thought about jellyfish. He looked to his left and out the window. He imagined the window as a looking glass into his heart. A jellyfish swam around and around, and its tentacles brushed where they pleased, and some even found their ways into veins. Henry sat up.

“Their tentacles spread,” Henry whispered.

“What?” asked Augustine, slightly surprised by his whisper.

“The jellyfish—their tentacles spread out from our hearts. Hell, they even wrap around our brains. Loneliness affects our entire existence.”

Augustine smiled in understanding. “That’s when loneliness turns into depression.”

“I see.” Henry continued to stare out the window.

Augustine checked his watch and straightened up a bit. “They’re going to call for us to board soon.”

“Thank you for this conversation, Augustine. You’ve given me inspiration. You’ve given me some solace as well.”

“I just didn’t want either of us to be alone.” As Augustine spoke, a lady came on over the intercom and called for first-class passengers to line up at the gate.

“Well, that’s me,” Augustine said. “I assume a published author such as yourself is flying first-class as well?”

“No, I’m coach,” Henry replied, turning away from the window. “First-class is overrated.”

“That may be true, but it’s still comfortable. It was a pleasure meeting you, Henry. I look forward to reading about jellyfish, love, and Paris.”

Henry smiled and stood up. He reached out his hand and shook Augustine’s. “It was absolutely a pleasure.”

Augustine grabbed his two bags and headed toward the gate. Henry sat down and looked at Augustine’s back for a moment. He quietly thanked Augustine for his company, and then returned to looking out the window. He thought more about jellyfish, and how he will soon come across countless people surrounding the Eiffel Tower that will have jellyfish swimming in their hearts.