At the first sunrise,

a consciousness goes ablaze

when light fills the dark.

The world. A playground.

Curious cub running, climbing,

often stumbling.

With head in the clouds,

fighting against the current

to discover self.

In the prime of life

learning to swim the current

to keep self afloat.

At the last sunset,

only the memories stay

when dark fills the light.

After eating a tortilla chip from the red basket on the table, she looked across at me. I returned a smile and then drowned it with a sip from the complementary water.

“You said you were a writer?” she asked.

“Yes,” I answered.

“That is awesome. What kind of writing do you do?”

“What kind of writing?”

“Yes, I am an avid reader. Can you describe your writing to me?”

I grabbed the glass of water again and this time I take a little longer to drink. “That’s a good question. I suppose I should know that by now.”

“You mean you don’t know?”

“Believe it or not that is something that does not come to mind too often, so it is sort of difficult to say,” I said then I took a chip from the basket.

“My favorite stories are commentaries on society that make me uncomfortable. Do you do stuff like that?”

“I do feel like I have an interesting perspective of life to that, but I’m afraid that people won’t get what I’m trying to say,” I answered, my mouth full of chip. “The one thing I can tell you is that entertainment takes priority no matter what genera it forms into.”

“That’s interesting,” she said.

I could see the enthusiasm on her face fade. Fortunately, the area in the restaurant where we sat was kind of isolated, or else it would have been hard for someone else to sit and listen to me struggle to explain myself.

“What about fantasy? Harry Potter made me love reading,” she said.

“I only read the first book.”

“The story wasn’t for you?”

“No, the story was great, but I was too poor to continue the journey.”

I was beginning to feel embarrassed not being able to describe the things I write, but like a joke if I had to explain it, then it probably wasn’t any good. I don’t think I’m the best writer, but there was some passion in me. Enough that I felt a bit guilty using the art form to score points with women.

“You know the only reason I read the first volume was because I used to steal books,” I said.

“What?”

“Is not as bad as it sounds. There used to be a department store near the apartments where I grew up and In the back ally of the store they would throw away stuff in a sealed of dumpster. Me and other kids from the neighborhood used to break in through a hole in the chain-link fence and take things from inside.”

Her nose wrinkled and she pulled her upper lip up. “Dumpster diving?”

“Again, not as bad as you think. The dumpster was only used for recycling where they would toss out unsaleable items including toys. Most kids would go for the action figures with missing limbs or toy cars with wobbly tires. I was more interested in the torn comic books with the cool pictures and over-the-top stories. Eventually, my interest turned to the books nobody else wanted. There is where I found the Harry Potter book with the whole front cover missing.”

Her disgusted face turned into one of empathy.

“Back to your earlier question,” I said, “I guess that is one way I would describe my writing. A dumpster full of broken ideas that hopefully still have the potential to be entertaining.”

“That’s great,” she said, a big smile on her face.

Sure there was remorse for misleading people and pretending to be something profound, but I think am in too deep to turn back.

As my world burned, I started looking back on my life frozen and unable to divert my eyes off the horizon, where the clouds radiated like fire with the setting sun. While I struggled to remember everything that led me here, the woman in a sleeveless black sundress sitting beside me tied her long dark brown hair into a ponytail before looking in my direction and placing a hand on my shoulder.

“Look at the bright side,” she said, “you’re a ghost now and free to be whatever you want from this moment on.”

The man could only stare at the dust fluttering in the sunlight that seeped through the thin drapery of the room. Laying on a saggy mattress, he rested his right arm over his stomach trying not to breath so heavily because inhaling took effort and every time he did he swore he could still pick up the scent of blood. He couldn’t believe how breaking such a silly promise could cause so much trouble.