The Door Past Monday. Chapter One. Patience.

To be patient means to bear pains or trials calmly or without complaint.

Where am I? I'm in my car, waiting with the still traffic with no particular place to go it seems.  The radio playing some obscure pop song and just when I begin to remember that band, I lose interest and begin to think to myself.  Thinking can take on a life of its own, as I begin to have quiet, then a more vocal conversation with myself.  

Talking aloud, and alone about this idea on patience. With the traffic at a standstill, other people being impatient as the warm and humid air from the afternoon showers creates an uneasiness and agitation from all around me.  The car may not have gone too far from its beginning, but I know that I'm going away.  Right now my story is done, even if this is a sorta beginning.

The car begins to creep along, I just go along with it, from one place to another point down the highway. Wherever I'm going isn't so important as simply driving away from where I've recently been. Distance is what I want, but maybe not what I need.

The car, slowly turns a corner into more traffic, languidly moving by a zoo panorama painted along the highway.  There was a zoo nearby, in the park that was closed, divided, and paved over for this highway some time ago.  The panorama of mighty elephants, bold tigers, and curious monkeys are what remain of a not too important past, the traffic being an ever present reminder.  The zoo has closed and its animals and keepers have since moved on with it.    

With time and patience, I can see that the traffic begins to pick up and I drive away, alone. I suppose it is better to be alone, than lonely.  Still, I'm trying not to think of it.  With a stillness, things once seemed to right itself when I simply could sit there and do nothing.  I can't do that anymore.  Doing nothing?  I would rather sit in all of this never ending traffic with its horns, exhaust, the heat wave, and irate drivers on cell phones or furiously smoking cigarettes.  What am I doing right now?

I'm tired and I doze off, waking with a start, and doze again a few moment later.  I wake up with a start once more.  This is becoming more routine and yet I haven't been in an accident and no one has taken notice.  The exhaustion begins with these frequent day trips to and from where I go. Trips that I do not believe will ever end, I do not want to end, but desperately need to end.

The car pulls over and I turn off the ignition and sit, still.  Where am I right now?  There's an espresso bar in a strip mall, whatever passes for closed really doesn't exist with this place, there is a band playing inside and a couple of people sitting near the front.

The sign says "Closed", but I walk inside all the same.  I reach for the door handle and pull, the cool cool air greets me as I step across the threshold.  It is dark inside and my eyes begin to adjust.

The eyes adjust to a sullen girl tending to the espresso bar.  Wearing a plain white t-shirt and a long dress, she is sitting behind the counter, herself very still and waiting for me to do something.

My eyes move across the room and my ears pick up the two young ones playing punk songs.  Her vocals almost too sweet and his classical guitar too rightly dingy sounding for anything else but a punk song.

I decide to sit near the bar, away from the two playing their songs and sit closer to a woman watching her ward play with a few marbles.  This woman watching this child and her marbles and then returns to her book, a well worn fantasy novel that I know.  A story I like to read on occasion when I need to sit and wait.  

This little girl looks up, a fire cracker in her eye which when compared to the other one is colorful but blank, dead?  A quick smile and a giggle, she returns to her marbles, all of which look like that bright, deathly eye...

I sit and get an espresso, then another, and another... each a double shot "pulled" with a careful eye from the barista.  As she places each one before me, in each I add a heaping spoonful of sugar.  Each one I drink quickly and after that third, I sit back and pull a few dollars out of my pocket and carefully hand it to the barista, whose hands I notice seem almost porcelain, almost too pale and too perfect.

It faintly smells of sandalwood and sage just behind the stronger smells of coffee and I do recognize what the band is playing, something Beatlesque, played by these two teenage punkskateers.  

I sit with my hand on my head, too tired to really do anything, I sit at the bar and close my eyes just long enough to begin remembering.  Why do I have to go back time and again?

Sounds and images fade in my mind which is a swirling mess in this moment and as things begin to get less messy and more focused I can almost believe that I'm back in that waiting room, again.  Where am I going, or is this just where I came from?