First Crossing

Martin Fury

I don’t know where my fascination with oceans and my dream of crossing them came from. Perhaps early life in a small town in the Canadian interior heightened my sense of wonder. I was six years old when I caught my first glimpse of the Pacific Ocean. It was late afternoon and my family was crossing the Golden Gate Bridge on the last day of a long car trip from Canada to our new life in the San Francisco Bay Area. My parents commented on the scenic view of San Francisco and Alcatraz Island and my brothers were in awe of the height and expanse of the bridge itself. But I was struck by the sight of the Pacific Ocean, the sunset, and cargo ship heading through patchy fog. From my back seat window, I imagined it was beginning an adventure to the other side of the world.

As a teenager, I saw cargo ships coming under the Golden Gate Bridge. I watched as they passed Alcatraz Island and then lingered offshore while waiting for tugs to nudge them into piers along the waterfront. Some ships flew American flags, but most carried flags from other countries, including India, Japan, Greece, Norway and Korea. I wondered what cargo they carried and where they’d come from. I also wondered about the lives of the crew and their adventures in foreign ports.

The lure of overseas travel hit hard in my first summer out of high school. By then, I’d learned that my dream of going to sea was not going to be well received. I’d also learned that finding work on a cargo ship was difficult and discouraging. Foreign competition was putting American shipping companies out of business, and the few jobs that did remain went to experienced union members or people with connections to shipping companies. So at family dinners, I did my best to avoid disappointing my parents by mentioning my job hunting on the San Francisco waterfront.

One foggy Friday afternoon in early summer, I had the good luck to pick up a hitchhiker. On the way into San Francisco, I learned that the young Frenchman had hitched his way across the United States and Canada and hoped to earn his passage home on a ship bound for Europe. He asked to be taken to the Scandinavian Shipping Office at Pier 29, which his tattered guidebook listed as a place to find work on ships. After talking about my disappointing job search with the American Merchant Marine, we agreed to go together to see what might happen at Pier 29. I parked and followed him up a steep outside staircase and through a door labeled “Scandinavian Shipping Office: Business Hours 8:00 -11 AM.” We entered a musty room and took a seat at a low table littered with girly magazines and empty pop cans. A stocky blond man who appeared to be the business agent sat in an adjoining office. His door was open. We had ignored the business hours, and he was ignoring us. We sat in silence, surrounded by dingy walls covered with tattered pictures of ships and Asian beauty queens. Then his swivel chair squeaked. Looking annoyed, the man motioned us toward his office. “And what can I do for you?” he said. Perhaps seeing an advantage, my companion went in first. I sat and listened to their conversation. With a thick French accent, the hitchhiker said, “I am French student. I return to France to make my studies. I must take a ship to Europe.” There was a brief silence and then the agent said with some irritation in his voice, “This is an employment office for professional seamen, not a travel agency. If you need money to go home, your consulate office will get you a plane ticket.” Then, turning toward me, he said, “And you, my friend, what do you want?”

It was my turn to enter. I stood up straight, and walked into the office. Standing in front of his cluttered desk, I said, “My dream is to be a sea captain. I have tried to sign on American ships, but they — “He cut me off. “Did you bring your passport?” I patted my empty jacket pocket as if it was temporarily out of place and said, “No, but I can get it right away.” Looking straight up at me he said, “Can you be ready to go in one hour?” Reeling with excitement and the fear that he might not wait, I said, “I’ll try, but with traffic, it might take a bit longer.”

I dropped my French companion off at the Fort Mason youth hostel and drove off into Bay Area commuter traffic. At home, I informed my stunned mother that I would not be staying for dinner because I had found a “summer” job on a ship. While stuffing clothes into my old Boy Scout duffel bag, I did my best to assure her that I expected to return in time to resume college classes in September. Luckily, my brother was available to drop me off at Pier 29. In the car, I recounted the story of my sudden change of fortune and how it came about that I would soon be at sea aboard a cargo ship.

While crossing the Bay Bridge, I looked over the San Francisco waterfront and wondered if any of the ships below might be mine. Some were lying at anchor, as if they might be waiting for new crew members to come aboard. Others were at docks surrounded by trucks, forklifts, taxis and longshoremen. My thoughts were cut short when Phil asked, “So, where ya going?” It was then that I realized I had no idea. But not wanting to look inept, I replied “Asia.” The negative reaction to the hitchhiker’s query about going to Europe had dissuaded me from asking for nonessential information. This included the ship’s name, where it would be going and when I might expect it to return.

The business agent was waiting in his office at Pier 29. He inspected my passport and copied information to a form, which he then stuffed into a large envelope. Looking up from his desk, he said, “Your ship is the Balto. It’s at Pier 10 in San Diego.” And then, handing me the big envelope, he said, “Wait outside. A taxi is coming to take you to the airport.”

The taxi came. In the back seat was a dark-skinned man who introduced himself as “Josh.” He said he was originally from Fiji and was a Balto crew member who, after a medical procedure, was rejoining the ship. On the way to the airport, I plied him for answers to all the questions I’d avoided asking the agent. I willingly handed him my papers, which he looked over. With a faint smile, he said, “You are the Dekksgutt,” which he translated from Norwegian to “Deck Kid,” a rank one notch below the internationally recognized bottom rank of “Ordinary Seaman.”

The evening was warm when we arrived in San Diego. A taxi took us from the airport to the Tenth Avenue Terminal, and we soon found ourselves walking on nearby Harbor Drive. Josh was in no hurry to board our ship, where he assured me there would be no crew and no food. As we strolled past bars and among crowds of sailors, I felt my youth. I wished I looked older and worried that Josh might not be aware that at age nineteen, bars were off limits to me. But I shouldered my duffel bag and said nothing. Ahead was a noisy bar where a police car, with its red lights flashing had just stopped. From the street we heard loud foreign voices, people fighting and breaking glass. Suddenly animated, Josh said, “Let’s go. That’s our crew!” Feigning bravado and hoping my duffel bag would make a good shield, I followed. I’d expected to find our crew defending itself, perhaps from drunken American sailors. But after going in, it became obvious that the ruckus involved Balto crew members fighting each other.

We sailed the next morning, minus two crew members who’d been taken away by the shore patrol. As instructed, I presented my papers to the radio officer. I was assigned a small cabin with a single bunk on the bottom deck, directly above the engine room. Our destination was Vancouver, British Columbia, where we were to pick up a cargo of fertilizer to be carried across the Pacific to a small port on the Philippine Islands. [A couple of sentences of description of the room would be helpful here to give the reader a sense of “first impression” by the character.]

As we left San Diego, I had my first meeting with the crew. A friendly Asian crewman directed me into a noisy mess hall reserved for us, the unlicensed crew members. Our stuffy eating area was one deck below the midshipmen’s and three decks below the officer’s salon. The engine room crew, wearing greasy clothes, took seats at what appeared to be their table. Another table, laden with rice and Asian food, appeared to be reserved for the Filipino kitchen crew. I found a place among men I hoped would be my fellow deck workers. Across from me sat a jovial, heavyset man with a puffy red face, thin blond hair, and bloodshot blue eyes. He introduced himself as Bomse and asked why I was on the ship. Feeling self-conscious, and thinking I might be one of several, I said “I’m a Decksgutt.” He laughed and then loudly introduced me to all who would listen. Then, suddenly serious, he looked at me and said, “Do you vant me to sing you a song?” Looking down and hoping to be inconspicuous, I said, “No, thank you. Maybe some other time.”

Undeterred, Bomse and several others at our table burst into a Norwegian drinking song. It was then that I realized that I’d joined a table of my jolly deck mates, some of whom appeared to be drunk. Next to Bomse was Lars, a dark-haired man who looked at me through the lenses of his thick black glasses and said, “Do you like girls?” Amid laughter and surprise, I nodded to signal what I hope was received as a yes. Behind us, I heard Spanish and heavily accented English in a room filled with foreign languages.

Our trip up the coast to Vancouver was uneventful. We followed the northbound shipping lane, which took us beyond sight of land. On the way up, I found out that, as Desksgutt, my job was to do what I was told, which on the way north involved stacking wood used for shoring the previous cargo. I also learned a few things about our ship. The 524-foot Balto was built in Sweden and weighed 24,000 tons when empty. We carried a crew of twenty eight. The Norwegian captain and officers lived and worked on the upper decks and were rarely seen by the crew. Of the remaining twenty unclassified crewmen, about half were Norwegian. Others were Asian or Latin American. I was the only American and there were no women on board.

In Vancouver, we took on a cargo of potash, a grainy, pink fertilizer mined in the Canadian prairies. We also took on fresh water, fuel, food and no small amount of liquor. As the fertilizer loaded, the ship sank lower so that we had to continually take slack out of our dock lines. By the time the tug towed us off the dock, we had lost twenty feet of free-board and most of the Balto’s hull was under water.

By our third day out, we were well off shore and I was developing a feel for our daily work routine. The first bell came at 7 AM. But before getting up, I could get a good idea of the swells and ocean conditions by lying flat and looking out my porthole and measuring the ship’s roll. In good weather, there was a shallow roll, with a fairly steady view of sea and sky. On rough days, on the downward roll, I looked down into foamy water directly below my window. Then, as the roll slowly reversed and reached its apex, I saw only clouds and sky.

The 7:30 breakfast bell beckoned us to the mess, where the crew assembled in grumpy silence to a meal of coffee, orange juice, scrambled eggs, porridge and canned fish on saltine crackers. At the 8 o’clock bell, we ambled out on the deck where the boatswain gave us work assignments. In calm weather, we usually chipped rust and painted. In rough and rainy weather, we stored our tools in the bow house, where we waited to be given other work assignments.

For lunch, we made our own sandwiches or helped ourselves to meatballs, breaded fish filets, mashed potatoes and fresh fruit. At the 1 o’clock bell, we heaved ourselves out of our chairs and trooped off to work. The deck crew went out into fresh air on the main deck. The motor crew opened heavy metal doors and descended into a hellish blast of heat and noise. Our work day ended at 5:00, and most of us had showered and changed clothes before sitting down to dinner at 6:00.

Dinner was more relaxed. Typically the mess hall was filled with laughter and noise. Heavy storm doors slammed open and shut as men went in and out to smoke on the windy companionway. There was also activity at the ship’s commissary, where, during the dinner hour, men could buy basic supplies stored in a large closet adjoining the mess hall. A gruff Chinese chef oversaw sales. He was suspected by some of profiteering by inflating the prices of alcohol and tobacco. Apart from two older, solitary Norwegians, who seemed self-exiled to sea, most of us lingered after dinner to play cards and board games, including chess and checkers, which I regularly played with Josh and Bomse.

I was glad that my Dekksgut job took me out into the fresh air where I could breathe and feel the freedom of the open ocean. I preferred work assignments that took me out toward the bow, where I could survey ocean conditions and escape the engine noise and vibrating deck plates. A few days out from Vancouver, I noticed the sea change and watched as we crossed out of the wide current that flows southward from Alaska. I never imagined the change from cold, green water to a warm sea would be so abrupt. As our bow broke into blue water, I heard the steering gear shift and felt the ship vibrate. Suddenly, flying fish were breaking the surface and skittering over the swells. Out of nowhere we picked up a following of albatross, which glided effortlessly behind, occasionally diving down to pick up food churned up in our wake.

While out on the deck, I stole an occasional glance upward toward the bridge, where I hoped to get a glimpse of our ship’s officers. Occasionally, one or two came outside on the flying bridge. I was comforted by their appearance and by the thought that above us was a cadre of uniformed professionals who managed our safe passage. To me, their separation from the unclassified crew the crew was appropriate and supported my view of their professionalism.

By the tenth day out of Vancouver, we’d covered more than half of the 9,000-mile crossing to the Philippines. I delighted at the warmth and humidity of the tropics. In the mid-Pacific, there were new cloud formations and rain showers brought by thunderstorms, which I made no effort to escape.

By this time, I’d discovered a protected spot at the bow where I could relax out of the wind and out of sight from the bridge. On warm nights, after games of checkers, I went there to my private world to escape the noisy mess hall and the thumping vibrations of the ship’s propeller. At the bow, I felt the rhythm of waves and heard spray and foam slipping past the hull. I scanned the water, and I studied the sky for unfamiliar constellations. As we moved further south, I watched the North Star gradually slip over the horizon and disappear into the tropical night. On calm, clear nights, stars reflected into the sea, and the ocean and the sky melted together. This produced a disorienting sense that our ship was gently drifting upward into the stars. It was at these moments, alone out on the bow, that I found mid-ocean magic and a vivid feeling that our ship was gliding into the Orient on the curve of the earth.

The crew became more energized as we approached the Philippines. Our anticipated arrival sparked animated conversations, laughter, and among the Norwegians, outbursts of song. At Friday dinner, I was surprised to find cartons of duty-free cigarettes stacked neatly at everyone’s place at the dinner table. My two cartons did not compare with the much larger holdings of the Norwegians, most of whom had stacks of six or eight. Sensing my uncertainty, Bomse held up a carton of Marlboros and said, “With this you get plenty beer, maybe two bottles rum.” Then, looking at Lars and laughing, he added, “And maybe you lucky to get good girl.”

My first sight of land came after dinner, as shore lights and moonlit silhouettes of the coastal hills on Luzon Island came into view. By midnight, we were at half speed and slowly entering the Philippine Archipelago on a narrow passage between Luzon and Samar islands. From my bunk, I formed mental images to explain the sounds of our speed changes, maneuvers and the occasional blasts from our ship’s horn. By dawn, I was standing outside in shorts and sandals, letting the warm, earthy shore air wash over me as we glided past small palm-studded islands and fleets of small, fishing boats. On the larger islands, I was struck by the sight of small communities of tin-roofed shanties, dirt streets and beached fishing boats. It was these villages that I had my first disquieting view of third world poverty.

As it was Saturday, only a few men were in the mess hall when I arrived at 7:30. I took my usual seat at an empty table. While drinking coffee, I noticed the boatswain making an unscheduled purchase of cigarettes. After signing his receipt, he turned to me and said, “Good morning.” Then he said, “We will be at the dock by maybe six o’clock. You should eat early because you have the first watch on the gangway.”

I could have asked him what this entailed, but not wanting to appear incompetent, I accepted my assignment. Because instructions weren’t given, I assumed my watch was probably a maritime convention formality that involved welcoming visitors and perhaps turning back stray dogs. I also assumed that my low rank explained why I had been chosen for a 12-hour watch on the night of our arrival.

At the entrance to Manila Bay we were met by a launch that delivered a pilot who would oversee our route and docking procedure. By late afternoon, we were anchored off Limay, a small community about thirty miles from Manila While waiting for a tug, we were approached by about a dozen outrigger canoes guided by swarthy crews of two or three men. As they came alongside, tarps were removed, revealing cases of beer and rum to eager crewmen, who, with cigarettes in hand, appeared to have anticipated their arrival. What followed was a wild bargaining session, managed by waving of rum bottles and cigarettes, and hand gestures and shouting in broken English. With exchange rates settled, buckets of alcohol and cigarettes began moving up and down on ropes. Soon happy crew members, hugging bottles of rum were descending into their cabins.

With business done, and perhaps n cue, a tug arrived and pushed us into a dock, where I helped position the gangway and stood ready to welcome visitors. Because I felt honored at being chosen to oversee our ship’s, I was determined to overcome my inexperience through commitment and vigilance.

By twilight the only activity on the gangway had been the departure of the bay pilot, who said he thought that crew shore passes would not be available until Sunday morning. Hoping to get more information, I decided to briefly visit the mess hall. There I found a disappointed crew and an on-going party fueled by rum and speculation about conspiracies of corrupt local officials to keep them ship-bound. By eight o’clock, the bachelor party in the mess hall had spread throughout the lower decks. Sounds of singing and laughter had spread to the gangway, where I stood prepared to escort any official visitor through mayhem to a welcome on the upper decks.

It was about nine o’clock when I heard the sound of voices, laughter and giggles echoing in from waterfront buildings. Then, under our ship’s naked floodlights, I saw three women in lacy clothes and high heels wobble down the dock and onto our gangway. Soon there were others arriving in groups of four or five. Self-assured, they brushed past, leaving me in a trail of perfume and frozen with uncertainty. As the gangway watchman, I’d expected to welcome people on official business, but I hadn’t been advised on how to manage the approximately two dozen women who’d already come aboard. Over the next hour, I noticed with some comfort that the clamor on the lower decks was punctuated with giggles and squeals. I took this as evidence that our guests were being welcomed aboard our ship.

With no other arrivals on the gangway, I decided to leave my post and have a look at the activity in the mess hall. At the door, I quickly realized that the mess hall was a room in chaos. I saw Bomse crawling on the floor while clutching the leg of a laughing woman, who pretended to escape while shrieking, “Dirty man! Dirty man!” Women were seated and standing at tables. With their bare hands, they were devouring leftover food from the dinner buffet and an open galley refrigerator. Tables were littered with beer and rum bottles and cartons of cigarettes. A few serious alcohol-fueled conversations took place among the crew and our visitors.

After a quick survey, I decided to approach the relatively sober-appearing boatswain. He seated next to a woman at a corner table. Feeling concerned about turmoil and my part in it, I made a sweeping motion toward the visitors and said, “Look. They’re stealing food from the kitchen!”

As if waving me away, he said, “Not worry, not worry. They hungry. They have no food. We give them some.” Then, looking bemused, he turned to his companion and said, “You want some food? I get you some food.” My passage out of the mess hall was delayed by offers of rum in paper cups, grasping handshakes and high-spirited chants of “Dekksgut! Dekksgut!”

I returned to the gangway feeling injured by witnessing the desperate want of food and confused by my inability to have any control over the state of affairs on the ship. I don’t recall any traffic on the dock until very early Sunday morning, when a thin man in an oversized security uniform arrived. He wore a holstered pistol on one hip. His shirt, possibly American thrift store merchandise, displayed various patches, including a worn American flag and another one that identified a Moose Lodge. I welcomed his presence. I thought he might support me in defending the interests of the ship should situations develop, with the awakening of the sixty or so people now on the Balto. I greeted him with a handshake and an offer of food made by rubbing my stomach and pointing into my open mouth. His vigorous head nods signaled his acceptance. I pointed him toward the mess hall. And then walking toward the companion way, I wondered if the usual morning fare would be available.

I was at the rear of the ship, when I noticed outrigger canoes. The first ones I saw were quietly slipping away. I didn’t see the others until I leaned over a railing and looked straight down. There, positioned against the ship’s hull, I saw canoes and men busily loading pillows, blankets and boom boxes from portholes on the lower deck. In near panic, I found the security guard in a barren mess hall. From the outside deck, I pointed out canoes actively loading and said, “Look! Look!, They’re stealing. They’re taking everything!”

Fumbling with his holster and assuming the stance of cowboy, he said, “I make stop.” Then with legs spread apart and both hands holding his pistol, he fired three shots. Thankfully, all widely missed the canoes and their crews. Then turning to me with a sheepish look he said, “Sorry, boss, no more bullet.”

In a panic, I began my search for the captain’s office. I took the stairs to the second deck. I hurried past dark wood paneled walls, I ran past the infirmary and an empty dining area with framed art and upholstered chairs. On the third deck, I hurried past the ship’s library and the cabins of junior officers. On the top deck, down a carpeted hallway, I found the captain’s cabin marked with a plaque on a large wooden door. I paused for a moment, taking a breath. Then I slowly lifted the brass door knocker and let it drop. It struck with a bright bang that shattered the early morning silence. I waited. I heard a muffled conversation followed by an accented voice that said, “Open. You can open the door.”

I first saw our captain in his bathrobe. He was standing at the door of his adjoined outer office. A woman in a pink slip was visible in his cabin. She seemed concerned. Draping an arm over his shoulder, she said, “Why he come early?” While struggling to appear contained, I introduced myself and attempted to describe the situation on the lower decks.

It may have been disbelief, annoyance or uncaring, but his response was , “You go away. You go below. You don’t come back to my door.” As I turned to leave, I heard a muffled conversation in which the only word I could make out was “Dekksgut.”

On Sunday afternoon, the crew got shore passes and began taking taxis to Manila, where they spent time and money in bars. We stayed longer in Limay than expected due to thunderstorms that interfered with unloading our cargo. After five days, we sailed to Kaohsiung at the southern end of Taiwan Island. During that trip, we ate from paper plates. In Kaohsiung, we took on a cargo of plywood and resupplied the missing items. After five days, we continued on to Shimizu, Japan. With my turn as gangway watchman completed, I was free to explore, engage people, and experiment with exotic food in both cities. The events of our first night in Limay were never mentioned.

Three weeks later, we delivered our our cargo to Seattle and San Francisco. Before signing off, the first mate asked me to continue on as a Balto crewman with the new rank of Ordinary Seaman. I refused his offer, but my decision was bitter-sweet. I was proud to be wanted and I wondered if my refusal showed a limit to my imagination, or was it the influence of invisible strings connecting me to the expectations of others.

As I moved down the gangway with my duffel bag, I turned and waved goodbye to the crew and descended into the morning bustle of the San Francisco waterfront. With a feeling a peace and clarity, I wandered through Fisherman’s Wharf and Chinatown. By the time I caught an evening bus, it was clear that in crossing the ocean I’d stumbled upon a new way of seeing the world and my place in it. I’d expanded my comfort zone and with a new sense of freedom and confidence, arrived home.

I should be sleeping. It’s 4:00 AM in the morning (or do people classify this as night?) on a Wednesday. I have to finish up preparing all my travel and paperwork for my travels to the World Championships that start next week. I have a lot of pieces to write about in the coming week about teenagers playing video games for millions of dollars. I should be sleeping.

But I can’t. I lay in my bed, listening to the same music I’ve listened to a thousand times before. I try a few of my favorite podcasts, and their words, regardless of how loud I turn up the sound, are a mishmash of incoherent mumbles. So I sit here in my broken down reclining chair my grandma gave to me when she died about seven years ago in November around my birthday, typing on my laptop while staring at the blank alley outside my apartment’s first floor window.

I haven’t been happy recently. Nothing to do with my career or work: I love working for ESPN, and I genuinely like everyone I work with. I’ve met some true friends traveling to events, and my social anxiety, which I’ve touched on before, has come leaps and bounds from where it was a year ago. Still, even with success in my career and the people around me, I’m often melancholy over my day-to-day business in my personal life.

Maybe writing a bit about my life and what’s on my mind at now 4:16 AM in the morning will let me look forward instead of back. I don’t know. So I’m going to write and see where it ends up, for better or for worse. If you’re interested in learning something about video games, esports, or anything I do professionally, please stop reading this now. This is just about the guy behind the dumb Twitter and the professional articles, and he’s not nearly as exciting or interesting as the former would lead to you to believe.

Growing up, I didn’t have a normal life. When I was born, my father and mother weren’t together. She was already seeing someone knew, and so was he. I was brought up by my mother and so-called step father for the first four years of my life before my mom was arrested and sent to prison for a year. I believe she bounced a check or something — I honestly have never really had the motivation to find out what crime she committed.

Long story short: she got cancer in prison and died before I really got to know her. The only real memory I have of her is visiting her in prison before I even turned five. All I really remember are the glass dividers you talked through when you talked to a prisoner and my grandparents giving me some sort of candy in the car going home. Aside from the miscellaneous sweet and the line of people talking to their loved ones behind glass, I don’t remember anything about her.

My life for the next few years wasn’t too bad. I recall bawling when I was told that I’d be living with my grandparents from now on, but after the readjusting, I went through a happy spell: friends, grade school, birthday parties.

My biological father tried to come into contact with me when I was eight, but I was already shy and sheltered from the world by my loving yet overbearing grandparents. He wanted a relationship with me and even bought me an overpriced present when we first met, but he was too foreign and scary for me to truly open to. I’ve never been good at telling people my feelings or being honest. So while he would show up once and a while to give my grandmother child care payments — I only realized in my teenage years that’s the white envelope he always gave her when he visited — and take me out to eat to talk about sports, I eventually distanced myself completely from him. He actually works in the media industry as well but with an entirely different last name, so no one will probably ever know he’s my father.

I haven’t talked to him in probably seven or eight years, maybe more. I wonder if he knows how far I’ve come in my career. I remember him taking me to his work when we first started going on our semi-regular outings. While I didn’t really have a connection with him, I always thought it was cool he worked in Hollywood and was able to work on productions people got to see for entertainment. I hold no ill will against him; from all accounts, he’s an amazing guy who tried his best to have me meet and become part of his own family. I was the one who chose to stop responding to his phone calls and separate myself completely from him.

When it comes to school, I was never amazing at it. I was always told I had an IQ, but I never liked doing homework. The day I was tested in 5th grade to see if I could possibly be in gifted classes in middle school was on September 11th, 2001, and I totally bombed the quick-thinking questions. Every time I heard something from outside I thought we were going to die by a terrorist attack. So when I entered middle school, I was just an average student in average classes, and I continued on my trek of mediocrity in terms of results.

It’s kind of hard to talk about (or, in this case, type) but I was bullied endlessly in middle school. I was weird. I was always one year younger than everyone I was in my grade with, so I was an easy target. While my grandparents were good people, they coddled me and stopped me from really hanging out with other kids. The times I did hang out with my friends outside of school, I was a mess and usually cried until my grandfather picked me up in his old El Camino that smelled of stale crackers and refurbished leather.

So through my three years of middle school, I had the worst experiences of my life. I was ostracized by classmates and laughed at from friends I took to see Pokemon: The First Movie years earlier for my birthday party at the local movie theater.

The worst days were when a teacher would ask for people to partner up to grade papers or to work together; I would sit silently at my desk, scratching at the worn-out wood underneath. People would pair up, eventually one person would be stuck with me, and the class would snicker as the teacher prompted the last boy (sometimes girl) standing to be my partner. They would whine, the teacher would usually just shrug, and I’d have to sit next to someone who rolled their eyes at me while pantomiming to their friends every other minute to show how much they hated working with me.

There are a lot of similar painful memories, but the one that still sticks vividly in my brain to this day is a week or two after my 13th birthday. I didn’t have any friends, so I spent it alone in my house watching television like usual. My grandparents who didn’t have a lot of money did their best to make me happy, so they bought me the newly released Nintendo DS. I brought it school, excited to have something to be proud of in the face of my classmates, and played it by myself out in the courtyard during breaks to get my mind off the horrors of what lay inside the school buildings.

Two kids from a few of my classes came up to me probably the third or fourth day I had the Nintendo DS, sat down next to me, and showed interest. They didn’t bully or ridicule me. Instead, they asked where I got it, what I was playing, and how I liked the system. Me, happy for any positive attention, went on about how much I enjoyed it and how they should get one if they could. The bigger of the two asked me if they could try out mine, and I agreed, smiling and thinking I finally made some actual friends.

The kid said thanks, took my game system, and the pair left. I never told any teachers. I never saw the game system again. I never told my grandparents, too ashamed of wasting their hard-earned money. That’s the last time I stopped thinking about making friends in the real world for a long, long time.

The first and only romantic love of my life came from, to the surprise and shock of everyone reading this, the Internet. After getting my own computer from my grandparents sometime at the tail end of middle school, I primarily used it to read articles on ESPN.com — I swear this is true — and play little sport games on websites that probably contained millions and millions of viruses.

With no actual friends or anyone I could talk to, I submerged myself into the online world. Of my interests, the easiest to find kinship in was in the world of anime. I joined an anime forum about a decade ago, and for the first time in my life finally felt like I belonged to something that accepted me. No one could make fun of my flaws because they couldn’t see me. They couldn’t hear me. They just saw what I presented to them: some terribly made avatar and banner created from one of my various favorite anime series at the time.

While I’d be lying if I said my suppressed self didn’t talk to many nerdy girls on that site, only one really went anywhere past personal messaging back and forth in the forum’s inbox system. Let’s call her Anne. She was around my age. She lived across the country. Anne was even shyer than me, and I’m pretty sure while she liked me and my personality, she thought I was probably a serial killer behind the computer waiting to abduct her.

Days became less harsh while talking daily to Anne. I would survive the end of middle school and start of high school because of Anne. Our conversations over text eventually lead us to talking on the phone for the first time. I remember me nervously talking about myself while she sheepishly answered back. I think the first time we ever talked on the phone it went about three to four hours long, but most of the dialogue was me being an awkward moron while she didn’t know how to respond. “I don’t know” was her response to most things in the early days, and I was just happy to have someone who didn’t know things with me.

Anne is a genius. She’s the smartest person I’ve ever known, and she’s the complete opposite of me when it comes to school. While she was equally sheltered and nerdy, she had friends and went out with them. Anne had a best friend she did everything with. When it came to school, she got straight A’s and knew she wanted to do something in science when she graduated. I, on the other hand, had no clue what I was doing in school; I apathetically lived through my days in class so I could go home, disregard my homework, and talk to Anne some more while escaping the hell that was reality.

For Christmas one year, after months of her begging me, I finally bought a webcam. I decided to let her in a bit to who I truly was, and probably a year or more of conversing and talking every day for hours on end, we started to webcam and become more serious. She said she loved me. I said I loved her. I thought, really thought, that this was the woman I was going to marry. I was 15 or 16-years-old, but she was the only person I had ever been myself with, and she accepted me fully. Her nervousness subsided over time, and we helped each other become more comfortable in our bubbles separated from the rest of the galaxy.

For the next part, let me preface this by saying: I’m an awful human being, and I know it.

Over the next few years, I would promise her countless times I would visit her in Maine. I promised her. I told her, repeatedly, that I would get a plane ticket and I would meet her face to face. I would take her out, we would go on a real date, and we could start our lives together for at least one weekend before I had to return home.

While I said these words, I always knew I was lying. I was too scared. I said I wanted to meet her, and I truly did, but in the back of my mind I always knew that I would make up an excuse not to go. I would say that my family needed me to do something, or I’d lie and say that my grandfather forbade it. Every time, Anne would feel hurt, but she never left me. She continued talking to me every day even after telling her I couldn’t meet her for another six months before I made up another excuse.

During this time, my family life was falling apart. My grandfather was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s after almost killing me one night when he forgot how to drive and swerved into the opposite lane. He would get pneumonia a few years later and die around the time I was starting to get serious with Anne. Despite never being close to my grandfather, a stern man who used to scold and hit me if I acted out, it was another part of my life ripped from me that I couldn’t control.

To say Anne helped me get through my teenage years would be an understatement. Without meeting her, I would be dead right now, through own means or by withering away. Back when I was only writing my own stupid stories for myself and her, she always said I would succeed as a writer. She believed in me, without a shadow of a doubt, that if I committed myself to writing, that I would someday do amazing things with my talent. I didn’t think so. I thought I was a waste of space, and my writing, usually of the fiction nature, was just another avenue for me to run down when I didn’t want to think about the realities of my life.

Looking back, I was terrible to Anne. I was selfish. I was whiny. If something happened in my life that set me back, I would completely disconnect from her, and I would just lay in my bed for days without letting her know where I was. When I came back from my depression spell, I would message her like nothing happened, and I would make up a lie about how I was too busy with something that I couldn’t talk for a week.

By the time we were both ready to leave high school, that’s when everything fell apart. My grandma, who had been the closest person to me my entire life, had become incredibly depressed since my grandfather’s passing. When I wasn’t talking to Anne on the phone and imagining a better life, I was in my grandmother’s room, talking to her when she was over 90-years-old and losing her mind every day.

“No one loves me,” she would tell me regularly when I sat next to her in the same chair I sit now writing this. “It would be better off if I was dead.”

It became a daily occurrence. I would go to her room, sit down to talk to her, and she would talk to me about how she was old, lonely, and how the family would be happier if she was dead in the ground. She could barely walk, needed help getting around, and missed the man she had been married to since she was a teenager.

I was doing awful in school, and even though I became taller in high school and didn’t get bullied much at all, I still didn’t have any real friends. The friends I did make in passing were quickly brushed aside by me due to never wanting anyone to ever visit my house where my grandmother stayed. Every day my grandmother would get more sick, and I would get more sick along with her. She became severely depressed, and so did I.

One of my last conversations with her was about Anne. I told her I wanted to go to the same university she was going to, and that I wanted her to meet Anne. I wanted my grandmother to meet the person I thought I was going to marry before she died. My grandmother declined, saying that she didn’t want me moving away, and that I shouldn’t anchor myself to one person before I even became an adult.

Years of frustration broke away from me, and I threw one of the plates on the table at the wall. It broke. She threw a plate at me in anger. I got hit in the face. She started to cry, telling me once again everyone would be happier if she was dead. I calmed down and hugged her, reassuring her that she was right in what she told and that no, in fact, everyone wouldn’t be happier without her.

She died one morning not too long after when I was on my computer talking to Anne on Skype. My cousins were also living there at the time to help out, and apparently my grandmother wanted to get a bowl of cereal for herself, had a stroke, and crashed down on the floor, dying instantly. When I heard the wail of my aunt and screaming voices saying, ‘IS SHE MOVING!?’ I knew she was dead. I had always known she would die sooner rather than later, but it still broke my heart when my family told me she was gone.

We had an outdoor poor that I swam regularly in when I was a kid. That day I walked around it probably a million times, shaking my head and wondering what I would do in my life. She was gone, and so was I. After walking around in circles for probably four hours, I went aside, went asleep, and slept for an eternity before waking up and watching a college football game in my room with the sound muted.

I had promised Anne I would meet her that winter. I told her that my grandmother had died and that I wouldn’t be able to see her any time soon. Anne cried, I apologized like I usually did, and I slipped into a depression that would not dissipate.

Over the next two years, I was a dead man living inside a husk of a human being. I still talked to Anne, but everything had changed. She was off to college on a scholarship for science, and she was making her dreams come true. Anne was quick to make friends, and I was earnestly happy for her. She was beginning to live her life finally, and I was hanging on by a thread, watching from my room I never left. Anne eventually told me she wanted to find herself at college, and our relationship or whatever you would call it was put on hold.

Every day all I did was go onto random websites, watch random television shows, and write. I didn’t want friends. I didn’t want family. I was glued to the bright lights of media and didn’t want to escape this hole of fantasy I dug myself I was hiding myself in. If I ever popped my head out, I would stare the cold face of reality in the face: I was going nowhere in life, and everyone around me would probably be happier without me.

I would later be diagnosed as being severely depressed but so out of it that I wasn’t functional enough to actually commit suicide.

Around the time when my eyes were starting to glaze over, I started to build up a relationship again with Anne. She felt like the only person she could fully trust was me, and I was the same. Even when I was going through my hardest times and going through tribulations that I never thought I would be sharing with people in the public, I tried to let her in as much as I could.

Still, I’d make false promises, and I was still too scared and broken to meet her or let her meet me. She told me she would fly out tomorrow and see me, but I would freak out and tell her no, that I wouldn’t answer the door or leave town. I hated myself, and I hated my life. I truly cared and loved her, but I knew if she met me she would hate me like I hated myself.

As I got better over the years, we drifted apart. She was a top student at her university and was going to make something of herself. I was stuck in the same place I had been since that stupid kid with his ugly grin stole my Nintendo DS: alone, afraid, and avoiding everything.

I got better, and like Anne always told me I would, I succeeded in my writing. I freelanced, blogged, and did everything in my power to make our dream come true. I got lucky and made a name for myself in the niche market of esports journalism, and people actually liked my story-based writing. A hobby that was one of my lifelines when I was at my worse had become my new social circle and where I would make my career.

Since getting better years ago, I’ve dated other people, and it’s always been my fault it’s ended. I’m a destructive person when it comes to relationships. I’m too needy or too cold. I’m too slow or too fast. Whatever way leads to me getting dumped, I usually take that option.

Anne started dating, as well. She couldn’t wait for me anymore, and our lives had completely changed. She had a great job in the science field after college, and I was trying to become a professional writer. We were friends, but things were never the same as they were when we were bright-eyed 15-year-olds talking to the opposite sex for the first time.

A few months ago, after a year or two of drifting, Anne told me she didn’t have any time in her life to be my friend anymore. It hurt. It really hurt. This was at a time where I was in a happy relationship and doing amazing at my job, but it was another gut punch of someone who I entrusted that broke away from me. To be honest, it was the right thing to do. Over the almost decade I knew her, I had probably promised her over fifty times I would meet her, and each time I made an excuse or ignored the expected date.

From what I know, Anne is happy with someone and succeeding in life. You’ll probably see her accepting some too-smart-for-me-to-comprehend astronomy award in a decade for her help discovering aliens. We’re not going to end up together, but without her, I wouldn’t have a chance to be together with anyone in the future. I wouldn’t be here.

If someone is actually bored enough to read this far down without closing it, I’d tell you, especially if you’re young, to not let chances go by. I know you’re scared. I know you think you’re the ugliest, weirdest, stupidest, and worst person on the planet, but you’re not. If an opportunity is ever given to you that you believe will make you truly happen, then don’t make excuses: go for it. You might fail in the end; however, in failing, you’ve been a braver person than I was.

For people like me, we sit here, writing about what could have been and why we regret messing up so much. I think eventually I’ll be completely happy. There are weeks where I am sad and lost in my head like I was in my teenage years, but I’ve grown to a point where I’ve learned I’m strong enough to keep moving forward towards my dreams.

Tomorrow, I’ll look straightforward and not backwards. I have many flaws and even more imagined in my head, but I’m not a special snowflake. Everyone carries their own burdens and troubles. So, I must continue on, acknowledging the cuts that shaped me but won’t define me.

As I finish writing this, it is now 6:30 AM. I need to wake up in a few hours to get my paperwork prepared for Worlds and work for a few articles. I’ll publish this into the world, a piece of myself that I was too afraid to share for 24 years, and hope that it positively changes one person’s life who is going through what I did as a gawky, thought-he’d-make-nothing-of-himself teenager.

I never formally said goodbye to Anne, so I guess this ‘thing’ I’m currently in the middle of writing is the goodbye I’ve been wanting to say for a long time now. I’m sorry I couldn’t be the person you could depend on, and thank you for believing in my writing when no one in the world even knew I wrote.

Goodbye, Anne.

Hello, the future.

A 15-year-old birding enthusiast thinks he’s made the discovery of a lifetime — spotting an extinct bird. Three friends join him on an epic road trip to pursue and photograph this bird, thereby earning their place in birding history — but they discover much more than a rare bird

by GrrlScientist for The Guardian | @GrrlScientist

What would you do if you spotted a bird that was thought extinct for roughly 150 years? You’d snap a photograph of it, of course. That’s what birding enthusiast David Portnoy does, only to later see that his photograph was too blurry to be definitive. So in the whimsical adventure, A Birder’s Guide to Everything, David and a few school friends set out on a road trip to get a better photograph of this migrating bird, thereby earning their place in birding history. But in their pursuit of this rare bird, they end up finding a deeper understanding of the adults in their lives, of each other, and of themselves.

David Portnoy (Kodi Smit-McPhee) is a shy 15-year-old high school sophomore whose mother shared her passion for birds with him. Eighteen months after her untimely death, birds still provide David with a vital link to her memory as he struggles to deal with his monumental loss.

We join David just when he’s thinks he’s spotted something truly unprecedented — a supposedly extinct duck species running down the middle of a suburban New York City street. Of course, such an extraordinary claim requires extraordinary evidence as proof — and one blurry photograph just won’t do it.

So David and the other members of the Young Birder’s Society, Timmy (Alex Wolff) and Peter (Michael Chen), decide to get a stronger camera lens, chase down the migrating duck, which they predict is headed towards a lake in the woods of Connecticut, and snap some clearer pictures. They are joined in their quest by David’s classmate, Ellen (Katie Chang), who has “five years of photography experience” — and a powerful telephoto lens from which she refuses to be separated.

The day before David’s widowed father (James LeGros) marries for the second time, the foursome hurriedly depart on a wacky road trip in a ramshackle car that sings like a black-and-white warbler — never mind that David is supposed to be Best Man.

Along the way, they run across the cantankerous writer and birding legend, Lawrence Konrad (Ben Kingsley), who was hired as a guide by two men who are also eagerly seeking this illusory bird — apparently with an eye towards stealing the credit for photographing it first.

The film explains bird watching — birding — often in a self-deprecating way to an audience that probably doesn’t know much about it. For example, in one amusing scene, David tells Ellen, with wit and a minimum of dialogue, about the different sorts of birders; the feeder-fillers and the data-driven listers before she prompts him into mentioning the more spiritual watchers.

“Now, the watchers — this is Lawrence Konrad’s definition — they want to achieve a transcendent connection between nature that erases any distinction between, I guess, human and bird souls”, David says.

But this connection is as ephemeral as the bird they all are pursuing — even for David’s much-admired role model, Lawrence, who at one point in the film, professes: “Birds are my muses, and I strive to be a true watcher.”

The dialogue is witty and wonderfully believable. The campfire scene where the four friends discuss their lack of sexual experience is especially realistic and amusing.

The bird is this flick’s Holy Grail: although this poignant film uses birding as the main impetus to bring all these people together, this really is not a story about watching birds at all — any obsession could have served the same purpose. For this reason, you don’t have to be a birder to enjoy it. The movie shows that seeking the rare and elusive is often more than just a physical quest; it also is a spiritual journey that changes the seeker.

“I’m sixty-three years old and very much alone. I guide assholes for money. I have one leg and no driver’s license”, asserts the prickly and flawed Lawrence to an adoring David at one point. “Please do not confuse me with a role model.”

The film also — gently — suggests that the loss of a species, like the loss of a beloved parent, is a terrible tragedy with far-reaching, permanent consequences.

Writer and expert birder, Kenn Kaufman, acted as consultant on this film, and also had a brief cameo appearance during the wedding scene (you’ll see him give a suit jacket to David). Kaufman ensured that the birding jargon was appropriate and that the birds were correctly matched to their songs and habitats. Unfortunately, despite his expert guidance, some errors still managed to slip through.

For example, I was truly surprised that the Labrador duck was mistakenly identified as the first bird species known to have become extinct in North America when in fact it was second. The first North American bird extinction is a dubious honour belonging to another famous seabird, the great auk.

I am probably part of a loud chorus of birders complaining about the film’s “Labrador duck” look-alike — a female mallard. Mallards are dabbling ducks that feed off the surface of the fresh water, whereas the extinct Labrador duck was a diving species that dined on small mollusks sifted from the muddy bottom of shallow bodies of marine water. Based on these life history differences alone, these two species could not possibly look even remotely similar — and they don’t. Of course, I could nit-pick every little detail about this particular choice of bird actor, but I’ll instead show you photographs of the two species side-by-side because you don’t need to be a devoted birder to see their many differences:

However, don’t let my niggling criticisms about the duck discourage you from watching this sweet funny film, because you and your entire family will enjoy it. Here’s the trailer:

A Birder’s Guide to Everything is an independent film starring Kodi Smit-McPhee, Alex Wolff, Michael Chen, Katie Chang, James Le Gros, Daniela Lavender and Sir Ben Kingsley. It was written by Rob Meyer and Luke Matheny and directed by Rob Meyer. It premiered in 2013 at the Tribeca Film Festival where it won second place for the Audience Award. It is being distributed by Focus World and Screen Media in March 2014. The film was released onto Video on Demand and Select Theatres on 21 March 2014.

Rating: PG-13 (strong language, sex and drug references, and very brief partial nudity.)
Runtime: 1 hour, 26 minutes.
Initial release (USA): 21 March 2014 (limited)
On DVD (USA & Canada): 27 May 2014
On DVD & VOD (UK): 19 May 2014

Visit the official website for screening locations and other information.

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GrrlScientist is very active on twitter @GrrlScientist and you can follow all her writing by subscribing to her TinyLetter

Originally published at The Guardian on 12 May 2014.

B. April 16th, 1992

Bebe is a very strong girl — she likes to think so.

She always got into fights, something her father hated. “Baba, it’s not my fault! This girl called Sasquatch and pushed me down!” although he had hated seeing his only child come home from school with bruises, he’d always smile and tell her it wasn’t her fault.

“Baba’s sorry for giving you his height.”

“It’s okay Baba. Mrs. Moore said I’ve grown enough for my whole life.”

“Is that so? Well then, you shouldn’t care much about what those other kids think, right?”

“Yeah.”

H. April 16th, 1992

Haji gained something new today — a father.

He had always wanted one; all the kids in class had one. Theirs’ always came to school events and to PTA meetings, meanwhile his grandmother mainly went in the place of his mother who’d been working. Every night she’d come drenched in strange perfume. Tonight had been an exception — a man came with her. They were giggling, having fun as they stumbled in. Haji stood in the hall way of their tiny apartment, looking at them as they took off their shoes. His mother glances over him in her shimmering dress and crouches in front him.

“Haji, guess what?” he looks over at the smiling man, seeing him wave.

“What, Mama?”

“Jun and I are getting married — that means he’ll be your new daddy.”

“Really?!”

B. November 12th, 1999

“This isn’t working anymore.”

Bebe stared at the girl walking away from her, in her turtleneck and bellbottom jeans. She felt warmth in the bottom of her chest, almost suffocating as she dragged her eyes up to dusty trail.

“Charlie,” she calls, almost desperately — trembling, worried; “what’s not working? Charlie, Charlie, wait up!”

“WE’RE NOT WORKING, OKAY?”

Charlie, much more calmly, starts to speak again.

“I’m getting married, Bee. To a really nice guy.”

“Aren’t we together? Even though we can’t get married, I can take care you.”

“No you can’t! He can take of me — my parents like him, not you. This wasn’t even normal from the start — so how can you act like it was?”

H. November 12th,1999

“I like you.”

Haji looked at Sen — surprised to say the least. His lips trembled and he stared into his eyes. “Can you repeat that?” he asks, reaching out to hold his hand — the crispy autumn air had done nothing to calm his heart.

“I like you, I want to be your boyfriend. I want to be yours.” Haji wondered then, did kisses ever feel as real as they did then?

H. January 3rd,2000

“Since I fell in you with you, everything became so clear.” In the clearness of day, they laid as if they had been glued together.

“Haji — you sound so corny; you know that right?”

“Isn’t that why you love me?” His laugh fills the room — it was a constant reminder that he wasn’t alone anymore.

“We should leave before your parents come home — your old man had an important dinner today, right? Why didn’t you go?”

“You should know I don’t fit in those snobby people. Whenever someone tries to get close me I get sick to my stomach.” Laying on Sen’s chest, Haji his eyes as would as child — listening to the sound of his breathing.

“I wonder if anything, will we stay comfortable this way?”

B. January 3rd, 2000

In the process of drinking herself sick, Bebe was found a sign in the newspaper discarded on her bedroom floor. She was clutching my phone, limply — contrast to how she was hours ago, desperate calling her, hoping she would answer the phone.

Her apartment wasn’t anything special, mostly just a place to sleep. The apartment she used to have was too big — since it made for cohabitation.

A bright pink ad caught her eye — not actually that bright, more like a soft bubblegum pink.

‘Make 100 an hour as a masseuse. No experience needed.’

June 30th, 2002

“Hello? This is Bebe from N.Y.X. I’m calling to confirm your appointment for tomorrow at 8 PM. Is that correct?”

“Well, yes. It’s my birthday today so I wanted to spoil myself a bit.”

“Oh, really? It’s your birthday. It’s mine too.”

I usually avoid dark subject matter in the stories I tell, but this one is different.

ignis fatuus

I and many others were on the rooftop of a building. There was violence, there was commotion, and, suddenly, everything went very still and very quiet. I don’t know what happened. A push? A shove? A jump? It wasn’t clear. Logically, in retrospect, it was a painfully dangerous situation, so a fall must have been possible, if not inevitable. However, logic wasn’t on my mind at the time. After everything had been still for a while, I turned my attention to the direction of everyone else’s.

There was a dark skinned girl with short peppercorn hair and a smooth face. She had perfect eyebrows a poppin’ lip color, some meat on her bones, and long, elegant legs shiny with sweat. There was beauty in an all over that smooth, round face, but it was harshly overshadowed by fear.

Her ballet dancer arms moved surely and with strength. When her hands swayed passed the aged railing of someone’s fire escape, my heart shattered. Her hands were curved like wooden spoons. They didn’t spread or grasp. They just swayed along as her body traipsed forward head over toe.

My eyes locked into hers. Her legs were swimming when one of her white crocheted shoes slipped off of her foot. A girl with brown skin and white, square teeth opened her mouth wide. She leapt from the ground and almost flew.

Almost.

Her mouth was wide with a scream that I didn’t hear. The balls of her feet in her beat-up Converse floated upward and her toes followed. I believed that she would would float towards the sky using her will. I believed that her arms would be strong enough to support an immeasurable weight. I was pitiful when her feel failed to rise much higher than the tires on the white Ford next to her, but for the briefest of moments, right before she began to descend from her jump, I believed she could do it. I believed before I could even think.

The falling girl’s brows furrowed stronger than ever before. The shape of her mouth became something oblong, and suddenly, her body violently contorted. Hip over hip with those swimmer’s kicks, she sped up times a thousand. I thought I would see that girl for as long as this moment lasted, but my body reflexively protected my mind by guiding my gaze towards my own left shoulder. I looked away with my eyelids pressed painfully tight. I heard something quick and blunt, and even though I was hiding behind my eyelids, I saw a bright white light that hurt me.

What did that girl on the ground think she could do with her small brown arms and her afro puffs? Those puffs, by the way, are what told me that she was a girl, and her overalls were what confirmed it.

The pain of that light was hot enough to disintegrate anything that dared to even consider being comparable. The embarrassment of having just been confronted about being married in front of my crush by his frat brother disappeared. — Her slow fall put an invisible dark cloud over my head for hours. It is more vivid in my memory than the sex I had five hours ago. It is inaccurate. She fell slowly like a leaf. She landed next to a white Ford. That brown girl with the afro puffs could have been her best friend.

A woman whom I had never seen before in my life fell from a building. In my memory, it took hours. I’m trying to articulate this thing to a degree that will satisfy me.

I am never satisfied.



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