A Moment of Clarity - Continued (scene 3)

(Part 3) 

           “Let’s wander down through the woods,” suggested Colton one time.

            “Yeah that might be fun,” I replied. It was one of those grey colorless days where everything seemed awkwardly still. The leaves were starting to turn their fall colors and were piling on the streets from the shedding of their summer dress. We were cruising the streets on bikes, me with a bright green cruiser and Colton with a black BMX. We often wandered the streets in search of ideas for films and searching for artistic scenery.

            “Check this path out." suggested Colton, "we have to take it.” He pointed to a cliffs edge. “If we climb to that ledge and use those vines to cross that part,” he pointed, “we can make it to that ridge and take the path down next to the river.”

            It seemed dangerous, but thrilling, so I accepted the idea so I ditched my bike against a tree and started climbing, but let him take lead.

            “Watch it,” I warned him. He wasn’t taking any time to try and swing himself down with style. So many terrible images went through my head of what would happen if one of us fell.

            “Stop being such a pussy Nolan.”

            “Fuck you,” I laughed and I tossed a small branch at him. The moment I threw it I realized he wasn’t paying attention and I remember the feeling of regret as soon as it left my hand and started whirling towards my face. It seemed almost slow motion and just as it was reaching him he turned his head and it stuck right into his eye. He screamed and let his grip off from the branch and slipped down a steep dirt edge through shrubs and bushes. I felt comfort by the fact that it was bushes rather than rock but when that blood-curdling scream rang from below I knew something terrible must have been wrong.

I asked him if he was okay and he shouted, “I think my leg is broken, it hurts so bad. Oh my god Nolan you need to get help.”

I climbed down to reach him and I wish I didn’t. The sight was grotesque. He had landed in between two logs and broke his leg at his shin and the force must have pulled him hard because it was completely bend as if he had two knees on that leg. He was so pale white he looked like a ghost. “It’s broken. It’s so broken,” he whimpered, “You need to get help.”

“Where should I go?” I looked up the large cliff edge I’d have to climb to reach civilization and tried to understand how help could even get to the location we were at.

            His helpless struggling eyes stared deep into me while he cried, “Please just find someone, I need help Nolan!”

            I panicked, turned and left him, and made my way up the cliff to get out of the forest and back into the city center. 

A Moment of Clarity - Continued...

(part 2)

That doesn’t bother me, but what does is that no one pays any attention to anything that I throw on it. I take as much time as I can, try to act as professional as I can, and I always manage to convince anyone I decide to use in my parts and create films that are somewhat how I envision them. But still there is never any traffic on any of my sites. I’m not sure weather it’s my “networking” skills or if it’s because I trust Colton with my media output. He is my partner in this ordeal, the profession which we’ve both obsessed since high school, so naturally he's become my partner in business.

            We both took a class that was supposed to be a photography workbook beginner tech class in high school but we convinced Mr. Lukas, our teacher, that we were worthy of taking film early. The film portion of the class was supposed to be for third year students only but with a bit of sly talking Colton and I took that class for the entire three years of high school and skipped all pre-rec work. “I already know about different lenses, the aperture, contrast, shutter speeds, lighting angles, my dad is really big into photography,” I told him, which was a lie. My dad wouldn’t know how to turn on a camera let alone become an expert with one. If it wasn’t something heavy that he could pick up than it didn’t matter to him. “If you let me into the third year program I could spend three years creating a masterpiece, rather than one, and it could be something big.” I tried desperately to convince him that I was some prodigy and he fell for it.

            “Okay, okay Nolan.” He stretched out his words has he thought about how to deal with me. “I think that we could work something out but you will at least have to take a test on the basics of photography so I can get permission from the school board to let you do this.”

            “Sure,” I replied and that was that. The test took maybe ten minutes and an hour every day became nothing but creating films with friends. We’d always have friends skip their classes, or get permission even, to come and film during our tech class. When we all turned sixteen and started getting cars the class became even more fun. We rented out cameras, got in our cars and took off, usually not even taking the time to turn on the camera within the hour of class. We’d have races through gravel roads, highways sometimes, even through town, and we planned our destinations over cell phone usually with passengers doing the talking. We’d come up with games, such as hide and seek. One time we even drove out into the country, kicked out Mark, who was the easiest to manipulate, and everyone else shot fireworks at him while he ran from us. He trotted in a pool of adrenaline as flame balls zipped past his head, bounced against trees, the ground, and danced bright colors all around him. 

A Moment of Clarity

This is the beginning of a fictional piece I just recently started writing. I'm hoping to expand this piece to create a depiction of the city I have been living in, Red Deer, while using fictional characters and an exploration of the human psyche to express the truth behind the reality that exists.

Suddenly I’ve realized the truth behind my reality. I usually freaked out at social events because I hate not having loneliness. The dark confines of what makes up the inner chamber of my room is all I’ve been able to grow accustomed to. In any place I’ve ever called home there was always a room where I could escape the torture of others and call the space my own. My belongings, the little I needed to feel material satisfaction is always neatly packed neatly into whatever rented space I’ve managed to salvage.

            I disconnect from the world and live in a transcend state of focus. It could turn out good but I can never stay enthralled in one thing too long. It’s been music, an attempt to exploit my feelings through sound, mostly sticking to acoustic guitar, writing novels that I never get around to publish, or even try, video comedies created out of script I’ve written, documentaries, and the video’s I like to think are art that contain nothing but beautiful sceneries and the music I write while expressing how that moment taking the  photography made me feel.  

            Colton always convinced me that my talent could go somewhere. He pushed me to take my ideas further so that’s what I always did. I spent hour’s alone typing scripts to film with people I could gather up for the parts. I usually tried to create scripts out of the people around me so that I could use them as my subjects. It was a fun game, forming people’s lives, so that’s what became my goal.

            My parents hated my idea’s, my frame of mind, style, direction, they just hated all of what I stood for. My dad was the heavyweight tough guy type and my mom was the type who just followed and supported every idea or thought that he had no matter how rational it seemed.

            “Can you believe this kid,” he would say. “The runt of the family.” He would laugh it off as if it was no big deal but it was torture. I was different than my brother, the athletic one. I wasn’t unfit or anything, averagely built, but they obsessed about the stature of their bodies. “Eat shit,” I’d reply, wanting to say so much more but scared of the force behind those people. They became consumed by their obsession to a point that they were becoming angry monsters. My brother was three years older that me, a first place champion in high school football and he thought it gave him the right to torture, belittle, and push me into the ground as I grew up. I didn’t realize until I ran away that life could be so peaceful, so easy.

            I moved out on a low-end job with aspirations of making it as an independent filmmaker. I wanted to stick to my routs as a Canadian and try to express my city, Red Deer in the light that no one ever cared to share. Every place has its interactions, it’s feuds, it’s struggles and beuties, but it is only by the told that anything ever becomes known. I wanted to mean something, make my life something worthwhile, and that’s how the obsession of documentation came about in my life. It’s not just me who has it. I mean look at the world. It’s nothing but a bunch of people trying to mean something and we’ve become nothing but an endless form of media pushed by the public through the Internet with aspirations of acknowledgement.

Welcome to Arcata

“Can I have one of your cigarettes?” asked a girl wearing a blue zip up sweater that bulked up the top of her body. She had long dark hair and an anxious look on her face as if she’d just taken a gulp of spoiled milk.

“Ah sure,” replied Jeff reaching into his pack for a camel 99.

I offered her a light and tried to be polite with small talk. “Are you from around here?” I asked.

“Naw. Kentucky. You?”

“Canada,” I said, not being specific assuming that she wouldn’t know details anyway.

“Oh wow, so far. You drove here?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I shrugged not thinking anything of the question. I had assumed that she was in her early twenties on a travel with some friends or something and I was eager to meet some inhabitants of the foreign land I was wandering. We had parked in a stall along City Square and decided that wandering on foot was probably more efficient. We hadn’t planned on drinking due to the fact that we were driving. We searched the scene for a coffee shop or something to give us somewhere to chill for a bit but the entire city square was nothing but loud music, alcohol, drugs, and people shoving through each other to get to the next place. We walked across the two-lane one way that circled the perimeter of the grass island that created the center square. The area was filled with nicely trimmed grass surrounded by flowerbeds, benches, and paved pathways surrounding a center manifold of well designed floral patterns of vibrant patterned colors. There were palm trees lining the area with a unique stone pattern wrapping around a central flowerbed and benches. When we gave up on our search for coffee the center island seemed like the only reasonable spot to rest our feet. We walked to the inner center and sat down on the concrete edge. It was at this spot when we met Katy.

“I came here with my boyfriend and some friends,” she told us as if warning us to not make any moves, “but they’re getting food. Wanna meet ‘em?”

I replied, “Sure,” even though I was slightly nervous of being introduced as a foreigner to a bunch of locals. The worst ideas always ran through my mind. Friends called me sketch as a joke and always made sure to remind me of my frequent paranoia.

“There they are,” she burst out as the group submerged from the bustle of the streets. She introduced Jeff and I to them. “They are Canadians,” she added, while all of her friends warmly welcomed us with handshakes. Two of them were carrying grocery bags, which they unpacked revealing a bag of twelve bread rolls, sandwich meat, and a pack of processed cheese.

“Want a sandwich?” a tall skinny man asked. He was wearing a unique grey suede cap with a button on the front that attached to the brim. It reminded me of something my grandpa used to wear but he gave it a vintage sort of appeal. I politely refused his sandwich and continued trying to introduce myself to everyone welcoming me. Jeff seemed thrilled to have so much attention and I went with it not wanting to bring down his mood.

We were in a town called Arcata, in California. We drove my 92 Ford ranger from Alberta, Canada with hopes of discovering new opportunities. Jeff and I worked together for Parks and Recreation of our town. We were as low on the hierarchical system as you could get, and we were there for far too long. We both had aspirations, talents, and dreams beyond that mindless, unsatisfying labor that we pushed through for nearly three years of our lives. There were old men in their forties and fifties who had been working their for decades, still at the bottom of the hierarchy, and everyday they shared their desires for a new life. We were both still in our twenties, barely, free of debt, and we were single. Jeff had broken up with his girlfriend about four months before I was dumped by Julie. In a way, that trip was therapeutic for both of us. It was through Jeff’s influence that we ended up in California.