DRIFTER
Mel Waldman
The snow drifted to earth and landed on the street lamp. He didn’t see the snow for he was inside, watching the man murder the woman.
“What really happened?”
“The boy saw him snuff out her life.”
“But he didn’t kill the boy?”
“He didn’t see the boy.”
“What happened to the man?”
“Nothing.”
“And the boy?”
“He grew up.”
“Did he...?”
“There are different versions.”
“I like your art work.”
“Thanks.”
“What’s the medium?”
“Acrylics.”
“I never mastered this medium. You’re quite gifted.”
“Thanks.”
“Did you ever work ‘big’?”
“No. All my pieces are small. Can’t do a large piece. My art work is like my life. I’m a drifter. Can’t stay with anything too long.”
“A genuine drifter?”
“I suppose so.”
“So what are you running from?”
“Can’t remember. Don’t wanna remember.”
“What happened.”
“A long journey into Hell buried in the snow.”
“What could be that bad?”
“Life! People. And the things they do.”
“You ever think of killing yourself?”
“No.”
“Ever think of killing someone else?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you?”
“Can’t recall. It mighta happened. Good probability.”
Sometimes he goes into a movie theater and projects his life onto the screen. Or late at night, he drifts into phantasmagoria and watches the old primal scene again and again until he wakes up or drifts into another dream and another reality where it begins again or ends once more but really, it never ends for he must forget or keep drifting.
At midnight, he looks in the mirror. He does not see the boy. Never saw the boy. Only the old man who lives inside the mirror. And the woman. He sees them, although the room is pitch-black and the mirror is imaginary. In a split second, he watches the man murder the woman. And in a split second, he forgets.
He sits in the center of the darkness and grins sardonically at them. Across a small infinity, he paints in human red-not in acrylics. And suddenly, the little painting of Death disappears too. The fragile self who remembers instantly forgets. And he slips off to another place or time or nearby, where the snow drifts to earth and lands on a street lamp, waiting for a drifter to pass by, stop, and watch, and by seeing, prove its existence. The snow covers the street lamp. Covers the earth. Waits.
