Week 7 Prompt, 1 of 3

34. Check out Carolyn See Locator of Lost Persons --those short, very evocative, mysterious, and poetic grafs. Try a few of those!

(5 Lost Persons)

You came after the roommate from hell.  You know the one - she would have the t.v., the radio, and her AOL instant messenger going at the same time, while she talked to her boyfriend.  God how I loathed her.  You were such a breath of fresh air, Angela; you couldn't have been any more opposite.  We were "nap buddies", always inspiring the other to take a nap as well.  We shared so many laughs because of our randomness.  "It ain't no thang but a chicken wing."  I still draw pictures of the invisible hobgoblin and think of you.  Yes, your smile is definitely what I remember about you the most.  You were my roommate for the shortest time compared to all the others, but it's you whom I remember best.

I can't believe it's been four years now since we last spoke.  I wonder how you are.  I wonder if you still live in the same state.  Did your game store career take off?  I think it might have.  You were always so successful at whatever you set your mind to.  Do you still find the same things funny that we used to laugh at?  I suspect we are both much more serious now than we were in college.  Were we ever really so similar though?  That knowledge seems so faded and skewed now.  The last thing I said to you was that I didn't know why I couldn't be friends with you any more, but I just couldn't be.  I understand that answer now.

I wish I could have gotten to know you better.  I don't really believe that people of very different ages can't truly be friends.  That's hogwash.  But I know that it affects the friendship; that different wisdom, those different experiences.  Maybe we could have connected more if we were closer in age.  I wonder what you were like when you were a young man?  Smiling more, I think.  Before the stroke, before the war.  I remember you told me about the donkey that you loved, how it and everything else was gone after you came up out of the cellar, after the bombing. I think you carried that sadness, always.  I'll finish that wooden loon for you someday, like I promised.

You're lost in the recesses of my mind.  I know you, I am you, but yet I am not.  Who was I when I was young?  I would love to talk to you, you and I, I and I, one older, one younger.  I think I would understand so much more, if I could do that.  I think you would find some comfort in a big, warm person who loved you wholeheartedly.  I would find comfort seeing how strong a heart can grow from such a frail one.  I know you though.  You would waste most of our precious time together asking "who do I marry?"  "What's my future job?"  "How much money will I have?"  But I suppose I'll waste your time too.  "Don't let this bother you."  "Don't waste your money on that."  "Take this class in college."  I know in the end we'd both give each other a big hug goodbye.

I knew you for such a short time, just a week.  But your presence made such an impact on me.  First week in New Zealand, stressed and scared about what the coming year would bring.  You were there with me in the ER, when I was suddenly, violently sick.  You brushed hair from my forehead so sweetly, even though you barely knew me.  I remember walking on the island, laughing about the tour and the birds with you.  You had your mouth opened wide and one almost pooped in it.  We were the only two who laughed hysterically when the tour guide said pukeko were an incestuous species; everyone stared at us.  I miss our brief, deep conversations.  Are you still obsessed with that man?  How strange, only knowing you one week and yet I still think of you.  You must impact many people that way, I think.