Here I Am

By Zach Winters

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: May 19, 2010
• ISBN: 9781450077927

Zach Winters

Zach Winters is twenty-three years old and currently lives in Venice, California.

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Copyright © 2010 by Zach Winters.

Library of Congress Control Number                        2010906647

ISBN:                      Softcover                              978-1-4500-7791-0

                                Ebook                                   978-1-4500-7792-7

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

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80091

I dedicate this to everyone who reads it.

It is a reflection of my soul. I fear the portrait it might paint of me,

but I also know that nobody should ever fear such a thing.

I thank my muse and my family.

When a young man tells the orchestrator of the universe that he wishes to dwell in a cave for an amount of time and study what it means to be alive, to be man, and to live a rich life, fully loving himself and letting himself be loved, he might not realize that could mean a cobwebbed garage with wooden rafters in Los Angeles, California, but there you have it.

When each of us is ready, the world will unveil itself. You mustn’t worry about when; eternity is a concept we hold too little comprehension for, and this process spans and expands lifetimes.

Now that I understand eternity, I can better appreciate the value of time.

Everything might be an illusion.

I support your beliefs, whatever those beliefs might be, but I hope you’ll at least agree with me that for whatever reason, our origin is still a mystery, or better worded, a secret.

Whatever you call me, it appears as though I designed this billions of years ago, if not more, and yet here I am now, witnessing my own creation.

It doesn’t matter; all my thoughts have been escalating to this point.

Here I am.

*     *     *

She gave me Charles Dickens’s Bleak House to read two winters ago while we were both home, visiting our folks. I really wanted to see her that Christmas. I had wanted to see her for quite a long time. Our monthly letters to each other were no longer enough for my burning heart. I knew the right timing was not present, and that it might not be for, if not at least a short time, many years still to come. Nonetheless, my objective was to see her and inform her that I liked her, that’s all. I didn’t want to tell her that I was madly in love with her, even though I may have been, I just wanted to express my interest. I wanted to make sure she was aware how I felt. I knew too well that one does not manifest anything by sitting on his tongue.

It was the most awkward encounter to say the least. I’m perfectly all right with awkwardness. I’ve been the product of inelegance ever since I started talking, but it was more than awkwardness, it was the way she looked at me. She looked upon me with eyes that were maternal, caring, and concerned, but they were almost apologetic like she felt sorry for me. I think she genuinely felt sorry that I was so lost in life, sorry that I struggled with things that came easily to her, and worst of all, I think she was sorry that I liked her.

I wasn’t out to prove anything to her or anyone else for that matter, I just wanted to be real. I was on my quest to seek the realm of the real, the honest, and the undeniable. I recognized that every lie one tells is only being told to themselves. Even Jesus often started or ended his statements with this line: I tell you the truth. Whether you like Jesus or not, he’s got higher PR success than anyone else in history. The truth can get tricky sometimes, but still it exists, even if as only a concept. Either way, upon reaching deeper levels of existence, one will always find that truth is vital, de facto; actual. It is the only certainty in a world of illusions, and it is the only thing that is indisputable in the realm of reality. I was convinced that if this girl was ever going to like me, it would be for nothing shy of my real self, my naked soul.

I remember sitting there in her mom’s kitchen, the tea kettle whistled, and her cat purred and weaved in and out between my stockinged feet. The cat walked with much the same air as her lovely owner possessed. I’m beautiful and you know it. You can pet me, but only for a minute, then I’m going to lie in front of you and lick myself. I don’t really care for cats personally, a little too on the snobby side for my liking. I looked as scroungy and unkempt as ever that day, with my beanie cap and scraggly beard, my jeans with holes in the knees, and I had a tattered hand-knitted scarf around my neck, a present made for me by a previous girlfriend. She, of course, looked so exquisite, so dainty, and flawless. She was petite in every way. Her head was perfectly sized in relation to her body, and her body perfectly sized in relation to her head. She had expressive eyebrows that rose wildly with excitement and frowned way down low whenever she was frustrated or intensely focused. She had a laugh that leapt out from deep inside of her, causing her whole head to tilt backward. I loved her laugh. She got such a kick out of life, and it was made obvious to the world whenever this burst of laughter jumped out of her. She had beautiful light brown hair that outlined her fragile face, and the elegant dresses she wore were sewn with small ruffles and frills that reminded me ever so much of a past Victorian life. She was a perfect package, and she was packaged up perfectly right down to the bow around her waist. It was a Sunday, and she’s Catholic, so she had been to service earlier that morning. This was now much further in the afternoon, but apparently, she had decided not to change upon my arrival.

She had her MacBook open to her Facebook and was busy pouring us tea and showing me all the marvelous places she had traveled during college and her time studying abroad. The solemn sites in Scotland, the lush rolling hills of Ireland with half-standing castles on green hilltops. Gaudy cathedrals underneath even more pretentious rain-clouded skies. She took many pictures of cathedrals, and the photographs had an upward prospective that lit the towering summits of the church pillars with a portentous appeal. It always puzzled me how immaculately they designed these sanctuaries and the amount of currency it would require to erect such buildings so that the poor and lost could stumble in hungry, stay in awe, and leave hungry still. As it was, at the bottom corner of each photograph was a partial of her head, the result when one snaps a picture of themselves, just the nose up or half an eye and half a nostril, and this made me laugh. She asked what I was laughing at, and I didn’t wish to offend her by commenting on the comical value I saw in the ironies of everything, nor the silliness of the expressions her face made straining to stay in frame, so instead, I said simply, I’m just laughing at something else. What a stupid thing to say that was. Gosh, I felt so shy around her, but she went on without notice, clicking next and prepping each photo with a backstory as before.

She’d been all around the world. She had nine hundred pictures on her Facebook. Nine hundred pictures! Can you believe that? Better yet, she had nine hundred friends! I had around eighty on mine. What a joke I was. I didn’t feel envy toward her nor the numerous wonderful things she had done with her life. No, not envy in the smallest. What I felt was pride. I was proud of myself that she was my friend at all. I was proud that I had attracted such a person to the current center of my universe.

Just then, as her iTunes had been shuffling songs and playing her library at random, a song of mine came on the speakers. It was a song I had burned on a CD for her some time long ago in the past; I could tell by her face that it was unexpected. She cocked her head a little and looked at me across the table. It was an interesting moment, but it was only brief before she glanced back to the computer and clicked to the next song in somewhat an abrupt manner. She started to pick up where she left off, but she was interrupted again when her mother arrived home from work and came in through the back kitchen door. Surprised, as I had never met her mother before, I stood and shook hands politely. Her mother was an attractive lady but not intimidating. She had gray hair and soft eyes. She had the graceful appeal of a grade school teacher, one who wants you to learn but knows that often means being strict to get you to do so. A permanent crease in her cheeks showed me a lifetime of stern looks that carried divine concern inside them. Her mother busied herself in the kitchen, and the three of us made small talk. After take-cares and nice-to-meet-yous, the mother retired to her bedroom. She finished showing me her Facebook pictures and asked if I had anything to share, so I pulled