Union Utopia

Two people are meeting for the first time. They are talking awkwardly. He's been watching across the terrace for almost an hour. Drawn to her for the book she's reading and her little round glasses. He's wearing athletic socks and sandals. His skin is evenly and naturally tanned and his hair shaven close to his head He has the little goatee and the sharp dark eyes of an equator intellectual. And yet he fidgets terribly when he compliments her.

Two people are saying good-bye for the last time. They are hugging and smiling and wishing each other well. Numbers have been exchanged. They'll call once they are there, and settled in.... they say.

But they never do. Four years of friendship fades in to fond memories with a sliver of guilt.

Someone in the crowd is falling headlong in to unrequited love.

He brushed by her in the line for ice cream. She isn't wearing perfume, but her dark skin smelled like the lilacs beneath the window of his childhood bedroom. He's only had two honest to goodness girlfriends in his life. He's from a small town, all corn fed, farm fit, and drunk on the city. He didn't know that he could fall for a girl with skin so dark. He'd never thought about it. He'd never ruled it out, but he'd never thought about it either. And yet, as he watched her walk away, her hips swaying beneath a backless summer dress splashed with reds and blacks and yellows, his "union utopia" ice cream dripping and forgotten onto his fingers, he lost his heart to her.

There is a girl out there somewhere - her dark hair piled on top of her head - a few loose curls have accidentally fallen to perfectly frame her face. She's wearing her favorite shirt - the one that makes her feel beautiful without looking trashy. And for the first time in her life she is feeling a dark hatred that burns to hot she forgets to feel the pain.

She's deep under the shadow of the big oak tree. You'd miss her if you weren't looking for her. She's looking out across the terrace. Her eyes don't burn. They are flat. - they aren't kissing, they aren't even touching. But he's leaning towards her, nodding in time to her every word while she twirls a blond strand of hair and dangles her high heeled show from her foot.

There's a young girl, she's maybe 11 or 12, sitting at a table by herself. She's reading "How to Survive Middle School" though she hasn't turned a page in 10 minutes. She has her own table, her own soda, her own bag or Dorritos, her back pack on the table top, her cell phone left out and carefully positioned so that it is visible even though it never rings. She's trying very hard not to glance at her parents two tables over.

A couple in their 40s holds hands, squeezing at the same moment without speaking a word as they both look at the steps to the theater.

A tall man in dreadlocks and headphones nods his head and wonders where he'll sleep tonight.

A girl smiles and waves and she approaches a group of sorta-friends, determined not to be alone tonight.

A boy, full of confidence after his first year of college, turns up the collar on his shirt and walks like he's in a movie.

A man in his middles.... sits in the shade and scribbles furiously in his journal. Like a child with his hand in a stream trying to touch everything that floats past.