My Walk

I have no purpose in going for a walk; I have no purpose in staying home. I should be studying for my math test on Tuesday, or perhaps I should be preparing for my audition for band in two days...No I shall go for a walk.

Do I turn left or right? If I go right I take a stroll around the block I walk around a church that I have never been inside...no that won't do. If I go left I journey back to campus where I have already spent several hours today...Yes that is where I shall go.

It is quiet. It is evening, just before the sun sets. Campus is virtually empty. I walk by a girl who is sitting on the steps waiting for 'him' to arrive. We exchange polite smiles and I am on my way. I have no preference where my feet take me. I see two more people studying furtively, trying to eek out every last bit of light to study by. I pass by unnoticed. My feet turn once more to the left and now I stand in front of the Humanities building. I smile and know exactly why my feet led me here. On the fourth floor of the Humanities building is an abstract painting. I have stood there before gazing at its colors, its shapes and patterns. I have tried before to understand its purpose; the reason each brushstroke fell in its exact spot on the canvas. But today, I simply appreciate its wonder. My musings are interrupted by a professor who thinks it odd that a student wearing a lavender dress shirt, blue argyle tie, black vest, nerd glasses, and converses; who has the audacity to be sporting a faux-hawk while toting in hand Les Miserables and a journal has been standing in the same spot staring at the same painting for nearly ten minutes. My time here is spent and I am the servant to my feet once again.

My feet take me now right and I know there are only two places they want to go, but which is first...Of course, we are going in the Performing Arts building. My feet take me not to the elevator, but up the stairs until I am on the third floor. I know why I am here; I hope it is still unlocked. It is. I am outside again this time on the patio that provides a most stunning view of city, the lake beyond, and finally closes where the sun dips behind the mountains setting the sky aflame. It is an inspiring scene. Does anyone else do this? I wonder. I see the people below rushing to get to their cars. Hurrying to the next task of the day. I want to cry out to them to stop and look at the beauty of it all. Bring them up to where I am and show them a different perspective, a more grand perspective. Alas, I stay silent. I sit on the bench and my eyes catch a glimpse of a folded paper and pen. I open the paper and of course there is a music scrawled upon it, Edelweiss.

Blossom of snow may you bloom and grow
Bloom and grow forever.
Edelweiss, Edelweiss
Bless my homeland forever.

My feet are on the move again. This time down the sidewalk to the Fine Arts building. I have been here many times, but at this time of day all the galleries would be closed. But my feet march in that direction relentlessly. I walk in and the cleaning crew is going about their nightly routine. I make my way to the elevator and push the button labeled three. I have never been to this part of the building before. All white walls and rooms that are darkened; is this still the Fine Arts building or did I step into a mental hospital? I find my way soon enough and once more I am outdoors on a patio. There is only one chair. A chair without a back, a front or sides; only a seat. I sat hesitantly facing one direction then changed to another and another and another. I was never quite comfortable where I was facing. I finally settled on looking directly at the building I had just walked out. A man passes he doesn't see me. He passes once more and pays me no mind. My feet are all too anxious to leave this spot.

I start back home and realize there is one more stop I will be making this evening. The duck pond. I step down the stairs listening water falling on top of water and observe that I am intruding upon a private setting. Over in the far corner sit two lovers; feet dangling into the pond and hands clasped tightly, eyes locked on one another and hearts becoming one. I smile. I know. I withdraw until I am unseen by them and sit and am swept away by the sound of the fountain. Water shooting into the air thirty feet then succumbing to gravity and colliding back into the pond . I try and follow a single drop from its birth to death. I can't do it. I walk back home in silence.

I begin to type.