ran 3.3 miles
chapter1
Jonas Martin Cassidy stood at the door of 216 Fifth Street like a lone green leaf on a half-dead tree in the middle of red and yellow autumn. The air outside was cold and thick with moisture. The sun was barely visible and a damp fog clung to Jonas like a wad of chewed gum atop a wayward ant on a strip of concrete.
Stiff blades of grass helpless under torn curtains of shade splintered longingly holding for light. Thin crystal formations of ice webbed along the surfaces of puddles unable to fully freeze or slightly defrost. Every one of Jonas’ breaths hung heavily before his face like a thought he could put in his pocket or a dream he could store in a jar and save for later.
The bitter October breeze hardly flustered his core or the dark abrasive hair on his head. Spikey tufts, like elongated rose thorns, pierced over his searching brown eyes. His beard was filling out not by choice or indecision. His shoes were thrashed and falling apart, soles worn through like forlorn hope. His jeans were frayed at the hems, scuffed all over with work and sweat, and a single hole drew attention on top of his right front pocket. His shirt was plain, white, stained and old. Equal in repute was his moderately insulated navy blue coat with a faded and unintelligible monogram over the left breast. A backpack with unreliable zippers, numerous tears, and a nearly ripped shoulder strap was his only accessory.
Save for a dog-eared curled up copy of poems written by an unknown poet in his back pocket, Jonas had nothing worth robbing or giving. To show for, to perverse by, to prove with and to lie about, he had only a scantily stitched book of unknown poems and a poorly bound backpack filled with seemingly useless objects.
The door before him was peeling away, splintering at the top and bottom like cuticles and hangnails run-a-muck on an unkempt set of fingers and toes. Odd knots in the ruined wood panels were at the same time swelled and shrunken forming an indifference of undulating paisley patterns. The oaken tangles reminded him of scraped knees and busted knuckles on a fallen man who had fought for something important but lost.
Jonas stood reluctantly, yet dignified, at the door of 216 Fifth Street like a rhetorical question to an obvious answer. There was little to say of Jonas much like there was little to say of a stock investment on a day-to-day basis. He moved in one direction or another every twenty-four hours, but nothing he did seemed worthwhile of evaluation until it had failed or succeeded a few decades later. His physical appearance paled in comparison to the details of a white washed wall and he was as inconspicuous as a stop sign at three o’ clock in the morning in a small town. But he had ideas and beliefs that were as thought provoking as they were deemed inconceivable.
Jonas drew from pride an irreverent faith in religion and cultivated the broad idea that everything just might be wrong. He earnestly slacked in every fruitless job he was paid for because he knew they did not matter like the empty promises of a terrified man with a gun pressed to his bruising temple.
He was unmotivated to live in such a frightening silence of servitude in a country that had made opportunity and ambition punishable among its people. Nor was he satisfied with pretending he did not remember the way things once were, like so many others. He refused to sit idly by and so his path was a lone one. It was taking the risks his heart and mind desired and confronting the possible consequences of his actions that animated Jonas. It was his hubris pride that elucidated an unquestionable belief and understanding that he needed absolutely no one.
1,462.3 miles to go.
Stiff blades of grass helpless under torn curtains of shade splintered longingly holding for light. Thin crystal formations of ice webbed along the surfaces of puddles unable to fully freeze or slightly defrost. Every one of Jonas’ breaths hung heavily before his face like a thought he could put in his pocket or a dream he could store in a jar and save for later.
The bitter October breeze hardly flustered his core or the dark abrasive hair on his head. Spikey tufts, like elongated rose thorns, pierced over his searching brown eyes. His beard was filling out not by choice or indecision. His shoes were thrashed and falling apart, soles worn through like forlorn hope. His jeans were frayed at the hems, scuffed all over with work and sweat, and a single hole drew attention on top of his right front pocket. His shirt was plain, white, stained and old. Equal in repute was his moderately insulated navy blue coat with a faded and unintelligible monogram over the left breast. A backpack with unreliable zippers, numerous tears, and a nearly ripped shoulder strap was his only accessory.
Save for a dog-eared curled up copy of poems written by an unknown poet in his back pocket, Jonas had nothing worth robbing or giving. To show for, to perverse by, to prove with and to lie about, he had only a scantily stitched book of unknown poems and a poorly bound backpack filled with seemingly useless objects.
The door before him was peeling away, splintering at the top and bottom like cuticles and hangnails run-a-muck on an unkempt set of fingers and toes. Odd knots in the ruined wood panels were at the same time swelled and shrunken forming an indifference of undulating paisley patterns. The oaken tangles reminded him of scraped knees and busted knuckles on a fallen man who had fought for something important but lost.
Jonas stood reluctantly, yet dignified, at the door of 216 Fifth Street like a rhetorical question to an obvious answer. There was little to say of Jonas much like there was little to say of a stock investment on a day-to-day basis. He moved in one direction or another every twenty-four hours, but nothing he did seemed worthwhile of evaluation until it had failed or succeeded a few decades later. His physical appearance paled in comparison to the details of a white washed wall and he was as inconspicuous as a stop sign at three o’ clock in the morning in a small town. But he had ideas and beliefs that were as thought provoking as they were deemed inconceivable.
Jonas drew from pride an irreverent faith in religion and cultivated the broad idea that everything just might be wrong. He earnestly slacked in every fruitless job he was paid for because he knew they did not matter like the empty promises of a terrified man with a gun pressed to his bruising temple.
He was unmotivated to live in such a frightening silence of servitude in a country that had made opportunity and ambition punishable among its people. Nor was he satisfied with pretending he did not remember the way things once were, like so many others. He refused to sit idly by and so his path was a lone one. It was taking the risks his heart and mind desired and confronting the possible consequences of his actions that animated Jonas. It was his hubris pride that elucidated an unquestionable belief and understanding that he needed absolutely no one.
1,462.3 miles to go.
