This is a new story I wrote tonight called Starving to Death.

It’s hot. I should have worn sunscreen. I recently started riding my bike around town, in a large circle back to the park to read. Gets me some much needed exercise. There’s a swing by the lake that I really like. The sky is always so blue here. I’m sitting in my swing staring at this giant turtle sitting on a log between three crane looking birds. I don’t know anything about animals. They’re white birds with long necks. Probably good fishermen. Fisherbirds. I don’t know. But there’s this turtle just sitting there, and the birds seem to think it belongs, and it seems to think it belongs, so somehow it belongs. None of the animals are acting like it’s their log. I can’t tell which was there first, though I’d imagine it was the turtle, since they don’t move very fast.
A family on bikes rode by a few minutes ago and pointed this out to me. Well, they pointed it out to each other, but I was right there so I heard and took notice. The little kid on his tiny bike rode right in front of me like I wasn’t even there. He just stood there on his bike not five feet from me and had a conversation with his parents. This struck me as odd, since his parents were behind me, on the other side of the path. I guess it’s just weird to be treated like you don’t exist.
Recently a female friend told me my wardrobe is boring. And that I don’t have enough self-confidence, and that makes me so very unattractive. So in a sense, I guess, looking at my gray shirt and jean shorts, I don’t really exist. I mean, of course I do, but what do I have to distinguish myself from everyone else? Nothing. In that sense, I don’t exist. I be. But I don’t really exist.
My knees are red. The only part of my body that gets any sun. I’m going to have funny sunglasses tan. For some reason I thought that if I was riding my bike I wouldn’t get sunburnt, so I neglected to put on sunscreen. Like if I was moving, the sun’s rays wouldn’t hit me. Now that I have red knees, I see the folly in my thinking. I pull my shorts legs up to my underwear, exposing my white upper legs, hoping maybe I can get them tan. Like someone’s going to see me naked sometime soon. Ha. Every time someone walks or rides by I pull my shorts back down and cover up my skin. I don’t want to be seen tanning in public. Or I’m ashamed of my body. My legs are white as snow, and hairy. It’s very unattractive. Of course, if I’d just leave them out they’d be tan and less scary. Meh.
There was a woman in the other swing, maybe 40 feet away, when I came over here. Alone, maybe in her 50’s, wearing a long skirt that goes almost to her ankles, a light jacket, and a scarf or handkerchief or whatever it’s called over her head. She must be hot. I look over at the swing now and she’s not there. She’s moved down to the edge of the lake. She’s standing there looking out into the water all alone and it’s beautiful. It’s 90 degrees out today and here’s this woman all alone, dressed for autumn, standing by the edge of the lake. A poet would have a field day with this. It’s very windy and the wind caresses her skirt and her handkerchief.
I realize I’m not getting much reading done. But the wind is blowing the pages out from underneath my fingers so I have to keep turning back to the page. The wind is also blowing my gray t-shirt around on my back, and it feels good, like a back scratcher or a massage. So you take the good with the bad. It’s blowing hard enough to rock me gently on the swing. All in all I am enjoying my day, despite the fact that I don’t exist and my knees are sunburnt and my bottled water is warm and gross.
Every so often a girl will run or walk by, my age, and I want her to stop and sit and talk with me. I am lonely. I have no problem admitting this. The problem lies in becoming not lonely anymore. My mom told me that I should go to the park and read, and I’d meet a girl. Problem is, Mom, nobody’s going to stop and sit and bother some guy who’s reading on a swing. I look up each time and I smile, but behind the sunglasses I can't even tell if they see me. Plus, what’s a girl like these going to want with a nobody kind of guy like me?
It’s not just the girls I look up and smile at. I smile at kids and dogs and couples. I smile in an attempt to get people to smile back at me. Two old men walk by and say hello. I smile big and ask how they’re doing. They walk slowly past without responding. Human contact. I win. Old men are about the opposite of the ideal crowd I’m trying to get to talk to me, but hey, I’ll take it.
I read a while before the wind picks back up and makes it impossible. I look up and the woman is walking slowly up the hill back to her swing. Her swing is lower to the ground than mine and it looks like she’s kneeling in prayer when she sits down. My eyes aren’t great, and she’s far away, but she looks pretty. She’s 30 years older than me at least, I’m not physically attracted to her, but spiritually she looks beautiful. I can’t put my finger on it. She swings gently, pushing herself with her foot, staring out at the lake. She never turns her head. The people that pass me silently pass her silently and she doesn’t seem to notice. Her very existence on that swing makes me glad to be here. I feel connected to her, even though I’m fairly certain she doesn’t know I’m here.
I wonder who she is and how she came to be here. She’s not reading or anything. Is her husband at work? Is he dead? Recently dead? Is she here for the calming effect of the sun reflecting off the water as the wind creates waves over the surface of the lake? What is she thinking about? Who is she? Did she wake up today and decide she was going to come to the park and just sit? Is there something strange about that? It seems like in today’s world everyone should have something to do. I’m here to read. The girls are here to exercise. This woman is just here to be here. There’s something terribly sad and wonderful and out of place about that and it makes me feel lighter on the inside.
Another blond in short shorts and a skimpy top runs by me and I find myself wishing she would stop and talk. Just talk. Tell me that I’m alive. Show me that people notice me. I notice people. I want people to notice me but they never do. I smile, she runs by, eyes obscured by sunglasses. I try to remember if she’s run by before. Maybe she’s doing laps. Or maybe this was a new one. Why are all these girls blond? They’re all blond and tan and in great shape and they have no distinguishing features whatsoever. They spend their days getting hit on by losers like me, losers with a little more confidence that allows them to talk to the girls. They go out at night and drink and flirt and get guys to buy them drinks, and they go to the bathroom in groups, and their favorite quote is “Live for the nights we’ll never remember with the friends we’ll never forget” and they wear pink pants when they’re not out here running and really when it comes down to it it doesn’t matter if this is a different girl or the same girl running laps, because she has nothing to differentiate herself from thousands upon thousands of other college girls. She doesn’t exist anymore than I don’t exist.
This woman on the swing with her dress and her handkerchief, she exists, though nobody besides me seems to notice. I feel a longing to go over and sit with her and listen to her talk about herself, her life story, why she’s here today, how she can stand the heat dressed like that. I want to but I know I can’t. I can’t because I’m shy. I can’t because I have nothing to say to a woman of her age. I can’t because I don’t want to ruin the illusion I’ve built up in my mind.
I want to be in love but my knees are sunburnt and all my shirts are gray and my friend says I dress like a middle-aged man, and I can’t be loved because of all these things. I want to go lay my head in this woman’s lap and have her coo me to sleep stroking my head. She is right now the embodiment of everything good in this world.
I can’t see her face.
I realize I’m starving to death.
I need to read. The wind dies down for a moment and I try, but I find it impossible to concentrate. I’m scared that one time I’ll look up and she’ll be gone. I know she can’t stay here forever. The sky is blue and the lake is pretty. The ducks swim in a line, largest in front, smallest in back. Sometimes they quack and I smile. It’s such a funny sound. A little girl in a pink dress who must have just started walking waddles by behind her mother, who is talking on a cell phone about some kind of business. I want to talk to the girl, to ask her to sit down and tell me all about her life. I want to experience things from a new perspective. But I can’t do that because the mom would yell rape and it’s not right for a guy my age to be talking to a little girl like that. Even if it’s completely innocent. Even if I just want to learn from her. The three birds are still on the log with the turtle and I wonder if they’re just statues. Just then one of the birds flies off without saying goodbye. They’re not statues. Or maybe the others are, and this one bird just thought they were real, so he flew down and landed on the log, then hung out for a while before he realized they were statues, and now he flew off again because statues aren’t good conversation.
I turn again to look, and the woman is standing up. I know she’s leaving. I feel like a part of me is dying. I really feel like we’ve connected during our short time together. I want to walk over to her and tell her it’s been an honor and a privilege sharing this side of the lake with her, but I don’t want to scare her. She never looks at me. She never saw me. I watch her walk down the hill and out of sight. Whatever she was hoping to accomplish here in the swing by the lake, I guess she finished.
Things seem different once she’s gone. I settle down and start reading, pulling my shorts legs up to expose my pasty skin when nobody is around, pulling them back down when I hear someone approaching. My knees are very red. I imagine the top of my head is burnt too. I should really invest in a hat. Maybe a Braves cap. Maybe a floppy fisherman’s hat. I know I’m going to have funny sunglasses tan lines when I get home. I finish what I wanted to read. A woman who is going bald with badly dyed red hair is walking a dog that looks strangely like her as I stand up. I put my stuff away, drink the rest of my terrible hot bottled water, get on my bike and ride off. I will come back here every day I have the chance and I hope I never see the woman in the long skirt and handkerchief covering her head again.