The Prologue by Glen Bullock

A short story

The Prologue

Glen Bullock

I wasn’t sure if it was just a phase, or if this was adulthood. You know. You wake up, eat, go to work. Maybe exercise or something, but otherwise it was the same. That was something they didn’t teach you in school. That adulthood was just the same thing over and over. Where the most exciting part of your day was getting groceries. Anyway, I’d finally realized it. I was in it. 

I watched people talk to their dogs in these high pitched voices. Saw people filming themselves drinking a coffee. Every time I went to dinner it felt like we were having the same conversation. Your job. How was your job? Are you dating? Or otherwise talking about something happening on the other side of the world. Regurgitating information they read somewhere. I told myself I needed to move. It was the city. I needed to be in a place that was going to inspire me. Move me. That’s what I kept writing down. Move me! But I hadn’t done anything about it. It was the summer, and the last thing I wanted to do was sit at home. So after work I found myself biking around the city aimlessly. Rolling up and down the streets, hoping to run into someone. Hoping for any sort of excitement. 

I wasn’t sure if it made any sense, but when I thought about my life, about this time right now, this wasn’t my life. This was just the first part. A prologue. And there was going to be a next part. A point sometime in the future when I’d figure out what I was passionate about, and fall in love, and move to a new city. I was sure of it. I just hoped it would happen sooner than later. Then I’d wonder if you could spend your whole life thinking that way. 

I biked past a line of people outside of a shelter, waiting for food. Past a Jamaican restaurant, then an Indian one. Signs for construction everywhere. It felt like they all blended together. The buildings. The days. Then I felt a buzz in my pocket. 

“Hey! What’re you doing tomorrow?” It was my friend Jaz. “There’s a BBQ at the community centre. You should come!” Smiley face.

–

When I got there, they had this big speaker set-up outside, blasting music. The barbeque was already going. Hamburgers, hotdogs. I wasn’t sure why Jaz told me to come. She was too busy working to hang out. So I spent the first little bit just standing around awkwardly. 

I noticed someone sitting behind a folding table, handing out tickets. The kind you buy at a raffle, or a fair. I recognized someone from school but didn't say hi. There were people standing around and talking. Families. After my second hamburger I decided to sit down at a picnic table with the little kids. 

They’d put down a big blue tarp, and had trays of paint, and paintbrushes, and plastic cups full of water. The kids were all drawing what you’d expect. Superheroes, and basketballs, and things impossible to make out. I tried to remember the last time I’d painted something.  

When I sat down, I felt a tap on my shoulder. A little boy with his front teeth missing asked if he could have another piece of paper. At the other end of the table I could see that he’d covered his entire page in green paint. Used too much water. Paint was dripping off the paper onto the tarp. 

“What is it?” I asked.

He stared at me, blank-faced. 

I looked around for my friend. Then I spotted a pile of blank pages, so I grabbed one and handed it to him.

The girl sitting across from me was looking down at her page. 

“What’re you going to draw?” I asked.

She shrugged. 

“Well what were you thinking?”

“Maybe some grass. Or a tree. And a sunset.”

“That’s a good idea.”

“But I don’t know how to draw a sunset,” she looked up. “What colour is a sunset?”

Huh. That was a good question. My first instinct was to say that it was a lot of colours. Red, or orange, or pink. But I realized that wasn’t very helpful. I guess it depended on where it was in the sky. If there were clouds. I sat there trying to picture what it looked like, when I felt another tap on my shoulder. 

It was no teeth again. He wanted more paper. 

“You finished another one?”

He nodded.

I looked down the table and saw another page covered in green. Green spilling onto the ground. His hands covered in green paint. Then I looked at my shirt. Bad day to wear white. 

–

I hopped on my bike and started pedaling. By that point I knew where all the potholes were without looking. I was pedaling sitting upright with my hands off the handlebars, going as slowly as I could while still balancing. 

I smiled thinking about the boy. It was just a shirt. Maybe I’d start painting and it could be my uniform. 

At the intersection I watched as a group of people got off the bus. Grocery bags and pizza boxes. There was this old man with a cane standing at the corner asking for change. A woman with dyed hair was sitting on the bench, smoking a cigarette. I’d seen her before. We made eye contact. Nodded. You always see the same people. Then the light turned. 

I rode ahead of the bus and looked up, and there it was. The sun. Hovering just over the buildings in front of me. I had to hold one hand up to cover my eyes, and I started biking towards it. I was glancing at the road, then back up to the sky. Road, sky. Then all of a sudden it disappeared behind a building.

I sped up. I was trying to get to the end of the street where there was an opening. There it was, poking out in the sky, then it was gone again. I turned down another street and started pedaling faster. It was setting quickly. It would peek out for a few seconds, in between trees or buildings, and then it would disappear. I thought I needed to find another East-West street. Or was it a North-South street? 

I was up out of my seat now, pumping my legs, not paying attention to anything else around me. I’d already passed my street. I passed other bikers, weaved around pedestrians standing in the bike lane. Someone parked their car up ahead and was opening their door, so I had to swerve out into the middle of the road to get out of the way, and now I was flying, biking full speed, air filling the back of my shirt. 

There it was. Straight out in front of me. Scorching. Spilling across the horizon, descending over the city. I knew it would disappear in a few minutes, but I didn’t care. I was biking as fast as I could, pedaling, pumping my legs trying to catch it.