Wake Up!
‘Wake Up!’ by Clara Kornelis (@_cl6ra_)
A few days ago I was sat in a park—a real busy one where all the noise eats itself and turns into one fat mass. I was sitting in this busy park, trying to pick little pieces from the mess of sound when a man biked by and the whirr of his wheels smoothed everything over. I couldn’t even finish eavesdropping on the mother beside me scolding her son because it was as if someone had walked right up to me and breathed hot on my glasses, and suddenly everything blurred and I dropped all my tweezers and scalpels while the park reformed itself into one. So I’m sitting on this bench, my bench where I sit, trying to focus back on what that mother was saying to her son about what’s right and wrong when tying your shoes, when two girls walk right over to the far side of my bench, zip open stained-bottom backpacks, and begin to lay blankets out across the grass. Upon these blankets they dump piles and piles of clothing, some of which they pick out and fold, but most they leave forming hills and valleys across the ground. Against the leg of my bench they rest a cardboard sign with baby blue lettering that reads
BROKE GIRLS OFF TO COLLEGE
buy our clothes!
And the girls stand up and take their places behind the blankets, yelling variations of the slogan until their yelling overtakes the entire park and it’s as if someone has walked right up to me and kicked me hard in the face and all I can feel is ringing and hot, and if the girls had noticed me I can’t imagine what they must have thought I was thinking as I stared from my bench to them. But thank God they’d quiet down when someone came over. They’d smile wide and start chatting them up, telling them about how excited they were to move to a cute little East Coast town and how much they used to love that shirt, and wouldn’t you just look great in it now, yes I think that color really suits you, honest.
Well, then I start to hear the wheels of that man's bike coming back around again and I’ve got a real handle on the sound of the fountain that I’m not trying to lose, so I’m staring forward hard, watching the water, but he passes me on that bike before he pulls it over, gently slips off, and lets the thing fall violently. He gives a strong hello to the girls before switching to a gentle, hushed voice, too quiet for me to understand. That’s the worst when people do that. When they know you want to listen so they stand right up beside you and talk just quiet enough so you can’t make out what they’re saying, but you know they’re saying something good. So this man’s talking to these girls in his shrunken down voice for a while before he squats down and starts looking through the clothes. He’s got a drunk’s balance, not helped by the heat of the day and the heavy backpack hanging off one sweat-stained shoulder.
Finally he stands up, showing off to the girls the stiff pair of red cotton shorts he’s picked out. Their quiet nods seem to satisfy him, so he tucks the shorts under his arm. He looks down as if to go back to the piles, but instead reaches for his pants and begins to undo the button and then the zipper and then he stands unsteadily on one foot while he slips the other one out of the pant leg. He lets them fall to the ground and starts putting on his new shorts, twisting like a shot flamingo. As soon as he’s done up each button of the fly, he grabs his bike and starts to ride right off. And though it must have seemed like a fair trade on the man’s part, the girls start running and cursing after him and everything is everything for a second with the screaming and the clicking and whirring of the bike until a squawk cuts through behind my head. A crow lands on the fabric landscape and starts digging through it, hopping around on both legs. And though these girls have been driving me up the wall all day with their noise and whispering, I’m feeling awful generous, so I dig into my pocket for what loose change I can find and start tossing it at the mangy thing. It doesn’t seem to notice until a quarter hits it smack in the head, and I’m sure there must have been something else wrong with it because it keels right over onto a green feather boa. And the afternoon has begun turning into evening and I suddenly think I ought to get home while the sun’s still out, so I up and leave and all through my walk home I’m whispering prayers for that bird and those girls and the man on the bike because all I can stand to listen to now is my own voice under my breath.
Clara Kornelis is a photographer, writer, and musician from Portland, Oregon. She is currently a senior in high school.
