Fiction: Chapter Three: “Unconscious Transitions” :: Introduction

A fall day, slate gray skies, arousing the remnants of my soul, which part, or entity of it, I do not know. The wind tells the soul, "transition is coming." Most striking, as I sit here at this dugout of Van Cleve Park, to my senses - the brisk Canadian wind coming from places westward, too early to be an Alberta Clipper, but the wind sweeps through most of the state today; chilling. Nature itself, a constant transition, every second, Fall is just a major warning to the more unobservant. The canopies of the trees are swaying back and forth as a gust hits -- no matter to rush hour traffic a few blocks away, but the observers observe the tops of the trees emptying, another fall has arrived.

September rolls through to October soon. Transitions spanning from MBH to 1130, connected through 15th Avenue SE, the main artery, more than just seasonal. What was far is now near and vice-versa; a trip to the West Bank is loathsome -- there better be purpose. Back then it was a rare time to venue to Como Avenue, much less Hennepin, where the sounds of 35W can almost be heard and the commuting traffic in the mornings on the thouroughfare tells me there is still hope for an economy.

There is no hope for this fall to be much like those of the past, recorded now as it is coming to an end. Parties from 1057 still contain my freshman ghost -- each day I ride by it and the house becomes another abstraction, becomes any other forgettable object of the commute. Some days I don't notice, banking around the corner on slippery leaves or avoiding cars while riding without hands. Some days I hear the voices calling from inside, tempting me back inside to relive it one more time, barging in past new occupants, saying, as I'm reaching to the handle on Ari's old room, "this is where I brewed my own beginning and end."

As I sit in the dugout, watching nothing, but everything, finding time to observe the system in place of control in my own life, I get intense and passionate feelings about baseball from imagining a game going on in front of me. Invisible players; it is almost as though I have died and I can feel the souls of those around me who have played here on warmer days. Almost crying now, I think of the wood smoke that will be drifting in the air tonight.

As much as I fear consciousness to be slipping by me, one of many reasons behind all of this noveling, just sitting, looking and alone, a rush of memories fill my mind. Red Bull, we win Open Ice, the mind snaps to Calhoun in the snow, jumping to parties at 1202 down the street, revolving just to my right at Elmwood Properties; Amalia.

I contact Annie - plans are made for wine, it is time to stop dwelling on this new book of blank space crying out to be filled -- I must leave both of them alone.