Fiction by Mattea Fitch
The Seminole-Wekiva Trail is connected to my neighborhood rather inconveniently. To get to the shade of its oaks, it takes a mile-long trek through bare Florida sun, reflecting off fresh white asphalt. It’s mostly uphill. Along such a noisy road that my mother always yells after me, “No headphones! Be aware of your surroundings!” She’s not watching, but I still obey. All I have is the sweat running down my back and the irregular pattern of cars whipping by at fifteen miles over the speed limit.
Needless to say, when I bike on this trail, it is no trivial matter. It means I have too many thoughts to process, and some of them need to dissipate through a great deal of exhaustion.
After a few miles under shifting shadows and pockets of golden light, my legs begin to burn. I pull my bike over and sit at a dark green bench. A bit rusty, but familiar.
There is an artist who lives right on the trail. A music fanatic, evidently, because all his fences are painted with tributes to the greats. Amy Winehouse, John Lennon, Kurt Cobain… lots of other faces I’m too young to know.
What must you do for some dedicated suburban artist to paint you on his fence? For people to recognize that painting? What must you do for your name to be in the morning news when you die?
A hunched-over old man walks his bike up to my bench as I rest my chin on my water bottle in thought. He throws his arm to the space next to me. “Anyone sitting here?”
“I… no, sir,” I reply.
He sits and lets out one of those impressive sighs that only comes from old people. He wipes his sweat, takes a huge gulp from his disposable water bottle.
“Ah,” he says, looking from my face to the fence. “The Wall of Dead People. Cheery, isn’t it? Just what I wanna see on my afternoon adventure.”
I laugh humorlessly. “Makes you think.”
“About what?”
I suddenly get embarrassed. Here I am, sitting on a public bench and contemplating death as strangers rush by. A bit dark. “I don’t know. But this can’t all last forever. What’s the measurement? When I die, how will I know I didn’t waste all my time?”
“What, kid, you’ve got dying on your agenda today?”
“No.”
“But you’re thinking about it.”
“Yes,” I say far too quickly. “Well… not thinking about doing it. Not like that. But just… thinking. About what it means.”
“Hmmph.” The old man reclines, spreading his arm over the back of the bench. “That’s something that goes away over time. Not for some people, I guess, but it did for me.”
“How?”
He chuckles and slaps his bicycle seat as if it’s the shoulder of an old friend. “I get out. I look up instead of down. I move instead of hiding away. I talk to strangers on benches. Those are things anyone’ll tell you. Things that can help. But there are some things that happen by accident.”
I’m only partially paying attention, as the breeze cools my sweaty face. It’s always at this spot, after a couple of miles, where I would stop as a child. I swung my legs while my dad pulled a huge water bottle out from his backpack, giving me some to share. Or I would sometimes try to draw the huge tree in front of me—the roots are so thick, they push the asphalt up into little mountains.
Funny, how memories can overlap in a single location. One point in space overflows with ideas, epiphanies, regrets, starting points.
“Sometimes,” the old man continues, “God gives you people that stick to you, like ivy on a dead, rotten tree. And you think, maybe, that the ivy is so full of life and far too beautiful to be sticking to that sickly thing. But it stays. It’s unfair, but it does.
“And that might be what’s stopping you from… well, you know, doing it instead of thinking about it.” He jabs a finger into my shoulder. “You’ve got some people holding you back. Let them.”
He takes another long swig from his crackly water bottle. At seventy years old, he doesn’t have much in the way of wrinkles. Only crow’s feet and a bit around the mouth from smiling.
As the moments stretch on, I forget he’s even there. The flaky, neon petals of the crape myrtle inch along the pavement. Skinny bicycles cut thin lines through the air while the normal ones push on. Squirrels hug to branches far too thin, causing acorns and leaves to flutter down.
The Wall of Dead People is hardly something to look at, really. That is, compared to the life that surrounds it.
Mattea Fitch is a freelance fiction writer based in West Palm Beach, Florida. She grew up in Orlando, Florida. Along with her passion for creative writing, she works as a peer mentor who helps fellow students discover their unique style.
