Today I’m stepping completely out of character. Today, I’m not the Mayor of ZwebbyVille. Today, I’m not Zman.

Today, I am Russ.

Today was an emotional day. No particular reason, no tragedies, no deaths, no anniversaries of any particularly bad event… just emotional.

Over the last few months, I have experienced a number of emotions that I thought were forever dormant inside of me. There has been pain, for sure, but there have also been other emotions, some that are as good as the pain was bad.

I have seen my two little boys, who are not so little anymore, grow because of a situation that was forced on them and I have experienced great pride to see them handle it like little men.

I have felt fear because somehow I let them down. Somehow I couldn’t measure up to some unknown standard that I was being measured against. And I felt resentment for this same comparison because of the unjustness of this unannounced competition.

I have felt joy at times when a casual remark gave me hope or a phone call gave rise to renewed feelings and a promise of the future I had dreamed of. I have felt total devastation time and again when that joy was smashed against a rock as the realization dawned on me that it was not the second chance I have longed for.

I have felt the self-pity that accompanies the internal thoughts of rationalizing the why’s of my situation. I have felt the anger that my life was so irrevocably changed in just a few unexpected words, never to be the same again.

I have felt the shame of explaining to family and friends how things are now different and I have felt the embarrassment as I saw the look in their eyes run the gamut of thoughts that people have when faced with such an explanation.

I have felt the pity, the envy, the jealousy, the depression, the whole range of emotions…

For some reason, today was a culmination of sorts of the whole experience. A potpourri of the last few month’s feelings, thoughts and… emotions.

I would cry if I thought it would help. I would scream if I thought it would change anything. I would make a pact with the devil if I knew I would wake up from this dream and things would be the way they were…

But none of those would work… so... I write…

Submitted by Russ

I read her letter and realized I was smiling. It was one of those true smiles that just makes you feel good. It started way down deep inside and spread throughout my body until my face involuntarily manifested the warmth of how good I felt. I couldn’t have stopped it if I tried. I wouldn’t have tried to if I could.

Very seldom does a person smile like that. In this day of time clocks, war, economic woes and all the other bad things that we deal with on a daily basis, smiles are indeed a rare treat.

Oh we all smile a few times everyday. But that’s not the kind of smile I’m talking about. When someone points a camera at you and says, “Smile!” we can all paint some semblance of a smile across our faces. If they take too long to focus or line up the picture though it starts to feel strained, uncomfortable. Too many of my smiles feel that way.

True smiles only happen once in a while.

When you are waiting in a doctor’s office and in the chairs across from you is a little girl playing with her mother. The mother is tickling her and the little girl starts to laugh in that little child belly laugh that you know is genuine, you smile a true smile.

When you see an elderly couple in the mall walking hand in hand and they look at each other and, very quickly, you see that little spark that flies between them that tells you they will be in love forever, you smile a true smile.

When you hug your child goodnight and they tell you they love you and you know they mean it from the bottom of their little heart, you smile a true smile.

If anyone ever discovered the chemical balance that must occur in the human body and could artificially create this feeling that causes a true smile I wouldn’t want to ever use it. As good as it feels, I wouldn’t want to smile like this unless it was real.

When I read her letter and realized I was truly smiling, I was caught off guard. When was the last time I felt this way? Why was I feeling like this now? What did my heart know that it hadn’t told my head?

This feeling was nice. This smile truly unexpected.

Submitted by Zman

He was just a pawn.

Nobody cared whether he lived or died. Nothing but a warrior, a protector, fodder for the advancing column of the enemy.

Life was tough when you are nothing but a pawn. Sometimes you felt like the whole world was against you. The enemy looked at you as an impediment to reaching your king. Your king looked at you as a way to slow the enemy down while he strategized, made plans to destroy the other kings pawns.

If only he could be a king…

 ******

The King surveyed the battlefield.

So many times he had to decide who lived and who died. What sane man ever wanted to make decisions such as that? And for what? A few more squares of land, another victory to boast about?

Life was tough when you were the King. Sometimes you felt like the whole world was against you. The enemy looked at you as an icon to be destroyed. Your very own troops looked at you as someone who cared so little for them that you would greedily send them to their death for ownership of those squares.

If only he could be a pawn…

******

“Great game” the man said with a smile.

“You too, Dad”

The man picked up the last two pieces, a king and a pawn, and placed them in the box…

She broke my heart.

Many years ago I had decided it would never happen again. The human heart can only take so much.

So many times, I had opened up my heart to some woman. I had thrown caution to the wind and let my heart be consumed by feeling, by emotion. Only to end up seeing it shattered like a cheap mirror after being dropped to a tile floor. Pieces so small that even the most detailed reconstruction left holes that could never be filled.

I built up a wall that was so indestructible that it could never be breached. My heart was like a fort guarded by the most ferocious warriors ever assembled.

Then, one day, I met her. Quite by happenstance, but there she was.

At first it was only curiosity. She was there and I wondered. I thought it would be fun to explore.

Eventually, I found myself entranced by her.

And once I was caught in her web, I started to forget about the effort I had spent on building the wall. My heart was incapable of love. There were so many cracks and fissures that it would never be whole again. I had fixed it so that it would never happen again.

Yes, that’s what I had done. I had taken the time after so many destructions of this organ that was so vulnerable to fix it. To make it virtually indestructible. To take away the damned vulnerability. To make it so hardened that it could never love again.

I have always been a good fixer. I can fix things so well they can never be broken. This is how I treated my heart. It was fixed so that it could never love again. Fixed so it could never feel, never want, never try again.

But there she was.

She tore down that wall. She filled in those cracks. She smoothed out the hardened shell.

I had fixed my heart so that it could never love again. But then…

She broke my heart.

It was a last minute trip. When I went to the office that morning, I had fully planned on skipping out a little early, hitting the driving range and being in bed early. Next thing I know, I’m headed to the airport for a trip to Seattle…

They were just closing the doors as I ran up to the gate. Fortunately they saw me and waited for me to board. The plane was full so I had taken the only seat available; a middle seat on row 25. I hated middle seats! It never failed I always ended up with either a ‘Talker’ a ‘Weirdo’ or an ‘Expander’.

One look at the old lady in the window seat told me immediately she was an Expander. Her purse was in my seat, her carry-on crammed in the space where my feet would need to go and her big arm already had possession of the arm rest.

In the aisle seat was a little boy of about 7 years old. He didn’t fall into any of my normal categories but I knew he’d be a problem right away because his parents, who were in the seats across the aisle, had given him a lollipop almost as big as his little head and apparently he didn’t understand what the stick was for because he was holding the lollipop by it’s candy part with one wet, sticky little paw and the other one was drawing circles in the goo he had managed to get on my other armrest.

I guess it was partially due to the fact that I wasn’t really prepared mentally to travel due to the immediacy of the trip and partially due to the fact that I was irritated by the seating arrangements, but by the time we were at the one hour mark of this four hour trip, I had had enough! The little boy had just placed his sticky little paw on the sleeve of my best sports coat for about the eighth time and I couldn’t get any further away from him because of Old Lady Expander. I stopped the Flight Attendant as she walked by and told her I needed a new seat and I needed it now! I explained loud enough for all to hear that I was frustrated by the selfishness of a person who took up more than the allotment of room they were allowed and ranted about parents who couldn’t control their children. In the middle of my tirade, a little voice from the row behind me spoke up and said, “Sir, I’ll switch seats with you”.

She was probably mid-forties and had that mousey look of someone who spends too much time inside. As she stood up from her aisle seat the Flight Attendant looked at me with a question in her eyes as if to ask if that would calm me down. I immediately switched seats and as I sat down actually felt kind of proud of myself for having the nerve to make the best of a bad situation.

I watched the Lady through the crack in the seats for a short time. I saw her making friends with the boy and talking to the old lady as if they were long lost buddies. I awoke when the plane touched down and was surprised to find myself standing next to this lady at the taxi stand. I told her, “Thanks for switching seats”

I’ll never forget her answer; “No problem. You see, I can’t have children and lost my Mother almost a year ago to the day. So when I have an opportunity to either enjoy a child or talk to someone from my mother’s generation, I always jump at the chance. I had sat there that whole time wishing I were you. Sometimes, sir, you must look at things from a different perspective to truly see how fortunate you really are.”

Since that day, I have always asked for a middle seat …

Submitted by Zman