“Eyes, black eyes that carve hollow secrets into your skull, empty experiences that grey not only your hair but fill in the wrinkles of your skin. You are a white wash canvas lost inside a storage basements cranny,” thought Yoma.

Yoma had travelled nowhere exotic. He had spent the majority of his 65 years exploring nothing but the inner workings of his own banal life. “I will see the world,” he whispered. This hushed prayer had been heard by friends, lovers, children, grandchildren and strangers for as long as Yoma could remember, he whispered “I am a million pieces of rock spread across every pixel of blue sky.” Yoma often spoke in this manner. Weaving Kerouac phrases that could leave a person frustrated with wonder. As a young boy a brick wall could suddenly become the peak of Everest, his mutt of a dog a faithful donkey and the air that floated amidst his left ear his knowledable Sherpa. As a man, the brick wall melted from Everest to a steel prison where he wrote lascivious theatrical pieces along side the Marquis De Sade and other men of great evil abilities. But as time went on, the brick wall froze into, well, a brick wall. The day Yoma stopped seeing flowers in the stars is the day Yoma meant it when he said, “I will see the world.”

 

Yoma was found one morning adorned in army fatigues clutching a regulation forest green all purpose bag to his chest. He got these treasures from The War. And that was always his response when people asked which war. “The War” Yoma would reply in exasperation. That was typical of Yoma, the innocuous soldier. Many would suspect, and they would be right that Yoma was never in a war, not one with guns and bombs anyway. To Yoma it was quiet clear, his war began the day he was born, and he was still fighting. “Life,” he would think to himself, “is the greatest battle a man can survive.” Now it’s important to point out that the most living Yoma was known for was his lack there of. Yoma lived a great life, in his head, in his word weaved tales of his own imagination. When he looked at stars he never saw stars he saw battles in spaceships, or constellations dancing the waltz. Yoma never saw the world. He was too afraid. Until now.

“I am leaving.” Yoma turned to his wife halfway out the door, prepped for battle. Yoma’s wife was a frail little thing who unbelievably birthed five children out of her tiny frame. She was grey, in ever sense of the word. Her compressed face only looked at her husband and nodded. “Another distraction,” she thought to herself about her distant and ever un-present partner. She no longer yearned to see a connection in his eyes; they were too blackened for her. She had given up around the birth of their third child, which Yoma missed because he was saving the town from a man eating shark, or fishing, it’s all up for interpretation. “A single light calls to me like the burning bush a message tells me to seek something beyond our menial existence.” He continued as he marched fervently out the door and down the street until his poetic rantings became undistinguishable bubbles of sounds in air.

Yoma placed one foot firmly in front of the other proclaiming to the birds about how he was going to explore the world! “I am finally moving beyond myself!” He shouted. “You doubters! I will see the miracles of God! I will see the rainbow experiences of my dreams!” “ I am finally going to feel alive!” Yoma reached for new ways to express his desires as he walked down the street. Without thought Yoma’s feet brought him straight to town. He looked around in the middle of the square, surrounded by the people he had known his entire life, and shouted. “I am leaving! I am going to see the world! Please friends learn from me and prove to yourself the roundness of it all!” No one acknowledged Yoma. He had made this proclamation once a week for the last ten years. Every Saturday morning it was the same march, the same proclamation, and every Saturday afternoon Yoma with a few drinks in him stumbled home convinced he had traveled to Bucharest in a hot air balloon. This Saturday was different. This Saturday no one humored Yoma’s fantacy, no one egged him on, or applauded his efforts. On this Saturday an ordinary looking man walked to the center of the square and simply said to Yoma. “Me too.” With that his young daughter ran into his arms giggling. He lifted his daughter triumphantly into the air smiled at her and repeated to Yoma “Me too.” Dumbfounded Yoma slinked into himself turned around and kept walking, undeterred for the moment.

Hours later, Yoma had moved only fifty more steps. He couldn’t get the young man and little girl out of his head. Yoma thought, “How can one man have so much longing and yet be so contented?” This Saturday Yoma found himself stuck somewhere between his reality and reality. He floated in between the two worlds, and found himself in the ally behind the pub where he frequented as a boy. Yoma never found the adventures of his mind. Instead he found people like him. People who are all searching for something bigger than themselves. The brick wall pressed a cool familiar hand on Yoma’s back as he slid down its stable frame and found himself crouched into a C on the wet floor. “Being alive. In order to be alive, to see the world, to be apart of something bigger than oneself, you must first be a part of it,” he thought. Tears began to run down Yoma’s cheek. Tears flooding out the stories that he used to hide in. He cried for all the missed days, those lost experiences. Yoma’s tears collected into a pool below his feet. His self pity was palpable. It was here that the little girl skipped down the alley where Yoma lay. She didn’t say much, didn’t do much for that matter. She simply skipped by and smiled. “I see” said Yoma with a grin. It was dusk now, and Yoma got up looked to the stars, and smiled. “I see” he repeated. “I see.”