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| Fiction: Aura |
Posted by
Britva on Wednesday, April 28, 2004 - 06:21 AM PST
“That’s Aura Garcia. G-A-R...”
“Yes, I know how to spell Garcia sir, I’ll see if I can track down her room number for you, if you’d just like to have a seat over there.”
I try to smile, but I can’t sit down. I’m too edgy. It’s taken me 3 weeks to find out where Aura went after leaving Vermont, and it was another two days on the bus out to Atlanta. We had tried to keep in touch for a little while, but other things always seemed more important. It didn’t seem like that big a deal when we quit writing. I don't know why she seemed so unimportant back then. I can't explain why she seems so important now.
The sweat from my armpits drips onto my sides. The walls are wood paneling like portable classrooms in high school. It couldn’t take this long. I try to think about anything to keep from watching the clock. There’s the steady bang bang bang of AC repair.
“Excuse me sir.” The secretary is trying to get my attention. “Sorry it took so long. I found her listing, but she’s no longer enrolled here. That’s what took so long. Finding it I mean. She left in the middle of last semester.”
I kind of want to punch that secretary in the mouth, but it’s just a vague impulse, passes quickly, and I feel bad about thinking it. I really thought I’d feel more disappointed, but honestly, I’d have been more surprised if Aura was actually here. She’s become such an abstraction in my head that I almost don’t believe she exists as a flesh and blood person anymore.
“Did she leave any kind of forwarding address?”
“She might have, but even if she did, I can’t show it to you.”
I stare blankly at the secretary for a moment. “It’s very, very important.” It sounds stupid even as it comes out of my mouth, but the secretary’s face doesn’t change. She eyes the clock, eyes me, eyes the rest of the empty office, eyes the clock again. I’ve got nowhere else to be, and I think she gets that. She lets out a long, low sigh, and turns the computer monitor with her elbow, just enough so I can see, “I’m sorry sir, I really can’t help you.”
The address is in California, and I remember a story Aura told me about her uncle that she lived with for a while in a house out near Yosemite.
* * *
When I was in college, I used to fly out to Vermont at the end of each spring semester. My friend Nate went to this liberal arts hippie school up there, and they didn’t finish until a full month after I did.
No one in Vermont really understood why I would plan a visit during the busiest time of the semester. Even though they didn’t technically get grades there, everyone was working too hard on final projects to hang out very much. I told them that it was the only time I could get away to make the trip, which was true, but the real reason was that I liked the opportunity to be alone. I don’t know why I didn’t tell people that. In my life, and I guess in a lot of people’s, there’s never much time to be alone without people getting suspicious. I had, and still have, responsibilities to school, work, friends, and family, and if I lock myself in my room for a day, at least five people will come by to ask what’s wrong. I guess I’m lucky that way.
In Vermont, I could wander around in the woods. I could get by on less than five spoken words a day. I could sit back and let the thoughts come that only come after hours of not thinking about anything.
This was the yin of life’s goodness. There was also a yang. As the students at Bennington finished with their finals, the parties would begin. The first ones would go off with about a week of school left. A few early finishers would buy large amounts of alcohol and generally make the rest of the campus jealous in the revelry. As the final week progressed, the parties got bigger. There is little for college students to do in Vermont besides drink and screw, and the campus is 75% female. I would like to think that I did my ancestors proud.
I met Aura on the third and final year that I went to Vermont. It was Wednesday night of finals week, and I had crashed a party down the hall. I had a good buzz on and was dancing with three or four girls. I usually drew a crowd because guys at Bennington don’t really dance. Guys in general just dance to pick up girls, and these guys already had a 3 to 1 advantage, so they didn’t really bother.
In spite of the crowd, I noticed when Aura walked in. She was half black, half Puerto Rican, and a beautiful thing to be seen. A model’s face, without the liability of a model’s body. She was short, compact and powerful, but she was light on her feet. Graceful. Her hair was in tight corn rows that trailed into tails, probably extensions, down to her butt. She was smiling.
She walked over and started dancing with me. Slowly, the other girls faded away, back to the keg or the chips or the guys leaning on the walls. We got silly to the Prince they were blasting on the stereo, laughed, and kept laughing through the whole song. Then I grabbed a beer for each of us, and she led me outside onto the lawn. We were still catching our breath.
“I’m Gabe,” I said, reaching across and shaking her hand formally.
“I know; we met yesterday.”
“Oh shit, I’m sorry. I’ve met a lot people this week and they all start to blend together... not that you blend together with... fuck...”
“Shut up,” she said, laughing, “It was in the commons. I was with a big black scary looking guy.”
I thought for a second, “Aura, right? You can’t blame me for not recognizing you. In the commons you were like a big sweatsuit with eyes.” I looked again at the leather pants and tank top she was wearing now and kicked myself for not noticing her the day before. The only reason I remembered her at all was the weird name. I remember thinking that it fit in perfectly at this school.
“Yeah, well I was hiding from my fans you know. I don’t like giving out autographs.”
It wasn’t that funny, but we laughed anyway. “So what do you do here besides hide from paparazzi?”
“I’m in the writing program. Poetry mostly.”
“And your parents don’t mind paying for that?”
“My parents don’t really figure into it. My publisher is paying for me to go here.”
“No shit. That’s... uh... that’s pretty damn cool.”
“Yep, pretty damn cool.”
I told myself it didn’t mean anything that she was a published poet. Hell, she might be terrible. Still, I felt out of my league, even though I told myself that I wasn’t.
“I don’t suppose your publishers give out scholarships for dirty limerick writing do they?”
“Well I don’t know. What do you have so far?”
“There once was a woman named... but then I’m stuck trying to think of a name that rhymes with cunnilingus.”
She laughed, short high pops like a trumpet. “You want to go back in and dance?”
* * *
I could’ve flown out of Atlanta, but I don’t know how long I might be on the road, and I don’t know how long it might take to find another job when I get home, so I economize where I can.
The Greyhound bus isn’t that bad once you realize you’re going to be there for a while. You get used to the piss and Doritos smell. You learn to differentiate between eccentrics and the wackos. You learn to make conversation. You learn how to squeeze the most out of a fifteen minute stop. It’s two in the morning when we get to Dallas. It’s hard being this close to Austin and not stopping by, but I know that if I stop, I’ll be tempted not to leave again, and I have to get this sorted out.
The seat next to me has remained empty for the last three stops, but for some reason there are a lot of people leaving Dallas for California in the middle of the night. A guy sits down next to me. I guess he’s about forty, but his cracked leather skin makes it hard to guess. A greasy pony tail. A baseball cap that says, “You know you’re a redneck if... you’re wearing this hat.” He turns to talk to me, and I see that more than a few of his teeth are missing.
“John,” he says, extending his hand.
“Gabe,” I say, shaking it.
“Where you get on?”
“Atlanta.”
He whistles low, “That’s a long haul. How far you going?”
“California.”
“Shit man, me too. Now what makes a young man such as yourself pick his ass up from Sweet Home Alabama and haul it out to California?”
Well, Atlanta may as well be in Alabama. I try to think of an answer that will kill the conversation, but realize that after dozing and reading for six hours, I’m ready to talk for bit. “What else man? A girl.” True and not true.
He cackles, waking up the old woman across the aisle, who gives us a dirty look. “Hell yes! A little pussy’s the best reason to drag your ass anywhere. I got me a sweet little thing waiting in Los Angle-ees.”
I don’t doubt it. If there’s one thing you learn riding the bus, it’s that there’s someone out there for everyone.
“Say John, you follow the Cowboys at all?”
“Cowgirls man. I call ‘em the fucking Cowgirls.”
John and I chat, and it's nice because it makes me forget about why I'm on this bus for a little while. I forget about what I'm looking for and what I'm leaving behind and I just concentrate on where I am. I feel like I should be savoring this more. I always talked about travelling, and while this isn't exactly what I had in mind, at least it's something. I'm away. I'm on the road.
For two weeks after I told her I was leaving, my mom got herself convinced that I was joking about the whole thing. When she finally realized I was serious, the first thing she said was, "Did your job give you enough time off?"
"You know they didn't."
"You think jobs that pay like that just grow on trees? Even with a good reference letter, you're going to be starting over at ground zero when you get on with another company."
"I don't think they'll be giving me a good reference any time soon mom."
She pretended to fiddle with the knobs on the stove for a minute, then she gave up and started rubbing the back of her neck. "Are you so crazy about your older brother that you want to live like him now too?"
I have to do this now mom. I have to break and run. I might not get another chance. "Yeah mom, I want to be just like him."
"Well that's what it sounds like to me. You've got everything going for you right now and you throw it all away because you decide you want to take a trip. Is it some genetic instinct for self-sabotage? What about your apartment? Jesus have you talked to Tara about this?"
"Yes, mom, everything's taken care of."
* * *
The day after the party, I knocked on Aura’s door. She opened the door and smiled when she saw it was me. I sat down on the bed while she closed up whatever she had been doing on a little laptop at her desk. Her half of the room was bare. Nothing on the walls or the shelves. All the furniture was college issue. The only personal things in plain view were a small alarm clock, a portable CD player with a little book of CD’s, and the laptop which was even now being put in a drawer.
I broke the silence, “You want to know how fruity this school is? I asked Nate where Aura’s room was and he said, ‘Which Aura?’”
“Oh yeah, the other one’s a bitch though.” she said, smiling.
We sat, staring uncomfortably at each other for a few seconds. “Listen,” she said, “Are you hungry, I was just about to go down to the cafeteria and get something to eat.”
“Yeah, cool.”
It was probably a good three hundred yards across the lawn to the cafeteria, and Aura took off her shoes to walk in the wet grass. I saw a few people I knew and waved to them. I liked being seen with Aura.
We got in, grabbed some trays and started moving through the line. “So what kind of poetry do you write?” I said some of the stupidest things when I was around her.
“I’m working on one that starts out, ‘Inside my soul, there is only emptiness/ But every time you enter me a part of it dies/ I am emptiness burning in tortured agony.’”
I tried very hard to think of something nice to say. I guess it must have been all over my face, because Aura started chuckling.
“That was a joke,” she said, punching me in the arm.
“Oh, I was under the impression that there was a lot of that tortured agony going around this school,” I said, rubbing my arm. Aura punches hard.
“Nah, mostly they just talk talk talk,” she said, with a little more venom than necessary.
“That’s the reason I only stay for two weeks a year. Nice place to visit, blah blah blah. Student body of 400 gets a little incestuous and gossipy after a while.”
“You have no idea. I hate to say it, but I think it’s because there’s just so many girls. I mean the gossip quotient just shoots through the roof. When I first came here, I didn’t tell anyone that I was published. When I finally let it slip, everyone knew in less than 24 hours.”
“Well is that so bad?”
She thought for a second. “I don’t think it would be at most places, but here... Everyone’s just so goddamn artistic. Everyone feels like they have to prove that being published doesn’t necessarily mean you’re good, which it doesn’t by the way, and they just... To them I’m just a big target to tear down. So me being me, I think ‘Well fuck ‘em. I’ll write something that will blow them away.’ But when you’re writing like that, competitive like that, it just doesn’t work out. That’s why I’m transferring after this semester.”
We sat in silence for a while and finished our food.
“You got anything to do after lunch?” I asked.
“No, you?”
“Think about who you’re asking, yesterday I almost didn’t wake up in time for my nap.”
“Yeah yeah, fuck you too.”
“So does that mean you want to come take a walk with me?”
It was a nice day for the woods, sunny and breezy and not that cold as far as Vermont is concerned. “So tell me your life story, the condensed version,” Aura said as we lost sight of the last buildings.
“Not much to tell really. I grew up in Austin. My parents got divorced when I was like three, but I see my dad pretty often. I have two older brothers who beat the shit out of me constantly when I was growing up, but I guess I like them ok now. I started liking girls a little late, but I’ve been trying to make up for it ever since. I went straight from high school to college, and now I’ve got one year left on my computer science degree.”
“You like that?”
“Computer Science? Well I don’t dislike it. And I never really found anything that I like better. I don’t know, though. I mean I sometimes have this feeling that I’m just walking the path that’s put in front of me. I’ve never really had to make any hard choices, you know, the next step just always seemed so logical. Lately I’ve been thinking about travelling more, seeing more of the world before I decide what place I want to take in it.”
“Yeah, I hear you.”
“So I should be able to save enough in my first couple of years out of school that I can travel for a while. But I get worried sometimes that two years will become three and three will get to be ten, and I’ve got a wife and family and I’m wondering ‘what if’ all the time.”
“Don’t worry. If you have a passion for something, you’ll follow it. You won’t be able to stop yourself.”
Then she stopped to pick up a piece of spear grass and throw it at me. It stuck in my shirt and I decided to leave it there. We walked on and traded stories about the first time we had sex, and the first time we smoked pot, and the first time we threw up from drinking, and the last time we saw a really good movie.
“So what about you?” I finally asked, “Every story you have takes place in a different city, so I’m guessing Army brat.”
“Not quite, I don’t know who the fuck my Dad was, but he wasn’t in the picture. My mom was a drug dealer.”
I almost made a joke, but I choked it down. She was serious.
“I lived with her until I was about 10. It was weird growing up in that environment. We were always picking up and moving in the middle of the night. My sister and I were trained to listen for sirens... shit like that. To this day, cop sirens at night scare the shit out of me. My mom got busted when I was 10 and my sister and I bounced around between foster care and my uncle’s place in Yosemite. Foster care really is as bad as all the stories, and I only spoke Spanish at the time, so I got screwed over a lot.
"Then I went back to school, graduated, moved out to San Francisco and started writing poetry. I was reading in a club one night and this guy says he wants to publish me and I say, ‘That shit may work on teen runaways, but don’t try it with me.’ But he gives me this card and I call the next day, and the rest is history.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah, and that’s the short version without all the really fucked up shit. I don’t know, I don’t really talk about my past to most people.”
“Well I’m glad I’m not most people,” I said.
She smiled. “It’s not because it bothers me, I mean, yeah I’ve got issues about it, but whatever. I know lots of people who had great childhoods and they’re a lot more fucked up than me. Mainly it bothers other people. I tell people about my life, and they either feel sorry for me, or they get all impressed because they think I’m some hero rising up out of the gutter, blah blah blah.”
“Well I was impressed before I knew you were a hero rising up from out of the gutter.”
“I think that’s the right answer, Gabe.” She laughed and slipped her hand into mine, and it was like holding hands was when I was twelve. Electric.
That night, we went to a party, but I don’t remember much of it. Aura put me to bed in Nate’s room since he was sleeping in the lab at that point. She was only a half step less drunk than me, and we made out furiously, so as it stands, I don’t remember our first kiss. One thing that I do remember, even if I wish I didn’t, is that I was too drunk to get it up. First and only time that ever happened to me. I must have passed out then, because the next thing I knew, it was morning and she was gone.
* * *
I wake up with a start. The sun is just coming up behind the bus and we’re somewhere in New Mexico I think. The dream wasn’t about Aura this time, it was about Tara. I think back to the day I left Austin. We had talked and talked, but there wasn’t really anything to say. I just had to go. She had nodded with tears streaming down her face, “Get out of here... just go. I’m tired of hearing about it, tired of talking about it. Please just leave.” So I left. As I was getting into the car though, I heard the screen door slam behind me, and she was standing out on the lawn, still wearing one of my old shirts. She was screaming, fists clenched at her sides, “I hope you fucking find her! I hope you find her and she breaks your fucking heart!” And it surprised me because I always thought of her as such a quiet girl.
Then, she turned around and stormed back into the house, tripping on a tree root and almost falling flat on her face. She recovered quickly, and slammed the door all the harder. She never heard me whisper, “I hope so too.”
John is awake, staring at the fat lady across the aisle.
“Hey John.”
“Yeah?”
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Well fuck, you can see I’ve got all this shit to do...”
“Yeah yeah, shut up. You know how when you first meet a girl, she can seem perfect. Like, otherworldly perfect, everything about her.”
He grins, “Course. That’s what keeps us coming back after the bitches burn us. Fuck man, I’ve sworn off women so many times... but it’s always that new girl who’s going to be just fan-damn-tastic.”
“Yeah, well after a while you know, you get to know them, and they come down to earth. It’s not worse, just... they’re a real person now, not a fantasy anymore.”
“Sure man.”
“Well, you ever meet a girl and then not get to that point. Like something gets in the way, or you move, or you lose touch or something, but they’re still there in the back of your mind. That perfect girl that no one ever measures up to.”
John laughs out loud, “Jenny Turin in the fucking sixth grade man. First girl who ever let me touch her bare titty. Family moved from Dallas to Oklahoma City or some fucking place. I thought about her for years.”
“What made you get over it?”
“I just had to realize that there’s more to life than titty, man.”
* * *
Nate finally finished his last project at 10 pm on Friday, approximately ten hours before we were supposed to leave for Austin. That gave us ten hours to pack up his room, squeeze it in to a Honda Civic, and get enough sleep to sustain us for the next two days.
So we decided to call Aura and have her come over and dye Nate’s hair blue. It was a judgment call. Nate had been working constantly for a week, and we both agreed that if he rushed into packing and driving, he might just go insane. Far better to take some time out, do something fun, and get his head back together, especially since I was the one who had to ride with him.
Aura came over and started looking through CD’s while Nate got his hair products together. We grabbed everything and set up shop in the bathroom down the hall. The dorm was practically deserted. Everyone had to be out by Monday, but most people left as soon as their finals were done. Nate and I were hanging on until Saturday morning, but Aura’s flight out wasn’t until Sunday afternoon.
“So where are you going when you leave here?” Nate asked Aura.
She thought for a second, “Well, back to the Bay area first. See some old friends, read at some of the old clubs. Hopefully I’ll find out what school decided to take me so I know where I’m going next year. Other than that, I’m not sure.”
“So no career plans as of yet,” I followed.
She moved to scratch her head, but realized that her hands were blue up to the elbow from the dye. “I’ll get it,” I said, “Just tell me where.”
“Ok, lower, right between the eyebrows, that’s good... Anyway, I’ll probably get a degree in English, finish out with this poetry stuff, but I don’t know if I can do that as a career. I mean, this ivory tower bullshit is annoying. I don’t want to observe lives, I want to change them. I know the biggest crime is to just throw up your hands... etcetera etcetera.”
"Anything but be another cog in the machine."
"Yep, that’s pretty much it."
"I’d have to give a shit about other people first," Nate grumbled.
"Don’t listen to him, he just likes to pretend he’s a cynic,” I said, kicking him in the ankle.
“Just for that, extra blue on your forehead,” Aura said, and finger-painted a big line.
“Ugh, hey Gabe, could you get that bottle of crap ass vodka from my room, we can use that to take this shit off.”
I went down the hall to Nate’s room, grabbed the bottle of vodka and the bottle of Jim Beam next to it that had about a shot left. I stopped to turn up the music a little walked back out into the hall with a bottle in each fist. I heard a door open behind me, turned around, and came face to face with campus security.
“Whoa son, where you off to in such a hurry?”
I pointed towards the bathroom. “Uh, these are for my friend. We’re dying his hair and we need something to get the dye off his skin and we don’t have any rubbing alcohol and...”
He led me down the hall to the bathroom and opened the door.
“Uh, hi guys.”
“Hey did you get the... oh hello Steve.”
The security officer smiled, “Hello Aura. Listen, we got some noise complaints over here...”
“Goddammit, it’s the last week of school.” Nate cut in.
Security pretended not to notice him, “And now I’ve got a pretty blatant alcohol violation, not to mention the fact that I don’t recognize this kid,” he pointed at me, “and I doubt he’s a registered visitor.”
Aura took over the conversation because Nate had a history of antagonizing security. “He’s a friend of mine. He came in to help me pack. We didn’t register him because by the time he got here the office was closed. I promised to dye Nate’s hair, so Gabe came to help. We were just going to use the alcohol to take the dye off.”
“You think I’d drink shit like that without a mixer,” Nate chimed in.
“That’s about enough out of you mister. All right, I’ll tell you what you’re going to do. You’re going to turn that music off. You two,” he pointed at me and Aura, “Are going back to your room. And Nate, you get exactly one capful of this shit to clean yourself off. I’m confiscating the rest.”
Aura and I were ushered out of the building. “Well, so much for helping Nate pack.”
“Not a big deal," I said, "He’s got a whole system worked out. We’d just get in the way.”
She led me back to her room which seemed even more bare now that her roommate had moved out. There was a little bit of uncomfortable silence as Aura went to put some music on. I tried to think of something to say, but I just kept thinking about all the ways I was going to make up for the night before and wondering how much small talk we could make. She finished with the CD player, turned around, and walked toward me. She didn’t stop until she was in my face, toe to toe. I thought she was leaning in for a kiss, but at the last second she bit down hard on my lip.
“Ouch, goddammit.”
Aura chuckled and danced back towards the bed. “What are you going to do about it?” she asked, barely keeping a straight face.
I responded by tackling her onto the bed. I tried to pin her, but she kept wriggling out of my grasp. I didn't even realize that my shirt was off until she twisted my nipple to get out of a viscious headlock. We fell onto the floor a laughing pile. Our faces were only inches apart. I grabbed hers with both hands and kissed her hard. She smiled back at me. Then, it was all I could do to hold on.
* * *
John hung on all the way to L.A. where he was picked up by a woman who looked a lot better than I thought she would. He gave me a wink as they walked off.
The rest of the ride was uneventful. I kept more to myself the closer I got to my destination. To this destination.
There is a gate in front of me, a rusted farm gate made out of that stuff that looks like steel siding. It’s Aura’s gate, and it’s open. Now, for the millionth time, I wonder if I’ll really be better off without the myth of her. The argument is really just a formality, though. A ceremony. I’ve got too much momentum now.
The gate opens onto a dirt road that runs up a grassy hill. The grass is still brown in early fall, and when the wind blows, little dust devils kick up. It smells like horses, but I can’t hear any. I can’t hear anything but the wind.
The house on top of the hill is a simple, white, two-story farmhouse with a screened in porch. I pause at the porch. I don’t know if I should knock on the screen door, or go in and knock on the real front door. What’s the etiquette here? It seems like such a simple choice, but I can't decide. I consider leaving and coming back tomorrow after I’ve thought this through. Then, the door opens. A large Hispanic man steps in and fills the space.
“The fuck you want.” It comes out like a bark.
“Uh... I’m looking for Aura Garcia...” The door slams before I even begin my speech that I’d worked out. This isn’t something I had considered on the long ride out. So I sit down on the front steps and wait for the man who I assume is her uncle to come back. He holds out for a long time. The sun is just going down when I hear the door open behind me.
“Listen you little...”
“Listen to me,” I say quietly. It brings him up short. He’s not scared of me; he could break me, no argument. He had just expected me to be scared of him, and I don’t have the energy to be scared anymore. “I need to know where she is. You can call the cops on me, but it’ll be a much smaller pain in the ass just to tell me.”
He pauses for a second and nods. “She’s gone. She left school a few months ago because she was sick, I don’t know with what. Stayed here for a while, then she left. Didn’t say where she was going.”
“She never does, does she.”
“No.”
We stare at each other. I’m not quite sure what to say, but the uncle settles it for me. “Now, get the fuck off my porch.”
And I’m back on the road, not really remembering how I got there. I’m two miles down before I realize that I don’t have anywhere left to go. This was the last lead. She may be out there somewhere, but she’s beyond me. I have to sit down to avoid falling down. I have nowhere left to go. I cry onto the dirt road, not solitary manly tears, but choking sobs that make my face red and puffy. I’m glad there aren’t any cars going by.
I make it to the highway sometime later. Moon’s out now, and it lights up the pavement. I was going to call a cab, but tonight I think I’d rather walk for a while. I keep hearing her on that last night, whispering my name, crying it out, whispering it again. "Gabe. Gabriel. Gabe." I’m not really sure where I’m going anymore. Too late to find Aura, too early to go home. It’s really not that far to San Francisco, I mean, in the grand scheme of things. I’ve still got 500 dollars left. Maybe I’ll stay for a few days and catch some poetry shows.
* * *
The sun hadn’t quite come up yet and it was still gray outside. I bent down to kiss Aura on the lips as I buttoned up my shirt. She rose to the kiss a little and her eyes opened.
“Is it morning already baby?” she asked drowsily.
“Yeah, I told Nate I’d be down at the car at eight.”
“Well we wouldn’t want to upset him, would we.”
I stared down at her, trying to save this moment, keep it locked away. “I don’t want to leave.”
“Of course you don’t... God, we had a good time, didn’t we?”
“Yeah, and you better write me too.”
She pulled me down to the bed again and kissed me thoroughly. Then she pushed me away, towards the door. “Go.”
I got to the door and turned back one last time.
“I’ll be thinking of you,” she said.
“I know,” I said, “I’ll be thinking of you too.”
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Average Rating : 4.8
Total ratings : 4
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| Aura | Login/Create an account | 3 Comments |
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Re: Aura
by Merry_Widow on Apr 28, 2004 - 03:32 PM
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Another well written piece. The fact that there is no huge climatic meeting between the two characters makes it more believable as a glimpse into someones life. The flashback scenes were in spots that made sense, and that didn't lose the reader as you flipped between the two times.
The last line was a perfect note to end on. It was a nicely understated summation of the entire work. Very well done, as usual.
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Re: Aura
by Zero (-)
on May 05, 2004 - 12:57 PM
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i loved this story...i felt for sorry for him...i got really rapped up into the story...and when i got to the end i was thinking..."no, don't let it end"....i just keep wondering what happened to him next....you know....will he keep searching...even though i have those questions i still absolutely loved the ending.
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Re: Aura
by Alugarde (ik158102@ohiou.edu)
on May 09, 2004 - 01:46 PM
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Perhaps I'm just not proficient with reading article categories, but when I began reading this I was unsure as to wether or not this was a fictional or nonfictional piece. I erred on the side of caution, assuming it was fiction. As I read it, however, I was so moved that I began to think it was something that actually happened to you, and that it was simply so well done that it had slidden through the no-journal entry rule. Silly me, I should have known better. Nonetheless, I hope Gabe finds Aura, and, if this is based on events in your life, I hope the same for you. Well done.
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