Among the Common

By Pamela R. Cone


When you hear warning signs and still keep walking the results are
equivalent to stumbling into a snow storm. Your only reason is what you
have been searching for has suddenly appeared on the other side of the
hill. These sightings are rare. You have come to realize you weren't meant
to walk among the common. You don’t exactly blend in no matter the
intellectual composition of the crowd. Your last attempt was an affair held
in some place you wouldn't normally frequent. You introduced yourself but
your name didn't sound familiar in their pitches. And their tongues seemed
to cling to the roof of their mouths like that of liars. This is why you
are searching for this aberration reported by those consecrated to the
same. Your allegiance to one another is tighter than the secret hand shakes
other members of various clubs salute one another with. Armed with a flash
light, you hope you won't return still common.

II.

We all are but men. The wicked man preys on the common. The ignorant man
who stands head bowed holding his hat in shame. The shame of being hungry
and powerless. His faith in a creator to lift up his formation. The father
to even the bastard. To him, his soul sits high, his words silver flowing
from his tongue. But the vile man's lips are his own. He refuses to exalt
another. He stands high at every corner. With bloody hands he professes
himself. He too is but a man.

III.

The street was crowded with people headed all in the same direction. Moving
as if an alarm had sounded warning them of the end of time. They marched
like slow stepping soldiers headed for certain death with their eyes
looking straight ahead. No one was directing them; but they all were
responding to the same voice shouting orders over the intercom in their
mind. In the background haunting music played providing them their rhythm.
Their destination seemed un-mark able and their passage incessant.

IV.

Riding on the street car, the passing streets are untitled. They're
intertwined like a spool of yarn finally unraveling at the intersection of
town where the homeless woman searches for her lost life buried in her
rubble. Her face is exposed. But her identity is found on the stamped
passport she keeps strapped to her waist telling of places she once roamed.
The sidewalk will roll up at dusk--both tired of the feet that has tread on
them all day. Their assigned position in life, it seems, is to scurry for
the crumbs that fall from the table, to answer when called, to not curse
when their mouths taste of bile.


Pamela R. Cone is an interior designer and writer residing in Dayton, Ohio.  She has been published in The Clarion Review and on her blog, Sometimes I Talk to Myself.