email: cchanson@cisunix.unh.edu age: 20 school: University of New Hampshire major: Undeclared passions: Hiking, streetlights at night (it's the little things), filmmaking, lp's, the list goes on other accomplishments: Two Amateur Films, Helped record/cut/design; Harmony Conspiracy A Poet's Proposal; A spoken word CD w/Sam (never to be released)

Fiction

A Yellow Sky

Reflections

A Landslide of the Mind Memories of Life

I have often felt alone in the world thinking that I had no good, close friends. Even more so that I feel disconnected from the world around me, the sky, the earth, the rivers, and the animals, that they themselves seem to each have their own little spot in the world. This hit me especially hard my first couple weeks of college with many new people around in a different environment. Yet, as I think back on all the past experiences I've had with the world, a big part of them are the hikes I've been on. And if I try really hard to remember the hot days of summer in my childhood, biking in the tall, brown grass, with a good friend that I've nearly lost from memory, I wonder: Am I really alone or have I just forgotten?

The day dawned brisk and cold with a chill in the air that lets you know you are alive. I washed and dressed with a feeling that today could be, if I made it, a day unlike the others. We hiked in and reached the point on which a decision had to be made: Arrow Slide or the trail. The trail, which posed no great challenge, was a well marked and easy ascent up the mountain; the slide, on the other hand was not marked and could prove very treacherous due to an extremely steep ascent coupled with loose stones. We decided to hike up Arrow Slide, of course, neither of us wanting to back out in front of each other, our egos pushing us on. The slide started out level with fairly large rocks, which presented no problem for us. Yet, as my eyes fell upon the slide I realized it became so steep that no living plant could find a perchance on it. This would soon become one of greatest physical and mental challenges in our life. As the slide continued to get steeper, we realized that we could not go back down and the only way out was up. We reached at one point, on our ascent, a section that seemed impossible to cross. There were large sections of bare rock at a dangerously steep angle, and loose broken stone all over them, so I went a little farther up at what seemed a safe point where the footing seemed more stable. As I tread across with Garrett watching anxiously, all the rocks began to slide and me with them.

As I felt myself start to slip, many things crossed my mind: What would it feel like to tumble down over forty feet onto jagged rocks below? Would I survive? If not would I be happy with the way I lived my life? It became a defining moment in a lifetime where you look back and see your entire life in clarity, a landslide of the mind, if you will. Thoughts from way back in your memory you believed you had forgotten come back to say yes or no, you did right, or you did wrong. Those few seconds became hours, stretched to days, led years in my life, where I could look for meaning in all the madness.

This friend that I'm talking about was as good a friend as one could ever have. Garrett was the kind of friend that we made early in childhood that can be never replaced, and all other friends made later in life seem a half-shadow of the former. The one made back in the days of Nintendo being played in the basement till two in the morning on sleepovers, camping out in a tent talking about what only boys talk about, of sledding expeditions into the heart of the artic wilderness, of treks up the seemingly tallest mountains in the biggest backyard woods of them all, of that blissful carefree chirp of a cricket in the tall grass of a field that you were told to stay out of, tumbled down off bikes listening for that yell from Farmer Ned that never came, so the cricket chirps on.

I decided to keep going and at nearly a run. I made it across the moving rocks to a flat rock on the other side. There, I watched a huge avalanche form from my footsteps, which proceeded to build and gather bigger rocks tumble down thirty feet creating a large cloud of dust.

Nearing the end of the hike up this treacherous mountain was nerve racking. Still, one false move could send us sliding down this mountain length landslide. At points, I looked down and believed that I could not make it, but I couldn't go down: It was too steep. I would have to sit there for the rest of my life. Encouragement from the friend beside me and from within helped me to continue on this landslide of our lives. He was there beside me then, and I by him, helping each other through the trials and tribulations in our lives. And he's there still; just knowing that I had a friend like Garrett helps me continue.

The idea that at any moment you could cease to be a living, breathing thing evokes a sense of hyperawareness of the world around. I could see at that moment a hummingbird's wings in perfect clarity, feel every single little bump and crack in the rock under my feet, and the air around me breathe with the sheer joy of being alive. Everything becomes clearer, slows down, and you see the world for what it is in all its beauty and danger and for a single moment rather then being alone in the world you feel connected to every little thing. "Every man is an island" but beneath that water is the bedrock that connects us to all living things. The rest of the time we live, we are only half-aware of what is going on around us, and not really seeing all. Just knowing that this sort of awareness exists or experiencing this way of seeing the world opens many doors that were once closed before. At last you can walk though the trees and see them with a vague sort of feeling that you finally belong. We can now, see, hear, touch and taste the "sounds of life" all around you with a new understanding.

As for Garrett and I, times passed, we grew up and we grew apart, him his way, me my own, never ending it with a final fight but leaving that door cracked open. We say to each other, one day we'll push open that door and have one hell of a good time, and things will be as simple as they were that lifetime ago, but we both know that that isn't true. But just the idea, no the thought, no the whisper, of that possibility that we could return to those carefree days of summer in the tall, hot, brown grass is worth living for.

The rain splatters down on the tin roof of the broad wrap around porch somewhere in America. The creak of the rocking chair is a minor accompaniment compared to the sound of nature's fury. The sky holds an eerie yellow color as if the sun was trying as hard as it could to break through the storm clouds but cannot. I am sitting anxiously in a small chair on the porch waiting for the rain to stop so I can go out splash in the puddles. It continue to sit, not because I don't want to get wet, but that my grandmother in the rocking chair will not let me go.

"C'mon it's only sprinkling now, why can't I go out?"

"Its too dangerous, you could catch cold. Why don't you go inside and do your homework like good children do?"

She twiddled her thumbs as she said the sentence I had heard a million times before in the same tone. My father had been a good student she always said, never getting muddy in the puddles after a rainstorm but working diligently inside on his homework.

"Your father was a good kid and he studied hard so when he grew up he would become a doctor or a lawyer all the doors would be open to him so he could choose a good profession. He became a banker as you well know and made lots of money."

"I don't care about any of that, I want to be a taxi driver and drive people around all day and ask them questions and find out who they are, how their day is going, and maybe they'll be happier because I talked to them."

"You don't want to be a cabbie, they don't make a lot of money and how will you find a wife if you can barely support yourself."

"I don't care about money, I want to be happy."

"Fine, do what you want. There the rain has stopped, now go out and play now before I change my mind."

The rain had indeed stopped the yellow sky had become brighter and brighter and soon the sun was peeking out from behind the retreating storm clouds. I walked to the first mud puddle I saw and looked at it carefully. I was all clean and spotless at the moment and thought that I really should go inside and work. Yet, the muddy water called me and without a second thought I jumped in and made a mighty splash.

For Grandma

"Chris is like a snowman, he's here then he's gone.
He gets up early and is busy before dawn.
He jumps and he runs and sometimes teases his brother,
But he can be very honey when he hugs his mother."
    -Isabelle Curran

For one of my birthdays my parents bought me a Chinese gerbil, a vicious little bugger but very cute, and smart. It would give me little nips if I held it wrong but I wasn't the sort of kid who was afraid of pain so I loved him anyway. I would build three or four story buildings for it with wooden blocks and Furball would run up and down the stairs, we had a ball of a time, or at least I did, who knows what Furball was thinking. I forget how long I had him but he died, probably due to my negligence but the thought didn't cross my mind, not that I was a mean kid exactly the opposite, I was the one who wouldn't burn ants under a magnifying glass with my friend. So, he died and I buried him in the backyard in a shoebox. After Furball I had a couple of others but they all died after a few years as well and the memories all sort of mesh into one gerbil I had, named Furball. Their deaths, I remember had an effect on me, I didn't cry, I rather thought about what could have been done to make him live longer so we could have more fun.

As early as I could remember I never cried when someone I knew or loved died. When my mother came into my room late one night laid down on the bed next to me and whispered in my ear, "Grandma died" then continued to cry into my shoulder. I lay there staring up at my dark ceiling. And, and I tried to cry, because that was what you're supposed to do, wasn't it? But I couldn't and I don't think I was in shock or anything, and its not like I wasn't close to my grandmother because I was, it was just that I couldn't cry, crying would change nothing I thought. I tried to feel some emotion but nothing was there, and that made me scared.

The days after my grandmother died were a whirlwind of activity but not that happy sort of busyness, it certainly had a subdued feeling, and everyone was being super nice. We drove to my grandfather's house where my aunts and uncles were already there. They all gave me concerned looks and hugged me and asked me if I was all right. What I wasn't all right about was that I had overheard someone say where my grandmother died and I could not bring myself to go into that room. It felt like there was still a presence there and I would not go into that room for a long time. My aunt and my mother being the domestics that they are immediately started to clean out things in the house that were grandmas; her clothes, shoes, shampoo, asthma machine, things like that. It seemed that anything that reminded them of her when she used to live in the house had to go. It all went into boxes that went onto the front lawn where they were soon taken away, to charities, or maybe the dump. Everyone wanted to forget, to push away these things were part of my grandmother's life, but I didn't. It seemed too fast for me, too final; let her things stay in the house for a while, a small reminder of her life on earth.

Little kids don't have a good grasp on death and when someone dies, even if they understand what really happened, it just doesn't click. So, me, my brother, and my cousins sat around and talked about normal things, a little more quietly than normal but not because we felt sad I think, but that we were getting vibes from the adults. My aunts, uncles, parents, and grandfather, I think, avoided thinking about what they had really lost, I wasn't sure what I had lost, or what was going to change in my life. There was one thing though I was certain that would change. My grandmother would always hide M&M's in the towel drawer in the kitchen when I came to visit. It was our little game, we never directly talked about it, she would just say "I need something in that drawer, would you get that for me Christopher?" I would nod and go get something and find the M&M's. There were only two rules that grandma had; wash your hands before every meal and always hand sharp objects to people handle first. To this day I always follow the sharp objects rule, and I'm still working on the hand washing.