-PARTNERED WANDERERS-

She sits back, corner of the asphalt textured wall pinching into every separate bone

that makes up her spine. Her mind clouded by the clouds outside, but also the

blanket of papers draped over her legs. She was barricaded by a wall of packets,

workbooks, and a laptop to sit as a roof. Wires of the computer charger plugged into

the outlet on her right, headphones in her ears with those wires running down her neck then draped against her torso.

From the source of the music came a notification saying it had to be charged, and

here was yet another wire birthed from her pocket plugged into the same right wall; all of these wires becoming the fence around it.

The right side of her body and soul overpowered by the sound of her favorite song,

the left side intrigued by the river created by the water caught by the gutters. She is not focused, but refuses to change a thing. She has already sunken into the music

and is calm and present. Even present not being the right word to describe her because she was not here at all; so to speak.

Her mind in an unidentifiable place unknown to her peers and maybe even to herself. She was gone. She isn’t here. Stop calling her name. She can’t hear you.

But there was one thing she did hear. As she sang the words of her favorite song, she

slipped up on a part that she’d never forgotten, but was caught by a male voice there to pick up the words left behind. And she looked out onto the next balcony over where she’d heard this mystery, to find eyes at her level. Finishing the song and

marking every word. And for a moment, they were in the same place. The same unidentifiable place, unknown to her peers, but easily accessed by the human sitting right here.

This same re occurrence happening for years, her lyrical mishaps being saved by

the stranger walking alongside her in every song. A beautiful bond between

strangers who’d never known each other, but every so often visited the same unidentifiable place where they were not considered strangers, but partnered wanderers.

-ifthenightcouldtalk