Golden Age for Silver Medals

Sat imperceptibly motionless on a park bench his jaw aching with a joke no one wants to laugh at Wesley Black begins to scratch a name into the soft wood beside him with an old key. At first it is unintentional, but slowly his subconscious begins to connect the random lines and swirls into shapes occupying that vague space between "legible" and "doodle" you often find decorating city-owned seating.

Wesley wasn't normally one to leave his mark this way, but the drugs were still rattling his nerves. Fuzzy flashes fade in and out of memory. Ripped plastic baggies. Empty glasses. A razor blade scraping white powder across a stray black tile. A capsule containing a drug pronounced "M-D-M-A" that was probably spelled "M-E-T-H." He felt dirty. Violated. Burned up from the inside out. He would be thankful when that filthy low-class drug was gone. Now the horrible speedy comedown was really taking hold sending the occasional shiver through his hunched, spindly frame. The bench carving seemed like a reasonable outlet for the excess energy vibrating within his fingertips. 34 hours and counting since he last ate or slept, but those things aren't even blurs in his mind's horizon.

"This seat taken?" The suddenness of the sound jerked his mind back into itself so fiercely that his body was thrown 3 inches to the right. A petite figure in a golden sundress and tie dyed headband stood casting a shadow across half his face. The soft smile and wavy brown hair tumbling down her shoulders would be so comforting

at ANY other point in his life, but we are here, now. She shifted her weight from left foot to right waiting patiently for a reply.

"Yeah, um, no I mean. No, it's not taken." Wesley pockets his keys and through sheer willpower manages to lift himself over to the far edge of the bench. The scratches he'd been so focused on vanishing from his mind as fast as his body covered them.

"Great, I've always loved this spot. Good energy here. Did you know this patch of grass is green all year round? It's true."

"Um.. Great, yeah." He feels his mouth twist briefly in disgust at the mention of 'energy' and the overall cheerfulness currently erupting from her face, threatening him with conversation. "I'm, uh, working on something." He lies.

"Oh yeah? Was it that thing you were carving? Are you some kind of artist? Like, the Banksy of park benches or something?" She leans forward and tries to see around the loose fitting argyle sweater hanging off his shoulders, but there is nothing worth viewing except the wooden precipice beside which Wesley had resettled himself.

"Uh, no... I'm just...just.... Trying to collect my thoughts for something." He feels his own 'energy' turning more volatile by the moment and hopes she's as intuitive as she seems to think.

"Well I know it helps me to talk things out when I'm doing that! What are you working on?" He is disappointed. " Oh, I'm Heidi. Heidi Cooper. My friends call me Whinny though." She smiles and her arm stretches out with a jangling clatter as the beads and bells adorning her wrist fail to resist gravity's pull.

"Winnie Cooper? Like in The Wonder Years?" He grips her hand briefly responding to the gesture, but careful not to shake it in case that horrible sound starts again.

"Hmm? No, it's a nickname. When I was growing up I used to 'whinny' really good. We had some horses, you see. I was real good at talking back to them. Not like really talking, but doing their voices back. What's Wonder Years?"

"Never mind. Well it was nice to meet you Heidi-"

"Whinny."

"Fine, Whinny." Why mention Heidi at all? "Nice to meet you, but I need to get back to work." He tries to maintain the lie, but then begins to wonder if she knows what work is. If she knows how one would want to be alone to do it and not seated indian-style in some commune where concepts like personal space or boundaries are abandoned in favor of crystal therapy or chakra massage or whatever.