Please let there be water underneath my Feet Stories and Poems by: Lucas McEuen

I would like to dedicate this book To two important people in my (short) writing career Thank you very much Mr. Charles Cliff Greenwood and Mrs. Christine Mani

Table of Contents Page One, I was there when the world collapsed

Page Two-Four, Photograph

Page Five-Ten, Hugo

Page Eleven-Fourteen, Deer

Page Fifteen, Wild Youth

Page Sixteen-Nineteen, The Dear Letter

Page Twenty, Please let there be water underneath my Feet

Page Twenty One, Authors note

1.

I was there when the world collapsed She had an eye For details of men she knew she wanted Ideas that could never quite be perfect She, while finding clichs Was a ball of them in herself She never quite understood that.

2. Photograph I was walking under the red glow from the streetlights that loosely outlined the curbs edge. The night had come in good timing and I was ready for it to begin expiring. A woman passed me on the street. I looked back and called. When she turned around I raised my camera and snapped her picture. I was trying to capture moments in time. I was trying to show something. Unfiltered parts of life that somewhere get lost among things we worry about. Once it was taken I looked at her. I recognized her from somewhere. I smiled at her and waved and she turned around and went on. I knew I would never see her again. I also knew that I had a memory of her that would never disappear. Later I sat on a bench with my back to buildings. I was looking through the several photos I had taken in the day. It was going through my head that I knew that woman but it was still unclear. A low bang against the concrete wall behind me interrupted my thoughts. I turned around and faced a sea of windows. In one of them, two boys were looking out into the dark, trying to see beyond the city; in another a man was watching television, illuminated by flashing blue lights. Two floors up from the boys a woman was standing and looking on past everything. She had one hand on her neck and the other was wrapped around her waist. I thought that she was looking at me but I couldnt tell. The light in her room was behind her and left a shadow for her front. I raised my camera and clicked. As I did she disappeared. I sat back down and looked at the camera. Her picture was interesting.

3. On all edges of the photo grey and white lines darted in every direction. I sat staring at it, thinking about it. I heard the creak of a door opening and closing. I looked up and a woman was coming towards me wrapping herself in a sweater. I looked up to the window and back to her. It was dark. Who are you? she asked, sitting beside me. Im sorry. Im a photographer. I like to take pictures. Thats not what I asked. I looked down to my feet nervously. Its nice that you take pictures. But maybe some people dont want to be seen. She said. I sat for a moment with my head still down. Look at this. I said laying the camera in her lap. I continued. Im seeing things that I dont think are seen enough. Everyone is too caught up with everything else to realize what beauty is around them. She looked at the camera for a long time. These are nice. She paused. What made you do it? I looked at her. Take my picture. I didnt know how to respond. The moment just happened it would never be seen again. I would never see this woman the same. I had never met her. Did you see it? Yes. Okay.

4. Some people dont want to be seen. Why? You are here living and breathing now. Whats the point in hiding? If you explore around you, you will see new things. Being sheltered doesnt help anything. You wouldnt understand. Youre right. I dont. You know. Come with me. I said and took her hand. We ran down the street and through several blocks of cars and lights. She did not say anything, instead she just allowed me to drag her along. We ended up downtown in the city. Big bright billboards and lighted buildings surrounded us. She looked in awe. This is what youre missing. I said. Everything. She looked at me and smiled. It was written on her face. It was then that I knew a picture was truly worth something. I raised my camera and clicked. A portrait was formed that night. It was around her body, glowing. You could see it through the photograph; you could feel it through the photograph. I let the work speak for itself to everyone. When asked the title I would re address the question to them. What is the title?

5. Hugo Hugo was where he did not want to be, a party. He was taken by friends who vanished as soon as the A/C rushed into their faces. He never saw them but his glass remained full. He was sitting on the couch, one that was beginning to rot, the threads were coming undone and the washed out stains were faded but visible. Sitting next to him was a man and women who both had drinks in their hands and who talked loudly about something he didnt know. Hugo couldnt talk to them. He didnt really know how. In rooms filled with people he could never really speak. His tongue dried inside of his mouth making words impossible. The sounds that came out were always mute. Hugo stood up and walked outside for air, they didnt notice. He sat on the cement driveway in between two cars and looked down at his hands. He traced the veins with his eyes and he opened and closed his hand and watched them fade out and come back. All of the people who were outside smoking looked at him. Some began whispering about him. He didnt have to hear what they were saying, he already knew. Finally one of them spoke up. What are you doing? she said. Her words startled him and he felt his tongue with the bottom of his teeth. It was no longer dry. I dont know.

6. She smiled and walked over to him. She positioned herself next to him on the cement. He looked at her. Through the thin haze that surrounded them he saw her eyes piercing through. Even in the dark they stood out, bold green. She was wearing a black and white floral dress that cut off at her knees. She was sitting with her legs to the side, her dress draped across her knees. Whats your name? She asked. Hugo. Hello Hugo. Im Elizabeth. Hugo smiled at her and then looked around. Everyone outside was looking at the two of them. She saw his eyes darting around from person to person. She saw that his hands were beginning to shake. Come here. She said. She took his hand and they stood up and walked down the street. He looked back towards the house and all the people watched him walk away. She didnt let go of his hand. They walked to an empty park. They were lit by the far away moon. It outlined her and he followed. She led him to the grass and lay down. He watched her dress as it wrinkled beneath her. It reminded him of when his mother would lay next to him on evenings while his father worked. He shook those thoughts. He lay next to her. It was quiet and there was no wind. The only sounds came from their soft breaths.

7. Hugo couldnt think of what to say, instead, they both just lay there looking up into the night. The stars held up an image that Hugo was not willing to shape. He tried to think about what she was thinking about. He couldnt place it. His mother was the one who drove things when they talked. Now he was with Elizabeth, a woman he barely knew, who took his hand and ran away with him. He could feel himself tense up at the thoughts. She spoke first. Why are you here? He was relieved to hear her voice. Im not sure. Someone brought you. Well yeah His voice trailed off. I was brought here. I didnt come here. She didnt respond. He looked at her. She was looking up into the sky. They lay in silence and looked up into the sky for a long time. After a long silence he sat up and looked at her. He caught her eyes. She smiled at him and moved over and laid her head on his lap and looked up. The moon hung just in front of his nose. She watched it as it began to pass through him. She sat up and then stood up and held out her hand. Hugo was staring off into somewhere. After a while he looked at her hand. Are you okay? She said. Yeah, fine. You know youre interesting.

8. Oh? You dont talk much. He shrugged. I dont need too. Dont you need to talk? I dont see why. What is there to say all the time? She fell silent. He took her hand and pulled himself up. She began walking away and she let her hand fall behind her, still connected to his. He followed. She took a turn down a narrow stone road. Her shoes made loud clashes against the stones. He did not know where she was taking him although he had seen that road before. He couldnt place it. They passed by cars that were abandoned and houses that looked the same. Hugo thought something was wrong. He could feel that there was. She turned her head and looked at him. He smiled at her. She smiled back. After the road ended there was a clearing. She let go of his hand and turned around to face him. Its beautiful isnt it? Hugo looked around and smiled again. She walked backwards across a part of the clearing and then turned around and stopped. He tried to peek around her to see what she was staring at. She was blocking it. He thought to let it go. Slowly she turned to face him, her eyes were in the dirt. In an instant she snapped. Lets go back to the party.

9. Hugo paused. He didnt know what to say. Okay. As they walked away he turned around to see what she was looking at. He saw a headstone. From far away he could just read what it said. We all are, without. What does it mean? He asked. It was what my uncle said to me growing up. They walked in silence back down the street. Her shoes clashed against the street and the lights were beginning to turn off as the sun was just coming up. They stopped down the road. He looked at her. Why did you do this? I saw you alone. And that means you talk to me? Many people are left alone. That doesnt mean they dont want to be. Okay. Are you okay? As she spoke a tear fell from Hugos eyes. He knelt down. What were you trying to do? Im not understanding you. You remind me of someone. She looked down at the back of his head. Slowly she began to understand. When he looked up she was gone. He walked back to the party. Some of the same people were out front. Where is she? Hugo asked.

10. Who?

11. Deer Rain sat on an old tree stump; one from which the tree had fallen down several years ago and no one had the need to pick up. He came down here often. It was his place to think and explore the forests, as he wanted to. The first day his family moved in he was off in the woods exploring. He liked looking at the trees and feeling the coarse texture of the bark. It made him feel wanted; he liked being surrounded by the comfort of the trees. For years he was in the woods. He would stay all day long, tracking birds and squirrels, trying to distinguish the different tracks. Once when he was stumbling through he found a deer lying on the ground, dead. Its body was decaying and melting into the dirt, a thickness was added to it, a thickness that melded into the dirt and formed clumps. Its head was untouched, its eyes open and looking out into an open plain where flowers were beginning to grow. The rib bones were piercing, sharp, through the skin and leaving a white powder on the dull brown skin. He stared at it for a long time; something about the deer interested him. Next to the body was a knife, left by the hunter who took the deers life. He picked it up and held it in his hands, rotating it and feeling the tip of the blade. It was a soft blade, the crisp metal felt strange. Specks of blood had dried onto the blade at which he stared and picked at with his fingernail. He sat by the deer and watched as the sun set below the trees. He came back with the knife in his hand and showed it to his father, trying to show what he could do in the woods. His parent took the knife from him and walked

12. out of the room. Instinctively he ran back to the woods and sat in a mass of trees where he looked up at the moon. He cried, sitting in the plain with the flowers; he did not understand why. The moon cast a shadow down upon him. When he came back the door was open, he walked in. He heard no voices and no noises. He walked through the house into his parents room. He found his father lying on the ground with the knife next to him. His father was dead. His mother had fled. He sat with his father for two days, holding onto him as his hands slowly faded to a dull red. He left them that way as he carried his father to the woods and buried him near the deer that was lying on the ground. Now, there were four plots of discolored dirt all around the deer that was almost just bone, tufts of skin still remained but besides that it was just skeleton. Months later, Rain moved to New York. He didnt want to, but he knew he couldnt stay. The thoughts were too much. New York was a change, a good one. He let everything go. He gained weight, grew a beard and his hair got a little longer. He slept whenever he could, most nights he would just wander through the town, never talking to anyone. The lights and sounds of the city itself did that for him. It was his escape, a new vitality. The first time he didnt speak, it all happened in swift movements. The man was much bigger than he was but that didnt change anything. It still happened just the same. The same as the other wild life out in the forest. He sat in the alley with the man, just watching him as he bled out. The red stained the broken clay and brick ground, filling in the grout lines and pooling in the uneven bricks.

13. It took him days but he traveled back to the woods with the body, to where the deer lay, and his father. He buried the mans body next to his father, the discolored dirt now becoming more uniform in color, next to the newly shaken plot. He took the train on his way back to New York. He was sitting alone and looking out the window and thinking about what he had done, how it had felt sitting in the alley with the man. Across the car was a girl, about ten. She was staring at him. He caught a glimpse of her and she looked away. She looked back and smiled at him. He waved and then looked down at his hand. The red was still slightly stained on the palm of his hand. He looked back up and the girl was gone; she wasnt in the car anymore. He looked back out the window and then back down at his hand. Had she seen the stain? Is that why she was not there? Was his mind trying to tell him something? After only a day back in New York it happened again, another man made him angry and he snapped and had to make his way back to the deer. It was harder this time. Rains body was weaker, his mind was weaker. He would fall down and succumb to dreams that were all too real. He would see his mother standing over his father with the knife; he would watch the whole thing. He had to go back, into the house where everything had taken place. Where his father had left. When this one was in the ground adding to the discolored dirt, he walked away, toward the house. Nothing had moved since that night. Everything was older, more beaten up from the years with no care and the harsh elements. The stain from where his father lay was sunken into the ground, a sight that brought everything back.

14. Sunlight shone in through the window and reflected off of something that lay under the bed. Rain reached under and pulled out the knife, blood was still stained onto the blade. He sat there staring at it and thinking. Another dream came to life, he was watching his mother leaning over his father. Closing his eyes did not help; no matter what he did he saw it happening. Then something hit the window, broke his thought. He looked out the window and saw the girl standing there. He walked outside and she spoke. You shouldnt do that you know, it wasnt your fault. She walked closer to him. She wanted to do it, you were too young to see it coming. She came even closer. He saw her blue eyes and the blondeness of her hair. And with that she was gone, disappeared. A hopeless loss to the wind that howled through the trees. Nothing remained of her but a memory and a sensation impossible to describe. He continued on as best as he could for the remainder of his years. Eventually he ended up lying down in the woods next to the deer. The lights faded out and he passed through everything. His body slowly decayed next to the deer, and his father. Soon the resemblance would be undistinguishable.

15. Wild youth I can hear the buzzing See grass ripping out of the ground from your step They lead us off track I lost count of them long ago Tiny wings make tiny wind gusts You tell yourself you feel They are far too fast Weve been at this all day Over us the overseeing eye stands Watching Prepared to pretend to protect us If we end up too close We have them where we want Trapped in clear glass jars The buzz grows louder Now it echoes From adulthood, as a child I see all he wanted Lavender, a deep purple scent We stole from him We were just kids We didnt know better He buzzes in life Suffocating in glass As we watch him We were just kids

16. The Dear Letter I sat in the apartment all day, wasting the light that seeped through the worn out shutters. I was waiting for something that I knew would never come. I thought before I left I should write you, a letter to show you how I felt about everything. Once I finished I would fold it and set it on the coffee table, next to the discolored wood. It would match the small Vignettes you told me about your life that constantly remained in the back of my mind. Dear, I paused at the comma, looking at it, at the paper. I found it odd that anything in the world could be written on that paper. Everything that ever was written was written in that same way. I knew that comma was everything, a start. In my own mind I knew I was unaware of how to pick up the pieces in relationships. Nothing worked. I was always stuck on the edge between the gray area and the lights that would never come on. I would come home after days away and find myself alone. You were always gone; it seemed, at least to me. Maybe you were there and I just couldnt notice. I had to set the typewriter aside. I had to get away. Something. In the lobby at the bottom of the stairs, a woman was sitting in a chair. She was looking down at her hands that were folded in her lap. Calmly next to her a dog was sitting, panting. I walked by her and the dog, which whined when I passed, and out into the street. Parked cars and construction work littered the streets outside.

17. Down the street I stopped under a tree that lay on top of a parking roof overhang. Tree branches grew through the gaps in between the wood frame and hung down. The streetlight across the street emitted light through the spaces between the branches. I stared up through the tree for a while. I stood in the bitter cold. I stood until my feet got numb and the brim of my hat became cold to the touch. I repositioned my hat and then continued down the street. Passed empty cars. At the end of the street a car sat with its lights on. They reflected off the sides of the car in front of it, casting shadows upon the passing people. Two people sat inside that car, talking. They looked peaceful. As I passed them they looked up. I watched their eyes curiously watch me. Then they went back to talking. I thought of you, when I saw them. I saw us reflected in the glass of the car window. Suddenly you were there next to me as I continued down the street. I miss the artwork everywhere, scattered around the room. All the papers that covered the coffee table. Simple sketches. I miss the charcoal marks that were left on my hands from when I moved your hair. I walked past one of your pieces in a store window. I knew it would remember me. The eyes stared at me. It reminded me of when you drew it. I saw that piece come together. I saw those eyes. The last one that I remember. I looked into the eyes, the only hint of color. A vast, warm grey lake. Those were my eyes, to you. I still remember every detail of you. I will never forget you. You changed me as a person, into a person I did not know I could be. When you left, it left a hole. A hole that

18. will never be filled but one that will be lived with. I know it was not your fault; nothing was ever your fault. I still dont blame you for anything. I knew, in time, you would forget. I looked and you were no longer at my side. I continued down the street, passed buildings abandoned so long ago they forgot their names. The worn down skeletons that remained stood waiting to fall. The grout lines were beginning to decay, the chipped clay bricks, old memories. The first time we were together we ventured inside. The grieving walls invited us in. We slept on the concrete, wrapped around each other with the sounds of the city behind us. It was the nicest thing that I remember we did. Now that is gone. I knew I would never go back to that place. I would simply float onward into some new place. A place that I could never call home. I walked through the park, bent down and felt the grass. I made my way, slowly, to the beach. The waves lightly crashed against the sand and left white foam residue. I looked at the ripples the moving tides made. It made no difference. I walked back through the park. Passed the swing set. The night had fully developed. The streets were beginning to fill with late night patrons. I filtered my way through them and sat on the front steps, watching. They all stumbled passed me. I would be one of them if not for you. I stood up and walked into the building. The woman was no longer there but the dog remained next to the chair, he was now lying down, he looked

19. to be asleep. My feet were heavy now and my eyes drooped. I could feel the blue in them fading. I never would have known you to come back. I guess thats all I have to say. I shut the door behind me. Something was off, a smudge next to the knob. Could it be? Was I seeing ghosts? In the typewriter sat one short sentence. I know I left. Nothing was moved or touched. The bed was still unmade. Draped in the sheet I saw the rise and fall.

20. Please let there be water underneath my feet I didnt mean to but I left the keys to my house on the dashboard of your car In between two cigarettes I realized There was no going back If I could tell you in anyway in the first week then things might have changed But now were stuck The loss of passion standing on your porch underneath the lights Was enough for me to realize that where I was, was not where I wanted to be I know that it was where I needed to be But it was not where I wanted to be I was forcing myself to be there Through lives physical marks and mental scars make appearances These things are okay Thats what Im beginning to learn Thats why I leaned in on that night Even though my heart was saying no The beauty in things never lasting is that they end. I never thought that you would believe In the hope and the pain of the phrase And when you said your grandfather had told you That was everything I needed to walk out the door But it was closed I hope for the future that you keep the door open So me, and others like me dont stay when were supposed to leave Weve all got things in our lives that need to be straightened out In different methods and rituals our behavior of these events change Its how you deal with things that make you want to die Its also what makes you want to live Its not really a cycle Just a passing of something When you look down at your feet Whatever may be there Just say Please let there be water underneath my feet. So at least there is a hope to survive

21. Note Thank you very much for taking time out of whatever spectacular life you are leading to read my book. This is my first ever self-published work and I am very proud of the works that I have compiled over the course of the last two years. I hope you enjoyed the stories. Sincerely, Lucas McEuen