Rough draft

Rough draft
I’m going to be honest. This is not my real first chapter of the autobiography (Auto- self, bio-life, graphy-writing) that I have been assigned to write for English Class. I left that folder at school, over Rosh HaShanna. I regret that, on a certain level, as I had been looking forward to putting those words to type. But I will accept that, because I haven’t anything else to do, except for read and think thoughts that one might consider deep, or narrate my life in a soft voice in my head. So I sit. Laptop propped on my legs, fingers pounding out words that I think only seconds before, my speed barred only by my abysmal typing skills and my distractibility. My mother is reading over my shoulder, but I don’t really mind, only feel slightly invaded, disconcerted. The disconcertion may have more to do with the exhaustion I feel weighing down on me. Exhaustion, if you have never been (which is unlikely if you are over the age of twelve or so, and an American,) truly has weight. It is a blanket, tucked too tight. It is a pea soup fog that engulfs a city, as those called forth by religion and custom journey down to a river and cast their sins on to the waters. It is a rain that feels like a second skin. I want to shed it, follow my sins it to the river, go from 95% humidity to 100%. If I am part of it, I will not feel this haunting separation. I don’t feel right here, in this obvious display of wealth. The grounds are expansive. There is a bridge over the service road, a house of four brick wedding cake layers, terraces and fountains and staircases. I think it would be beautiful if water gushed down, turning these topiaries, bricks and concrete, into a waterfall, swamping the swimming pool, over flowing, reaching tendrils across the tennis courts, down the grounds, leeching slowly into the river. Everything flowing away. It will beautiful. Yes. Spectacular.