I’ve posted the intro to this before, but don’t browse away if you’ve already read it - I finally finished the thing and theres a lot more now. I polished that intro for over a year and it seemed almost to good to use, but I had a midterm project due and couldn’t come up with a different idea. This is sort of a final rough draft - it’s been revised and it’s pretty strong, but still needs refining. In particular, the final paragraph lacks impact, but as the writer it’s tough to judge. Anyway, please leave constructive criticism!!!

Landscaped palms filed alongside the road, wedged into the thin strip of habitable dirt between the pavement and the sand. The sky was covered with sheets of beige cloud, wrinkled in the delicate geography of a crumpled blanket, and as Adam walked the clouds meandered west, blown by the same light wind that carried troops of gulls home from their night encampments a few hours earlier. The sun had just crested the eastern hills and Adam was only a mile from where he had slept, but already he wanted to stop. A vague sense of neglected duty had been hanging like mist over the past few days, and that morning it finally condensed - he wanted to write down what was happening, what had happened, so he wouldn’t forget. The night had passed quietly, so he decided it was safe to spend a few hours making notes. A drain pipe was protruding from the gently sloped embankment a few yards ahead - hot tin covered in the penetrating, sticky dust characteristic of exposed California hillsides. He brushed off the fine brown powder and sat down.

As Adam opened his notebook, he considered simply leaving it, along with the rest of his property, and returning for it later. His guitar was especially cumbersome, pulling him to the left and banging awkwardly against his hip as he walked. It had been with him for years and had absorbed some part of him, as things that are well loved often do, but it would be better to loose only a part..

He felt these choices were becoming increasingly important - his foresight was clear in the silence of the cost and he could see his actions reverberate through time as the future compressed into the present. That silence, however, at first a welcome relief from the unnerving noises of the city, was growing sharp. It had become a tangible negative, a felt presence instead of a mere lack of sound, and it colored all his experience. He glanced up and the atmosphere offered no resistance: it looked as if he could pluck a tree from one of the nearby mountains. The air moved and the hairs on his arm stirred individually.

Adam sat quietly and considered his position. He had been traveling for two days, searching for food, and had found nothing… His plan had been to head south along the coast, in the hope that whatever was growing or grazing would still be edible. The coast of Southern California veers east, though, as it drops from Los Angeles towards San Diego; Adam knew this and he was troubled. He thought about the shadow that slid in from the east, the shadow still covering most of the city, and his right eye started twitching violently. But the raw energy of the sun and the clear air were wearing on him and there seemed to be no alternative.

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I love the 4th. In some of my earliest memories I’m waving sparklers on my grandparents’ lawn - watching liquid fire drip off the tip onto the grass; white smoke, nostrils full of sulfer.. Fireworks are threaded through my life, and they have never changed for me. My reactions have changed, but they haven’t: I’ve always seen in them an ideal beauty, with nothing to grasp at or hold on to - no distractions as it were.

I can follow that strand of beauty back, and I see myself falling farther and farther away from it. When I was very young, fireworks simply made me happy. Even though the fireworks were used up, my happiness was secure because life was secure - I was confident of even greater good to come, of more holidays and more fireworks, and nothing had been irrepairably lost or broken.

I used to make fireworks (people often think I’m some pyro nut-job, but that wasn’t really it: who doesn’t want to create the thing they love?), and through that hobby I saw the possibility of change and a foreshadowing of my current position.

One year I put on a show for my cousins, which started well. There were several volcanoes (blue and purple) I was especially proud of. Near the end I set off a whistler. It was a new design, and instead of whistling it exploded - it flew through the air and struck my cousin Whitney’s ankle. She wasn’t injured, but of course it stung and she spent several minutes crying. Even though she was ok, I felt wretched the rest of the day. Here was a thing that seemed entirely beautiful, that had brought me only joy, and in trying to bring that joy to someone else I had brought suffering instead. The very center of things had become missaligned, and fireworks made me sad from then on.

They are still beautiful, and they fade, but now I cry afterwards, because I know some beautiful things pass away and never come back. I think of all the people I’ve hurt and the suffering I’ve caused, all the beauty I’ve destroyed, things I can never undo, and even though God can bring new good out of any evil, still the evil is done and the first good is gone. Of couse I know, as a Christian, that there is hope.. everyone plays “Born in the USA” today, but I always think of a different Springsteen song:

everything dies baby that’s a fact
but maybe everything that dies someday comes back..