This is a start to a short story, I usually take a long time before i finish any of them but this is a newer one. Any comments appreciated
Jordan sat in contemplative silence, the wind rushing his sandy face and tousling his already disheveled, brown hair. He sat cross-legged in the sand, his one pant leg above his knee and the other resting half way down his calf as he dug his foot deeper into the sand. Light wisps of smoke rose from a cigarette poised between his thumb and index finger. He held the cigarette chest level as if he were going to raise it to his mouth, but instead stopped mid way as if struck by a sudden thought. His eyes stared at the breakers’ rolling and the squabbling of the gulls in a questioning gaze, one eyebrow slightly raised. It seemed to Jordan as if he had been sitting there his entire life, as if he had grown from the sand. His every thought came and passed with the motion of the water 10 yards in front of him, every thought as worthless as the next.
Jordan shook his head and placed the cigarette in his mouth. Hunching forward slightly he rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands and groaned as he blew smoke from his nostrils. Jordan hadn’t slept that night, so his brown eyes were blood shot and old looking. His lips were chapped and seemed to form a chronic frown, thought they were a good shape. Jordan’s hair was something of a controversy to himself, long as it was, it curled in the back to make a wave at the base of the neck, and his bangs hung menacingly about his eyes. His parents said cut it, and a part of him just wanted to shave it bald, but he never touched it, maybe except to push his bangs aside. Jordan did not bother to shave, so his face was in a bearded state, though not full enough to call a beard. Every thing about him seemed to be disheveled and unorderly as he sat motionless taking one last drag of his cigarette. From his hair to his expression everything seemed to contradict everything else. Jordan’s eyebrows always seemed upwards or cocked, as if feigning empathy, but his deep, brown eyes have a cold stare. They were never still, unless he was sitting and thinking, but even then his stare had a dynamic sparkle.
Jordan squinted his eyes against the sunlight and shook his head again, his hair flying up in the sea breeze. He reached into his pocket and produced a small notebook. Placing his pen to the paper of the opened notebook he hesitated, and looked up to the gathering gray on the horizon. He looked back down at the paper and quickly wrote, “The ocean doesn’t make sense.” Jordan put away his booklet and shut his eyes. He took a deep breath and let it out as a sudden gust sent his hair waving helter-skelter. Jordan got up slowly and began to labor his way back up the beach. He needed to get back on the road, he couldn’t be late for his flight.
Three months earlier Jordan was clean-shaven. Though his mind set was just beginning to become clear, there was something deeply wrong, and he felt it. Jordan could remember feeling certain ways about things, being happy, angry, and even furious. He used to be opinionated, refined, and laughable. He had a clear future in front of him, he was accepted at Columbia, and he was to be a journalist after his father, and his fathers father, and so on until he grew too sick to even think anymore. But at the point of his graduation that all seemed as distant as his birth, he was starting to become restless, and he didn’t care anymore. Jordan earnestly believed he was going crazy.
Everything was becoming a blur, and he felt detached, as if he were watching it all on T.V. But what Jordan missed most of all was the feeling of being secure, he remembered that feeling. All it was now was a bad dream, life that is.
On graduation day, Jordan woke to the melancholy pitter patter of rain outside his window. The pane was open and a cold breeze wafted into Jordan’s bedroom and under his blanket. In a vain attempt to extricate the cold that was assaulting his blissful sleep, he wrapped his comforter about him until he resembled a mummy. “Its hune, why the hell is it cold?” he thought. Jordan hoped he might be six years old again, because his feet wouldn’t touch the end of his bed. But to his chagrin he discovered he was merely hiked up against the wall, in almost a sitting position. Waking up this morning was a bother, he would have much rather slept until college was over, and the maybe until he retired. He could make a career of it.
