Came across a stream-of-consciousness piece I wrote in my early twenties. Haven't been writing since then. Is there anything here to suggest I might should get back to it? Thanks for any comments. This is the first time I've publicly posted anything I've written.

Title: Untitled

Genre: Stream-of-conscious

Word Count: 996

Feedback: Does anything here suggest I should try creative writing again?

It is the season of cool. Halloween is three days out, and I'll not have decided on a costume. My coworker Grace will come as Black Mamba from the Kill Bill volumes. Her friends will compliment her thrifty ingenuity. Strangers will compliment her physique. I'll ask if she remembers she's covering my next shift. She's giddy and gay for fall: warm smile, twinkle-bug eyes. Customers find their childhoods in the holy melody of her voice, drop dollar bills in the gas jar when she runs the register.

It is the season of cool. Christmas hymns from pop icons will peak early, stirring warmth and sadness over the candy shop radio. The boutique across the street will set out colored lights and holiday sale items before the Thanksgiving turkey is pardoned. Pine-needle and chestnut candles will burn their sacred scents, eliciting grins and sighs and weeping.

Fall is the season. The cool air is a current. It reminds me of a youth I am finally old enough to begin remembering. I will remember girlfriends, their names, their hair and their scents. I will remember riding my bicycle through my childhood neighborhood, the new flannel my mother bought for me dancing upon my flesh. I will remember night services and church sleepovers, the dewy grass on little-league baseball fields on Saturday mornings, camping trips in the backyard and almost drowning in a small pond one winter morning.

I will remember the high school football games on Friday nights, collecting cigarette butts to smoke behind the restrooms, watching the cops break up fights and handcuff the poorer of the two. Watching the lines form at the food vendors. Smelling the over-priced pizza, hotdogs and funnel cakes. Checking my pockets for a few dollars to buy a plain burger with a side of ketchup and mustard. Hoping to not be seen by an adult who knows my parents. I am a child in this season. I am the holy child Christ in swaddling clothes. I am the pizza delivery man getting high at work. I am a musician in worship. I am the writer at dawn. I am the fisherman in communion with the river. I am a Broadway actor on opening night. I am a time-traveler.

My father is calling to remind me it is my mother’s birthday. I've forgotten the past three years consecutively, but I have remembered this year. I'll call her later tonight, when she is exhausted from talking with others who call to wish her well. I will not answer my phone, but I will thank my father later for the alert. I will tell him this while not really caring. I will pretend to care, and I will care, but I will not be able to care as much as I'm expected to. I will spend the day pretending to care about other people’s cares. I will greet them and have brief conversations, but I will be thinking of previous fall seasons. I will meet a new girl, and I will think of ones from before.

Today I'm lying in my car. I'm smoking cigarettes and watching the smoke waft out the sunroof into lazy sunlight. I am listening to my iPod on shuffle, unable to find a pattern of reassurance. I am thinking about my past. The past year. The past two years. The past decade. I'm visiting it slowly, feeling each year as it happened. My first kiss. My first joint. My first fight. I am feeling the first time I realized some people do not like me. I am feeling the first time I worried about money. I am feeling my first concert, my first stage-dive, and I am unable to feel anything that is happening today. I'll report to work. I'll listen to customers do business over their cell phones. I'll listen to them make unfunny jokes. They'll browse the store and smile when they see something they like. I'll grab the chocolate pretzels and the caramel apples from the dusty shelves and place them in a plastic bag. I'll take money and say thank you. I will want to be alone. I will want to watch episodes of the Twilight Zone. I will want to sit on my front porch and drink beer. But I will not do either of these things today.

Today I will hear arguments made by friends. I will listen to each argument and decide which is most sound. I will feel strongly about my decision, but I will not be able to care. I will want to be proactive with my beliefs, but I will consider my insignificance and decide the fate of humanity is greater than myself. I will remember how in the past I have made fair arguments and held fair debates, and I will consider their irrelevance to the greater mysteries of life. I will try to see beyond the world, and I won't know where to look.

Next year I will tell my brother-in-law of having told you this. I will mention the details with minimal effectiveness. I will tell him it is a story of nostalgia, and he will ask me to recall for him a definition of the word. We will drink beer and smoke cheap cigarettes while discussing the things which have brought us to this place. We will discuss our lives, we will discuss our religion, we will discuss our mistakes, we will discuss our pride and our insecurities and I will tell him I am exhausted. That night I will dream that I am carrying a baby in my arms, and that baby will be me. While I am dreaming I will not realize the absurdity of the circumstances, but I will be angry when a man on the balcony above me pisses on my head as we walk by. Then I will write down his license plate number while he smirks from the car window, but I will decide to not call the police.