Corey Part 1
I met Corey at the end of the first grade, sometime in May as I approached the far end of our kickball field that had originally been intended for baseball but had resembled even from its infancy a deserted parking lot left to decay, bits of pavement intermittent with sand and rock and expended coal and those impressive yet curious blades of grass that, through perhaps some sort of mob mentality, quiet and inorganic acceptance, stubborn pride, or even some desperation to climb towards what it must have perceived as its only raison d’etre, a desperation that can only be born from centuries of evolutionarily induced collective unconscious and genetic magnetism, one that surpasses not just one’s lifetime but one’s generation and several distances of ancestry and progeny, grew thick and deceivingly prosperous, with an air of fecundity that could never blossom between sand and rocks, whose roots rarely touched anything once organic or fertile yet managed to amble down the invariable path to which all plants are bound. This task, however disreputable and undeniably delusive, must have impressed the nearby lawn had its blades been given to consciousness. In the same way that Sisyphus surpasses his futile task in one’s mind because, like any magnificent and withstanding accomplishment, his ability (despite its intended futility) causes one to doubt his own, and to fear a similar lot at some point in their own future. And underneath the proud scoffs of those conscious blades of grass, perhaps there would exist some fear, some understanding that if given the same situation would not have been able to even find itself in futility but rather nowhere at all.
That May afternoon, across that yard that was a field only because it lined the elementary school and not due to any sparse vegetative frivolousness, I approached four boys. And I did not do so warily, nor with curiosity, nor eagerness, nor even interest, but like the stoically resolute blades of grass amongst rock I was simply being what had been decided some time ago by my subconscious, my genes, or a deity. I approached undeterred by the fact that I hadn’t ever spoken to any of them, nor did their faces evoke any memories or subtle notions. But like most friendships between six year old boys, it simply existed, lying wait for its discovery and utility, no more manufactured or sought than the ground beneath one’s step. Simply there, often for granted without merit, yet intimately important and fulfilling to the progress of one’s journey. The ground before us, like those friendships, has its own changing slope, immediately resolving (or sabotaging) many directions that even a fully conscious adult would have been ill to perceive yet only through careful and thorough reflection.
