The Courtyard
I find myself standing in this stone courtyard. Not like an old courtyard that you would find in the central area of a castle but more of an oversized patio that covers the entire block. There is no cobblestone, but instead there is white and tan river rock that is interlaced with concrete to hold them in place. This does not make for a perfectly smooth surface to walk on; however it is much smoother than an original cobblestone courtyard would be. Smooth enough to ride a bicycle on but not quite smooth enough for someone to ride a skateboard on. A one-way street borders each of the four sides of this courtyard and on the opposite side of each street are random boutiques and shops. On each of the four corners of the courtyard is a fountain. Not a large fountain with lights but a small simple fountain that one can faintly see the top of from the middle of the courtyard.
The courtyard is full of people. Anywhere I walk I can reach out and touch someone in any direction. It is not what one would classify as crowded but just as very busy and full of life. There are all kinds of people: young, old, male, female, laid back and professional. People are walking in pairs or by themselves in all directions. Some are standing talking to others, and some are just sitting on the random benches scattered throughout the courtyard. Everyone seems to be going somewhere or resting for a while before going on their way again.
After observing all of this in just a moment, I begin to become uneasy with confusion and bewilderment. I realize that I do not know where I am, how I got there, or where I am going. Looking around, I see that I can go in any direction I want, but I cannot move because I am lost as to which way to go. Since I do not know this place, what if I go in the wrong direction and make my situation worse? This confusion slowly begins to turn to anxiety as I look around desperately for any clues that will tell me where I am. No matter where I look or how hard I think, I cannot remember anything about this place. My anxiety quickly becomes a quiet fear that I suppress quickly and as deeply as I can. At this moment there is nothing to do but to ask someone for help. I tell myself that I do not want to ask for help because I do not know these people and do not want to bother them. But when I face the truth in me, I do not want to ask for help because fear of the unknown is holding me back. But I must, I must get answers to my questions of where I am and how I got here.
I see a man walk by with a briefcase and quietly try to get his attention be he does not acknowledge that he even heard me. As soon as he goes by, I see a woman carrying a small wallet and some keys. I try a little louder to get her attention but she must be in a hurry because she only quickens her pace. I turn around in frustration when I see two clean-shaven guys in their early 20’s. They are facing each other and they appear to be having a casual conversation. I walk over to them and ask them for help but they do not even pause their conversation for an instant to listen to me. At this point, I am not only suppressing fear; but I am now trying to mask my frustration. I decide that, wherever I am I must be an obvious outsider to everyone, and I do not know the rules of etiquette in this courtyard. However, I am desperate at this point to get some answers to these pressing questions in my head before fear raises its head once again with inside me.
So I begin to reach out to people through physical touch to get their attention. I go sit on one of the benches by an elderly man with glasses and a baldhead. As I sit down, I lightly touch him on the shoulder. I begin to ask for his assistance. He turns his head towards me and looks at me blankly as I begin to talk. Before I can say three words of my first question, he turns back to the newspaper and begins to read it again, completely shutting me out. I walk over to a teenage girl in a cheerleading outfit that is tying her shoe and tap her on her back just below her ponytail. She quickly spins around with this bewildered look and as I am speaking to her she turns back around and finishes tying her shoe, completely ignoring me. My frustration only morphs itself into fear so that at this point fear has completely taken over all other emotions. I cannot suppress fear any longer, but must face it head on and deal with it as best I can.
I must make one last effort. Kids know no bias so I will find them and they can at least answer some of my basic questions and tell me where I am. I immediately spot young boy and girl walking side by side about 100 feet in front of me. I quickly make my way to them while dodging all the other people that seem to be in a hurry to get somewhere. These kids are about 7 or 8 as best I can guess. I walk directly in front of them and crouch down to get on their eye level. I gently grab each one by their outer arm as I begin to talk to them. As I begin to talk, they have a look of confusion on their face, which slowly becomes a look void of all emotion. It is almost like they are staring through me while I am talking. As soon as I blurt out about five questions, I realize that I probably overwhelmed them with my anxiousness. I decide to start over with one question at a time. As soon as I do, they pull loose of my light grip and immediately run to meet up with a group of three more kids their age.
As I dwell on my situation my fear begins to grow. This fear is no longer the fear of a grown man in a new place, but it has become something so much more powerful. It is the fear that a young child has when they first realize that they have lost their parents in the mall. This fear is the kind of fear that causes them to yell out and cry at the same time. This fear is the kind of fear that causes them to run around not knowing where they are going, just as long as they are running. I do not know what to do with this fear since it is unnatural to a grown man. Finally as fear and desperation meet at the apex of my emotions I lose control of rational thought and become childlike again.
I begin to walk quickly almost to the point of jogging; not in any direction but more in a very large oblong circle. As I am walking I begin to yell out very loudly for someone to help me, for someone to tell me where I am, for someone to stop and answer my questions or show me the way. This has zero effect on anyone that I can see. So I stop and do what only seems logical at this time. I begin to scream as loud as I can in hopes of getting someone’s attention. I am not yelling any intelligible words; I am just screaming utterances in hopes of being heard. I have not yelled like this since I was a child. I know this because of the pain in my throat. That is when I notice something the scares me to the core of my being. This fear is greater than the fear that makes you scream and it is even greater than the fear that makes a person run away. This that I have now noticed causes a fear that petrifies me. I cannot move. I cannot make a sound. I am completely taken over by the fear that this recent discovery has caused me.
The sound that I hear while I am screaming is what causes this fear. In all actuality it is not what I hear that scares me, but it is what I do not hear that petrifies me. As I was crying out in desperation for help, I could hear the dull roar of hundreds of conversations. I could here the tapping of shoes as people walked across the courtyard. I would hear the occasional cry of a baby. I heard thousands of sounds but what I did not hear was the sound of my voice.
