The Wanderings and Thoughts of Kip Kellogg

by Vincent Spada #6

Kip Kellogg had trouble sleeping. Kip could never fall asleep. He'd lay there for a spell, just thinking, then Kip would get right up. He'd pull on his pants, find his dirty sneakers, and go wandering into the night. Trying to find that something, that something that would make real sense.

Kip went a different way this time when he left his apartment, and when he did he walked by some old abandoned buildings that were due to be knocked down. He walked inside one of them, and looked at all the neat brickwork that must have been done at least 100 years ago. Kip thought about the person who had made the wall, and wondered if it was anybody famous. Probably not, he figured, since walls were being put up all the time. It was too bad though, because this guy had done a really good job. Kip realized that things like that happened all the time. A person would put a lot of work into something and try their hardest, but nobody would care. They would say "it's just a brick wall," and never give it a second thought. They would never appreciate all the skill and effort it takes to make something like that, and never give the guy any credit. Maybe they were right a little. Maybe it was just a brick wall. But it at least deserved something. A pat on the back if nothing else.

Kip wandered some more and then sat down on a curb just across the street from a police station. Kip sat there for a little while, thinking about nothing in particular. Then he got up and was about to leave, when all of a sudden two cars pulled up at the station. One was a regular police car, and two cops took a young kid wearing handcuffs out of the backseat. The other car was a normal one, and a lady got out and came running over, crying and sobbing hysterically. She tried to go over and hug the young kid, but one of the cops stopped her before she could. Then they led the kid away, and the woman just stood there crying. Kip figured that she was the mother of the kid, and that he must have done something pretty bad. Something that might get him locked up for months and even years. A few seconds later a third cop came out, and led the lady inside. She was still crying, and she buried her hands in her face. It really bothered Kip to see something like that, because he hated to see women crying. Poor mothers, he thought. They always go through the worst of everything.

Kip left the curb and went down another road which led past a cemetery. It didn't bother Kip to walk by the tombstones, because he knew there weren't any ghosts. Kip could see that some people had visited relatives and put flowers on their graves. He could understand how someone might do that, but he never did anything like that himself. Kip figured it was pointless, because the person wasn't there anyway. Maybe their body was, but who they were was long gone. It was just an empty shell now, and soon even that wouldn't be there either. Kip figured it would be better if everybody were cremated, so that people wouldn't spend all their time at the graveyard, remembering what they had lost. Somehow it seemed to Kip that if there was a marker standing somewhere with a person's name on it, that marker would make you hold on and not let go, even when there was nothing left to grasp. It gave people the illusion that their loved ones were still there, and that just wasn't true. It seemed like a lie to Kip. An awful lie that made people miserable.

Kip wandered down another street, and across two more roads. He figured he was near a highway now, because when he looked up he saw this big billboard that was advertising these new pills which were supposed to cure some new disease. Kip didn't believe the sign, because in truth he didn't believe that the sickness it talked about actually existed. Kip thought it was strange that, years ago, you never heard of these diseases, but now, all of a sudden, here they were, and here was a new expensive pill to cure them. But the pill never really cured you, because you weren't really sick in the first place. In act, most of the time the pill made things even worse, and people sometimes even died from taking them. Kip figured that drug companies just wanted to sell drugs, and that they'd make up any excuse to get you to use them. They didn't care if you felt better or not, all they really wanted was your money. Kip looked at the billboard again and shook his head. It was all about money.

Kip went down another alley, and when he did he walked into a trash can. Garbage fell everywhere, and Kip had to pick it up. As he did do, he thought about some of the things he had seen that night, and how all of them had been pretty sad. Kip always wished that one night he would go out walking, and see only good things all around him, but it never turned out that way, and wasn't likely ever to. Kip wasn't sure what to do. Maybe he was just wandering in the wrong places. At last he finished picking up the garbage, and was about to go when he noticed that, stuck to his coat, was a little piece of white paper. When he pulled it off he realized that it was a fortune from a fortune cookie. He couldn't read it in the dark alley, but when he walked to a streetlight and held it up, he could see that it clearly said:

"He who wishes to see paradise shall do so if he only chooses."

Kip thought about the fortune for a little while. He figured he knew what it meant. It was like that old saying, "Every cloud has a silver lining." That every situation, no matter how bleak, has a good side if you only search for it. Kip wasn't sure if he believed that, but he realized it was a different way to look at things. He figured that maybe if another person had seen the same things he had seen that night, they would have a completely different take on it. They would see all the positive things instead of all the obvious negative ones. Again, Kip wasn't sure if he could go along with that, but it was a good point that the fortune was making. In fact, it even made sense to Kip. It was something he could think about for a while.

Finally Kip went home, undressed, and went to bed. He closed his eyes against his pillow, and tried to sleep like the rest of the world.

But sadly, Kip couldn't sleep. Like always, he was wide awake.

Vincent Spada, is interested in further publication of his work. He can be reached at cemetery76@yahoo.com.