Samuel Clay, Peak to Peak. I do not look up very often. Usually I go through life looking down at the ground and my surroundings south of my normal gaze. The unexpected tends to lie elsewhere; the unexpected is usually far down the path. The unexpected is what terrifies me, and what I think terrifies every one of the human beings stuck on this flying rock. That is why I prefer to look down at the pavement. I prefer my step to be sure, so that when I finally do come across the unexpected it is easy to avoid. In a world where there are so many wondrous things to be seen, I fell victim to looking down at any given screen and missed out on seeing the good stuff. The smart phone is a brand new form of expected surroundings I often look down at. When I open up my phone I know exactly what to expect when I open up any given application stored on my device. The unfortunate side effect of avoiding the unexpected is that sometimes beauty lies where you least expect it. Lately beauty seems to be avoiding me as much as I’m avoiding it.

Here I am in my usual coffee shop doing my usual coffee shop things. Glued to my laptop in the corner booth, looking for jobs and pretending to do some homework. Jobs in this town are few and far between unless you’re willing to sell your weekends to any given restaurant or deal with children on a bi-weekly basis. Growing up working with your hands leaves you fewer options than those growing up working with people. My hands are what made the petty cash I thought would be enough for my entire life, stuck here looking at all the job opportunities I know I won’t be good at for what felt like years made me realize that perhaps I should just choose something that will make me unhappy and financially stable. I’ll throw my resume out there into the world wide web and see what I can catch. Maybe cleaning up after people day in and day out while wearing a funny corporate hat wouldn’t be too bad. 

I take a break from the keyboard and sip my tea slowly as my fingers slip into my pocket and do what they do best, operate a touch screen. The same fingers that helped keep my father’s small-town logging operation in business, the same fingers that used to dance up and down a lover’s back, the same fingers that used to be calloused and strong. The same fingers that now help me scroll through the same people’s pictures over and over instead of encountering all the new faces that are no further than 20 feet away from me in this damn coffee shop. The fact I’m self aware of my own downward glancing habit is just as scary as the fact I hit my head on three branches on the walk over here. But it’s still usually not enough to actually make my eyes roll just a little bit and experience the world as it was intended. 

“Fuck” slips out under my breath because I just burnt the hell out of my tongue with that last sip of tea. And I could immediately feel that someone heard it and was glancing over at me. My body forces my neck to turn to my right as I make eye contact with the man sitting in the booth to my right. As I look he looks away back down at his computer and just like that the interaction is over as I retreat behind the glowing rectangle in front of me as well. My mind wanders as I analyze the guy to my right without looking back at him. Why does he care if I let out a little quiet profanity, and why doesn’t he just have headphones in like the rest of us; rude. 

The tab next to the job search website I frequent is much more appealing right about now. The tab that never seems to close, my favorite streaming service that allows me to get lost in any given TV show or movie that takes me away from the real world. The real world in which I’ve built up inside my own head as evil. Not evil in a vicious way by any means but an evil that supports a different type of person than myself. A person like myself would rather look down. So as I do so often, I slipped away once again for half an episode of my favorite sitcom that week. Until I was interrupted by the ultimate inconvenience, a slow wheel turning showing that the internet in this spot has slowed down. So much so that even my music had to stop and buffer. Without the noise in my head, I hear the bells above the fingerprinted glass door chime as a new customer walks in. Without realizing it I look up. 

I see the couple who just walked in, the man followed the girl after holding the door open for her and she appeared to be really excited about one of their menu items. More importantly I noticed a help wanted bulletin board right there next to the door. The board appeared to be full of job opportunities you probably would not be able to find on any website. Before I could decide whether or not to check out this bulletin board of possibilities, I see someone else. I can’t see her face but she was sitting alone at a table by the window. Her curly brown hair flowed down from the top of her head, over her ear and all the way past her shoulder, leaving her face a mystery. She was just sitting there reading and all I could think about was what her face may look like and what book she was reading. Before long she looked up, right at me, and smiled. 

(Sam is a current student at CSU and 2017 grad from Gilpin High School.)

(Originally published in the December 26, 2019, print edition of The Mountain-Ear. Contributions in this edition are Reader Written.)