Conversations of the Mind

Travis O´Connor was used to go to the park every day, he had taken up that habit when he had gotten into the university and he could not study properly in his apartment, which he shared with his two best friends. They were very loud and, even when they tried not to be, it was impossible for him to study for more than an hour before a conversation started and he would join in. That was the way he found himself one day riding his bike through the streets of Seattle looking for a place to spend his time where no one would bother him.

Since the day he found the park, he went there every single day; it didn’t matter if it was in the morning or in the afternoon. It was a great place to spend his time and it help him study because no one bothered him, no one there knew him so he didn’t have to worry about a girl coming up to flirt with him, and he enjoyed the loneliness to have some time to think.

That was, of course, before certain girl appeared in his life.

The first time Travis saw Alexis Reed he had no idea who she was and that was something strange because he knew most girls close to his age in the city. And, as attractive as she might´ve been, he didn’t give it a second thought about whether to go talk to her because at the time he had something important to study. The second time he saw her, a sort of interest was created within him, it wasn’t the type of interest a man had towards a woman, he didn’t to see her again to flirt with her and ask her out so that he could sleep with her afterwards, which was what he normally wanted with women.

It was the simple fact that the expression in the girl´s face intrigued him, it awoke interest in him and, if Travis knew himself as well as he thought he did, he knew that interest was not something that would go away easily. She had gotten angry at him. Why? Because he kept her from jumping off the bridge? To him that seemed to be a petty and stupid reason. And even when she was clearly upset with him, she didn’t call him off on it, she didn’t even speak to him. Not one word.

It was because of her that Travis O´Connor´s visits to the park changed their motive. All the things that drove him to go there were still important; he still had the need to study without the irritating noises of his friends. But now he longed to see the girl every day just to observe her, ne never got near her and he didn’t try to start conversation, he just wanted to see her.

He wanted to understand what made her different. Because there was something about her that tear her completely apart from all the other women ha had met before, and it had nothing to do with her physical looks. Though in that aspect she was different as well, she didn’t dress in desperate clothes, she didn’t wear too much make up, in fact she didn’t wear any make up. But he knew there was something more, something that could not be seen with the naked eye, something he had to figure out.

There had to be a reason why the girl didn’t articulate a single word or made a sound, she wasn’t a mute or deaf, that was easy to see because she didn’t act like that. It wasn’t an behavioral issue, she didn’t seem to be a spoiled brat of those who threw tantrums when they didn’t get what they wanted. It wasn’t a problem with her personality because she wasn’t shy, that was easy to tell by just lying eyes on her one time, if she were shy or socially awkward she wouldn’t be so open about showing her anger and walked out without an explanation.

But, as much as Travis wanted to understand the mystery that girl meant to him, that afternoon he would have to skip his visit to the park because she represented a really big distraction. Lately, when he went to the park, he wouldn’t pay much attention to the books he took with him, he caught himself staring at her through the long hours of the afternoon as she walked from one place to the other, as she kneeled on the grass and observed a bug closely as if it was the first time she had ever seen in or as she chased a man walking his large dog.

That day he really needed to study, he had a really big test the next morning and it was very important that he got a good grade on it. He knew if he went to the park he would get distracted once again and he wouldn’t be able to concentrate. So he decided to go somewhere else. He got in his bike with his back hanging from his back and a pair of dark sunglasses over his eyes as he moved through the streets of the city until he found a local café that seemed empty enough. He had deliberately stayed away from all the Starbucks that invaded every corner because they were always too crowded and he always ran into acquaintances there.

He got off his bike and pulled out a chain from his bag to lock it safely against a pole nearby to make sure no one stole it, he then pushed open the door of the coffee shop and a small bell rang above him as it let everyone know of his arrival. Pulling the sunglasses off his face, he looked around the small place. The café was completely different than the modern coffee shops that were to commercial, here there were several tables sprawled across the room except from the place where the counter was. The walls were a light cream color and the floors of light wood, the tables were a darker brown color and there were simple ugly paintings all around.

He took a seat in a table close to the large window that made the entire wall next to the sidewalk and waited until a waitress went to him so that she could take his order. He noticed that when he entered the café, every pair of eyes had been attracted to him, which wasn’t exactly surprising to him; Travis had somewhat of a reputation amongst the adults of the city.

When the waitress walked towards him with a wide smile in her lips and a polo shirt that had more cleavage than before he got into the store, Travis ordered a black coffee and directed his attention to his bag while he took the books he needed to study. When he had a cup of steaming coffee at his side and the books open atop the table he wondered why he had never thought of studying there, he had been there a few times before but for some reason he normally didn’t think of going back there.

As soon as he settled in a good position with his head held by his hands and his elbows resting atop the table at each side of the large book, he remembered the reason why he hand never gone back to that café to study. The table that was behind him was filled with a group of loud woman in their late fifties that didn’t have anything to do with their time rather than gossip the day away.

“Yes yes yes,” a woman was saying as she shook her head from one side to the other with a look of disapproval. “I did hear about that. It is a real shame in my opinion; Maggie Hayden was such a nice girl. It is a real shame she did something like that to her husband.”

Travis rolled his eyes when he realized what the women were talking about; the big gossip of the moment. Margaret Hayden, as they had said with such disgust, had cheated on her husband with one of her co-workers, it was a true scandal. Even Travis´s own mother had found out about that and she never liked having that type of conversations that involved other people´s lives.

“I think the same, Trudy,” another woman answered her, “it must be so sad for the family to have to go through that just when their son is about to graduate high school.”

“Well yeah, I also think that news shocked us all. But I don’t believe it is nearly as impressive as what happened with the Reed family,” said another woman as she sipped her cappuccino.

No a second passed before the whole table burst into chatter and murmurs. It was obvious they had all been dying to talk about that but none of them had had the guts to bring the subject up. Some of the women smiled widely without the manners of hiding their joy about such a juicy gossip, others were a little bit more mature and hid their happiness with a bite of their apple pies and others shifted in their chairs as if they were preparing themselves physically to stare the conversation.

“Oh yes, that is a true tragedy,” one of them admitted as she nodded her head.

Another woman placed her mug of coffee on the table and cleaned her lips with a napkin leaving red stains before speaking, “Who would´ve thought this would happen? Only a few months ago Doctor Reed was getting ready to say good-bye to a daughter that was going to leave town and now everything´s changed.”

“And it isn’t even anyone´s fault, Thomas has always been such a good father even if his job demands so much of his time,” someone added feeling the need to defend the man whose life had fallen into a hole since his daughter´s accident. “That this happened to him is a true injustice.”

One of the few women that still maintain the respect to the situation cleared her throat to get the other´s attention. “But, does someone know what truly happened? There are so many versions going around I don’t know which one to believe.”

“It was an accident,” answered the woman who had started the conversation. “Thomas and Lily were out of town for something of his work and Alexis had been placed in charge of her brothers. She took the out for a walk and the two youngest crossed the street and a bus was going to run them over. Alexis saved them but she didn’t have time to move out of the way.”

Another woman nodded her head. “Yes, yes, we all know that, it happened a long time ago. What happened afterwards?”

It was someone else who answered. “As far as I know the girl fell into a coma immediately and they couldn’t do anything to help her.”

“But she just woke up!” said one of them in an excited whisper that was loud enough for everyone to hear. Why was she whispering? Who cared about their stupid conversation about other people´s lives? The only one close enough was Travis and his level of irritation as close to its limit.

“But they say she didn’t woke up quite right,” added another woman pursing her lips. The other stared at her with some confusion, so she went on, “When she woke up she didn’t remember anything.”

“Nothing?” asked several at the same time.

The woman nodded. “Nothing at all, she lost all her memory. She doesn’t even know how to speak and she can´t understand people when they talk to her, it´s as if she´s a baby all over again. It´s a real shame, that girl was so smart, she was going to go big with her career and know seeing her without doing anything must be so sad.”

“Have you seen her?”

“Yes,” the woman replied. “I went to visit Doctor Reed a few days after Alexis woke up, I wanted to let him know he had my full support and I had the chance to see the girl at her house.

A woman leaned forward in her seat. “Well, I think-”

After that the women went into a full analysis of what had happened to the girl who had been in the accident. Some said it was very sad that something like that had happen to someone like her, other found it very strange and even hard to believe. But the conversation had become louder and their babbling had become very irritating to the ears of the guy who was sitting behind them.

Travis rolled his eyes once more and pulled out his IPhone from his pocket, he picked a song that was loud enough to drown the voices of the women who had nothing to do with their time other than meddle into other people´s lives and give their judgmental opinion as if it had been asked.

If there was something that bothered Travis it had to be gossip and the people who thrived on it, he had many people like that in his life, he knew that but he liked to ignore that fact. At the end of the day rumors where just that, rumors, and they surrounded him like a thick aura wherever he went, but he was used to that. He was aware of what people thought of him and he had decided to use that to his own good instead of being bothered by it if there was nothing he could do to change it. But the people who lived to exchange information of what happened in other people´s lives pissed him off. Why couldn’t people limit themselves to living their own lives? Why did they feel the need to meddle into what wasn’t their business?

Trying to put all his bad emotions to a side and forget the group of women who had ruined his coffee, Travis focused on his book trying to read the information he needed so that at the end of the day he wouldn’t feel like he had wasted his time. But he didn’t have much time, the hours passed and he found himself rereading the same line over and over again, and he couldn’t help but thinking he would´ve studied better if he had gone to the park. He didn’t believe the girl would distract him as much as the group of blabbering women.

Soon it was three o´clock in the afternoon and Travis stood from his seat and left a bill on the table to pay for his coffee before putting everything in his backpack. He left the café while placing his sunglasses above his blue eyes with the eyes of the waitress glued to him until he got into his bike and got out of sight. Travis roamed the streets of Seattle without much hurry, his work started in thirty minutes and he still had time to get there.

When he got to the other side of the city he saw the mechanic workshop where he worked on the afternoon, he picked up the speed of his bike slightly as he tried to slip passed a yellow light that was about to change to red in the semaphore. When he got there, he climbed out of his bike and walked with it towards the back of the workshop were they kept all the cars, he rested his bike against a wall and walked towards the lockers where they all left their stuff. He pulled out his hoodie that, even if they were in March, covered him from the sometimes chilly air of Seattle, and pulled out his shirt replacing it with a dirty white T-shirt.

He walked to his boss´s office to let him know he had arrived and went back to the workshop to start working on the car he had left unattended the day before. The stereo was playing with an old rock song at a volume that drowned all the voices of the other mechanics as they sang loudly to the music, Travis included. He opened up the hood of the blue Ford Focus and leaned forwards holding himself up at the side with his arms as he tried to look at the engine better.

The hours passed quickly when he worked at the shop, that was really the only reason why he worked. He didn’t need the money, his parents insisted on continue to support him to pay for his things until he graduated college where he was studying psychology and get a real job. But Travis liked having something to do with his time, and cars had always been something he was really good with, it was easy for him to understand them and he was fascinated by the idea that a simple piece of metal of two inches could make or break a working engine. He liked to work and it took some of the stress off of his life, in the days he was particularly stressed, Jim, his boss, would let him stay late and close up the shop.

It was about six and a half in the afternoon and the shop was just half an hour short of closing time, most of the mechanics were eager to go, they were all fathers and their job was completely necessary to pay for their families, that´s why they spent the entire day wishing it was seven in the night to go home. Travis didn’t have the same state of mind; he knew that going home meant keep on trying to study as he tried to ignore his friends.

But there were still thirty minutes left on the day and that was enough time for a new client to arrive. The black bright truck parked in the entrance of the workshop, it was a big fancy truck, one of those only rich people would buy. That wasn’t what caught Travis´s attention, though, it was the people that got out of the truck; a tall man with dark brown hair and from the copilot place came out a girl, the same girl he saw at the park every day.

Still leaning over the motor of the Focus, Travis turned his head to the left so that he could see the girl who, in comparison to him, seemed not to have noticed him. But it was impossible for him no to see her, the other mechanics had also forgotten their work as they watched the girl while she walked through the shop without hearing her father´s calls, she stopped in front of a table and started grabbing every tool to look at them closely. Her nose was covered in tiny wrinkles as she frowned due to the smell of the workshop; it was a mixture of sweat, oil and dirt.

Travis felt the need to walk towards her; he wanted to see if she recognized him from all the times she had seen him at the park. But when he straightened, Jim walked out of his office to greet the costumer.

“Dr. Reed, it´s so nice seeing you,” he said warmly as she offered a hand to the man whose eyes had just abandoned his daughter.

Travis´s eyes snapped from the girl to the man that was standing next to his boss, their eyes were the same color as the girl and his hair was slightly darker but it was almost the same, the similarities in their features was too clear to go unnoticed. That man was Doctor Reed, and for some reason that name seemed very familiar to him. He thought back as he tried to remember where he knew him from and just when he remembered, his eyes went back to the girl.

He was Dr. Reed.

He was Dr. Reed of whom the women were talking about.

He was Dr. Reed of whom the women were talking about and his daughter who had been in an accident.

He was Dr. Reed of whom the women were talking about and his daughter who had been in an accident and who Travis saw every day at the park.

She was Alexis Reed, of course Travis knew her, he had never actually met her because they had gone to different schools and he was about four years older than her. But he had heard about what had happened to her, for some reason, the entire city had found out about it. Doctor Reed was a very important person, a surgeon everyone knew; therefore the news of his daughter´s accident had been a big scandal.

Travis couldn’t remember the story in detail because he never paid much attention to that sort of stuff, but he knew she had been run over by a bus. He then remembered what the women at the café had been saying; they´d said she had just woken up from a coma. That was the explanation he had been looking for the past few days, the women had said Alexis had lost all her memory, that she didn’t even know how to talk or understand people. That´s why she didn’t say anything to him when he spoke to her at the bridge of the park, that´s why it seemed as though everything she saw was new to her; because it was.

“Likewise,” replied Thomas Reed taking his hand and shaking it. “I´ve been very busy, that´s why I hadn’t come before. But I wanted to check on how Lex´s car was doing.”

Jim nodded. “It´s not yet finished, it need a little bit more time. But I have the check if you want to see it, so that you know how much it´ll be.”

“Yeah, don´t worry about the time. After all, Lex can´t use it right now and who knows when she will.” The sadness in his voice was impossible to hide; Travis could notice it from all across the room.

Travis turned back to look at the girl whose eyes were moving all across the workshop until they rested on him. She recognized him. That was the first he noticed when their eyes met, it was easy to see because of the expression that took over her face when Alexis saw him, the memory she had of him was not a pleasant one. But it wasn’t the first time she saw him since the bridge, in fact, she saw him every single day since then.

Without knowing how much time they stayed like that, staring at each other, Jim had already come out of his office to give Thomas Reed the bill of the car and he was already calling to his daughter to go back to the truck. Alexis shot Travis one last acknowledging look before following his father to the car and getting it.

“O´Connor,” Jim called him, he turned to see his boss was already on the doorway of his office and he was about to go in. “How much work does that car need?”

Travis scratched the back of his neck, in the place where his hair ended as he stared at the engine for a moment. “Not much, I just need to put in some pieces. Why?”

Jim shook his head nonchalantly. “No reason, I just wanted to know. Dr. Reed was asking about it so must have it soon.”

With that, his boss entered his office and closed the door behind him. Travis raised his eyebrows before looking back at the Focus. So this was Alexis Reed´s car. Huh. Travis turned around to go to his locker to change back into his clothes as he thought how things worked. Life had a funny way of putting some things in front of you in a thousand different ways.