New Beginnings

By: Sterlyn Lugay

It was 5:30 in the morning and the sidewalks were starting to get crowded with people. Men with business suits and heavy briefcases passed by me as if I were invisible. Some had angry faces, some seemed far away, and some seemed to be carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders.

Maybe they were just in a rush and needed to get to work. I looked into my old busted up Dunkin Donuts cup to see how much was in it. I counted at least ten dollars. It would be enough to get breakfast and a new notebook.

I took my belongings and went around the corner to the Walgreens.

This was gonna be the third one I filled out in two weeks. I go to the supply area and looked for the usual, a black composition notebook and number 2 pencils.

After I purchased my things I had went back to where I kept my stuff. I sat down and took the items out the little plastic bag. I didn’t waste anytime, I got right to work. I write lyrics for beats and melodies I make up in my head. It takes awhile to get words flowing, but it would eventually come to me. I put in 20 minutes a day writing music and no one's around to hear it.  After I spent time writing, I go over the songs and little pieces I've written so I could remember them. A man comes by and notices my cup and drops a twenty into it, but he doesn’t keep walking like other people, he stops.

He asked me what my name was and what was I writing. I told him it was Shawn and I was writing poetry just to write not for no special purpose. He quickly takes up one of my notebooks without my permission. I quickly grabbed the notebook and looked sternly at him. I told him not to look at anything in it but he still continued to flip through and read.

He looked shocked when he was skimming through the pages as if he had not seen writing like this before.

He closed my notebook, pulled out a card with his name on it and gave it to me. It had a whole bunch of information on it. A car pulled up and he got in it quickly, but before the car pulled off he rolled down the window. He told me to give the number on the card a call in when I was ready and drove off.

I didn't even know that the man had took the notebook with my best writing in it.