AmericaxReader-Through Blue Eyes

It was a sunny day of summer in Kansas, Texas when he fell from the roof.

The moment I heard a crash, I looked up from my book, rushed to where the sound originated and wondered what could have caused it. A young man with a strange device dangling by a thick line of thread around his neck, a growing bump on his head (or whatever part of the body he landed on) and the brightest, bluest eyes I’ve seen was not on my list of possible culprits.

Meanwhile I stared, mouth agape. I watched him get off of the once blooming bush near the porch of the house. He fiddled with the odd transparent object resting on the bridge of his nose. He lightly ran a hand on his shirt and pants to dust off whatever stuck to them, whether it was a leaf or a twig or any other part of nature.

“Ah! It got away.” He sighed, arms slumped downwards along with his body. “All that for nothing.” He didn’t seem hurt at all, which sure the distance between the roof and the ground wasn’t that high but still.

My worry mixed with curiosity acted up, making me run to the edge of the porch and call out to him, asking him if he was okay.

And his reaction was pretty much out of the ordinary. He smiled and gave me a thumbs up. “Yeah, totally fine, just a little fall.” He answered with a confident tone.

“A-are you sure…I mean. Why did you fall?”

He held the device in front of him. “I was taking a picture of a bird but it flew of before I could get it.” I got a better look at the thingamajig, it was all black, shaped like a box but there was a thing popping from above. In the middle of it was a mirror like rounded object.

“A bird?” I asked, turning away from the weird thing in his hands.

“Yeah, it was a sparrow.”

“Oh. Well next time don’t climb rooftops, you might get yourself killed.” He better keep that in mind.

“Hey wait,” I heard him say. Then he walked up to me with fast, hurried strides. And we were face to face. “Hey, I never seen you here before, are you knew around here?”

The close proximity of our noses definitely distracted me from giving him a clear answer. “Yes,” was my narrow reply which would probably lead to more questions…and it did.

Where I come from, what I am, who I am…he asked so many questions in such a fast pace of talking that I had to sit down to answer all of them. As weird as it is, I felt obliged to answer them.

“Calm down. One question at a time…alright?”

He blinked (gosh those eyes look beautiful) and smiled (also beautiful). “Oh sorry.” He sat down next to me. He held out a hand and I just stared dumbly at him again. “My name’s Alfred F. Jones by the way. What’s yours?”

“I’m (Name),” I took his hand, the skin on skin contact made me feel a bit warm on the inside, perhaps it’s his warm hand. “Yes, I am new here, I moved in just yesterday actually, I pretty much lack sleep after the flight.” The drowsiness washed over me after he fell though and now I’m more awake than ever.

“Really so that would explain it. Never seen your face around here before.”

I nodded then continued with my story telling-slash-answering. “You see my family owns this land…and I’m sort of this situation…ah…mind me not telling. It’s personal you see…”

I saw his smile droop then straighten almost immediately as if it was shocked out of it’s sadness. “That’s fine if you don’t want to say it.” He dropped the subject like a hot potato, much to my relief. When I stood up he followed my lead.

“If you really want to know then you have to come by often. I only have a Brit for company and he gets so hard to talk to with his aged wisdom and what not,” I joked and hoped Arthur didn’t hear that from wherever he is.

He laughed and winked at me (and boy did my heart skip a beat), “Sure I’ll take you up on that offer. Hey, next time I’m going to show you something special. Oh and make sure you get sleep okay. Sleep is important for the skin.” Then he ran off, his shirt still had some of mother nature left on them.

“Alfred F. Jones,” I repeated, letting the name run over my tongue. I kept that name in mind. As odd as he was, I sort of like him.

As I watched him shrink into view, I managed to catch the ruined bush he fell right into and all I could think was “Oh no, Arthur is not going to like that.”