Forgotten Differences

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Non-Fiction

Forgotten Differences
Non-fiction Essay by Derek R. Weber

    My past summer was spent living in a ugly, run down barn, or as I know
it, a little Utopia. It is an oasis of bleak, aged walls forming a rural
monstrosity. Inside, it holds a skateboarder's dream, a small semi-circular
object gleaming with various scraps of maple, oak, and other neglected wood
chips put together to form boards. A half-pipe ramp, stemming from multiple
species of trees consumes the inner barn, leaves barely enough room for a
humble couch of faded orange and yellow flowers, once fluorescent, but now
hindered to the regression of old age.
    It still amazes me how so many patrons of this curving skateboarder's
dream can flood into the small area yet consumed. Some nights, twenty
skaters shade in every crevice of empty space upon the canvas of the barn.
We are always observing, motionless with awe, when one of our own is veering
from each arching side of the ramp. Like vultures perching over in idle
anticipation, we wait for our skating prey to collapse with exhaustion. When
he does fall, a mad rush of hunters, armed with skateboards, flock to the
ramp, fighting to become the new prey. We appear as a single group of birds,
rushing to eat the bread scraps offered by an elderly lady. In reality we
are individuals, stemming from unique lives. Yet this one object makes us
forget our differences as social beings. We instead become a single stream
of consciousness, worshiping as one, the half-pipe.
    The effect the half-pipe gives to the unmatching individual spreads
throughout its surroundings, which, since this gathering of unified vultures
always happens during the night, is always engulfed in darkness. These
rural, shadowing nights of Ruch are blindly black, giving owls the upper
hand over every blind rabbit, hare, and fish. It is disturbing how quiet
these nights are, leaving one with wonder of how it can be so hushed. I
initially attributed it to the lack of civilization. Without the piercing
sounds of semi- trucks and busses, one can hear every twitch of a shivering
animal camouflaged by darkness and the barely audible waves, of drunk
cowboys speeding off in the distance. Civilization does still exist in Ruch,
though rare and archaic. What is it that makes the nights so quiet then? In
reality, it is not quiet at all. There is the soft, rhythmic sounds of
urethane wheels gliding across the half-pipe of the barn, and the rare clink
of steel skateboard trucks grinding against the round iron bar that tapers
the edges of the cross-sectioned pipe. What makes these nights seem quiet,
is the attention attracted by the sounds of the skating, every being outside
of the barn is tranced into unified silence of wonder over the half- pipe.
    Each skater within the barn has his own uniqueness to himself. They each
come from different backgrounds and "cliques", or social groups, in my high
school. Inside the barn are people who would never, normally, even be seen
near each other; and yet, they do not only enjoy being in the same room, but
they unify as one group in celebration over the half-pipe. Always making an
appearance at the barn, the rich kids come completely dressed in American
Eagle, Abercrombie and Fitch, and whatever is trendy at the time. They can
always be seen wearing jeans that rip at every seam, looking as if they had
recently rolled down a rocky hill; and yet these jeans probably cost more
than my whole wardrobe. I find it ridiculous that these kids spend so much
of their daddy's money on something that I could have bought at Goodwill for
a fraction of the cost. The barn also contains the druggies, conquering over
the flowery couch. All of them have blood red eyes, bursting with inflamed
blood vessels, and a permanent slanted grin. I enjoy these people because of
their generally good outlook on things, and their humorously strange
behavior; never have I seen a group of people more amused with something as
simple as a lighter. The rest of the skaters are moderates, borrowing styles
and traits from both the rich kids and the druggies.
    In any place other than this barn, these separate groups of skaters
would have never rejoiced together over anything. Yet, they are brought
together by this one holy object, this half-pipe. Their common love for
skateboarding takes over their sense of difference between each other, and
they become combined into a single entity of humans, almost acting as a
single being. This half-pipe is like the dictator of a totalitarian regime,
acting as a somewhat god, that causes these people to forget their
differences and become unified over their common worship of this badly built
half-pipe within the vintage barn.
           Derek R. Weber, age 16, contact: Chubblybubbly7050@hotmail.com
           copyright 2004 Derek R. Weber.
            Reviews and Comments requested
                  Posted 06/16/2004