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Person of Interest Quotes

Person of Interest - Quotes

John Reese

Root

Shaw

Harold Finch

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Poetry: Sparkle

Sparkle

A tiny star in the night sky I am

Governed by sponges of shame

With a shadow smothering my light in my sleep

Counting murky compassionate wild sheep

Seeing the zest for life fading before that darkness of mine

Yearning for the colours and the indefinable shine

Catching every breath in slow motion

I waver in my will for full devotion 

With a piercing stare the calcareous water separates

Leaving blanks on where the courage breaks

Let the warmth wash away all that is dim

Every stumbling block and every sin

For the rainbow to come to life along the river of a soul

A leader must emerge, to strive and to control

To smother the shadow with light while awake

And dive below the ground of the murky lake

The water rises again from the dark

Finds motion within the bounds of an arc

Indulges sunlight to sculpt into a rainbow that sings

And shines eternally with sparkle underneath its wings

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Just A Car Insurance #Part3

Two more weeks later, I waited for her in front of her building door when she got home from work. She was surprised to see me standing there.

“I was just about to ring”, I said to her while watching her chaining up her bike to the post, as usual. “May we speak, Layla?”
“I am really busy. Some other time?”

“It is June 29^th today.”

“Yes, it is indeed”, she replied and began looking for her keys in her backpack. I grabbed her by the wrist, because people should not ignore other people when they are talking.

“I am talking to you”, I said. “It is June, the 29^th.”

“I don’t know what that means. Let go of me.”
“Five years ago, on June 29^th my wife died.”
“I am so sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude earlier.”
“Do you know how many things occur in a persons mind before she even says the word sorry to someone? My wife, she used to say sorry a lot. She would spill the coffee and say sorry. She would then break her ankle again. And she would tumble over and say sorry. And she would hurt her head again. If she had thought about her actions before she had done them, there would not have been any need for saying sorry in the first place. You see, people are not what they seem to be. You can throw away any gift I give you. And yet, fate is fate and faith is faith. From that, you cannot escape and that gift cannot ever be returned. So you being sorry, is really not all that important, because all of your actions precede it.”

I let go of her arm, because it wasn’t time yet. She needed to think first. I let her find her keys and rush into her building. Meanwhile, I walked away and sat at my dining table again, watching her running up the stairs to her flat.

One week later the day had finally come. For the last week her bike had not moved at 6 a.m. and I had not seen her come home from work once. This meant, that she had locked herself up in her apartment to think. That is all I wanted, for her to think and to finally accept fate. The five-year dance had been long enough. It had been worth the wait, but the waiting had now found its purpose. I gift wrapped one of my wife's dresses, placed my toothbrush in my briefcase and stepped out to go to Layla with my briefcase and the gift in my hands.

I rang the doorbell, but nobody was opening the door. Then that old lady I had met before, looked at me and said:

“So it didn’t work the other day. Are you sure you want to try again?”
“She is my fate.”
“Fair enough. I shouldn’t let you in, but you look like such a nice man.”

“Thank you, Madam.”
“And so polite. Come in.”

I walked up the stairs and finally stood in front of Layla's door. I rang the bell and knocked three times. But nobody would open. The gap underneath the door did not reveal anything either. I started swinging at the door with all my strength. It was such an old wooden door, that I was hoping to break it open. And I finally did. Now nothing in the world could keep us apart any more and she would meet Sue, at long last. I peeped into her bedroom, but nobody was in there. Then I took a quick look into her bathroom. But that was also empty. I got the impression that some of her things were missing, too. Unless she didn’t own a toothbrush, there was none there. It was a good thing, I had brought mine then. I cautiously stepped into her living room with its adjacent kitchen. It was dark and I turned on the light. Nobody was in this room, either. But there was a pen and a piece of paper on her dining table. I pulled up a chair and sat down to read what she had written on that paper:

“Dear Nathan,

the eyes are the window to the soul. Mine have light, yours have darkness. Calla Lillies allow you to rest, for me they are part of an eternal peace I do not seek. Sue is resting, but she didn’t just die, she was murdered. Not on June 29^th , but one week later on July 6^th. And you will never bake cookies such as hers, no matter how hard you try, because her blood is on your hands. The parents of a young girl, that had been assaulted on her way home, had arranged hundreds of calla lillies around her memorial stone. The event I mentioned was a funeral. This is what you seek, but it is not what you get. Not because it isn’t fate, but because superstition is alive within all of us to protect us. My day-job, the one you wait for me to come home from on my bike, is criminal profiling. I am a psychiatrist. Your DNA is on most of my mail, your prints are on my door and you are being expected by the police outside. They will also find your tears on this paper and your teeth-marks on my pencil. I think of my actions before I pursue them. So you see, nobody is who she seems to be. Superstition is smartness in the face of fate. And I am not sorry for that.”

The End...

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Just A Car Insurance #Part2

I ran into my bedroom and rummaged through my ex-wife's stuff. I had kept all of it, because you never know when it might come in handy. Just like it did today. I finally found a necklace with a flower on it. It seemed suitable for my plan. I put it in a tissue and placed it into my pocked on the inside of my suit. All I had to do now, was to wait for morning to come. I sat at my dining table and observed the glass of the stairway, expecting the clock to hit 6 a.m. for Layla to head out to work again. I didn’t sleep that night. It was too much of a risk to take to miss her going to work that morning.

At 6 a.m. sharp I saw her walking down the stairs. I grabbed my keys and my briefcase and left my house, to walk by her door slowly and inconspicuously. She opened the door of her building and walked to her bike. I bent over with the necklace in my hand. Then I unbent again and took a deep breath to be able to speak to her.

“Excuse me, Miss”, I said. “Is this yours?” I asked and showed her the necklace.

She turned away from her bike to face me. Her eyes pointed straight at my hand.

“No, it isn’t mine”, she finally replied. “Did you just find it here?”

“Yes. Beautiful, isn’t it? What flower do you think this is? I have no knowledge on flowers.”

“A calla Lilly, I believe.”
“Are you a florist, Miss?”

“Call me Layla. No, I just had this event last week. They had calla Lillies everywhere, to symbolize eternal peace.”

“You should have this, Layla.”

“No, it probably belongs to someone who misses it now.”

“It was next to your bike. I believe in fate, don’t you?”

“Then I should definitely not take it. That event I mentioned. Calla Lillies are not for me.”

“Superstition is cowardice in face of fate.”
“Meaning...”
“Take it”, I said to her in a stern tone and a frozen look in my eyes. I would not take no for an answer, not today, not after five years of waiting.

She hesitantly touched the flower with her fingertips and took the necklace from my hand. My chest was tight and my tie was chocking me. I put on one last brief polite smile for her, wished her a nice day, and just left her standing there to go back into my house.

I was finally able to breathe again, when I was back at my dining table. From behind my curtains I could see her standing there, stone-still and startled. And then I saw her walk towards the garbage bin and toss the necklace in it. Like nothing had happened on that day, she climbed on her bike and took off. I was left behind at my dining table, wearing yesterdays suit and having had no sleep. But it was time for work again. The car insurances would not sell themselves.

A week later I found some courage within me once again, to attempt to speak to Layla. I was standing in front of the door of her building, to summon the courage to ring her doorbell. But something was just not letting me press that little plastic button. A neighbour of hers came by and looked at me, while opening the door to the building.

“Are you lost?” the woman asked me.

“No, I just want to see someone, but I am not sure if I can.”
“Those roses in your hands and those cookies... what did you do?”

“Pardon?”
“You are already here now. You may just as well go to her door now. With such gifts, she might take that apology of yours. Do you want to come in then?”

“Sure.”

She let me get into the building just after her. I thanked her politely and began walking up the stairs to the third floor.

And there it was, her home sweet home door. I just stood there for a while and asked myself if I should ring her doorbell. I was so close. She was just behind that door. While I was thinking, the hallway light shut down and I was standing in the dark. I could see the light in her home under the gap of her door. I got on my knees and tried to look into that gap, hoping to see her. And there it was, that astonishing moment I had been waiting for! I saw her feet pass by the door. It was quick, but I saw it. And I was happy. I sat down on the ground next to her door and began chewing on my cookies with such satisfaction and the feeling of success. After having eaten the last of the cookies, I walked down the stairs and placed my roses on her bike. I attached a piece of paper saying: “Fate cannot be returned”.

Continue Reading Part 3 .....

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Just A Car Insurance #Part1

This afternoon, when I arrived home after work, I noticed an envelope sticking out of her mailbox. I knew I wasn’t supposed to take the letter, but I pulled it out anyway. Today I really wanted her to feel me, even though she didn’t know who I was. I held the envelope against my cheek and placed a gentle kiss over the stamp, before placing it back into her mailbox. After looking around for about a minute, to make sure nobody had seen my actions, I turned away from her building and walked towards my door. I owned a small house just on the other side of the street of Layla's flat. She lived in that apartment complex with 5 other families and had to go up to the third floor whenever she came home.

My life was generally uneventful. I was just a car insurance salesman. People would refer to me as a car insurance agent or even a financial adviser, who tries to determine how much coverage people's situations warrant, to make people aware of risks and liabilities and to basically charm and scare them simultaneously into eating off my hands. I was fantastic at my job. People were easy to mind-twist. But Layla was not. She did not own a car. Therefore, I couldn’t use my job as a conversation topic, as I normally would to get people do to something my way and think it was their idea in the first place. Layla preferred to bike to work. Just the thought of driving to work on a bike wearing my suit, was making me uncomfortable. My suit had to look perfect, neatly pleated and sterile. Sweat, sports and a bike would certainly demolish that image.

Just like every day, when I came home from work, I placed my briefcase on the dining table by the window. I would then pull the curtains aside, open my briefcase to get a pen and paper, lock the briefcase again and put it away into my bedroom closet. I would then sit at the dining table and look out the window. After that, it was only a matter of minutes until I would see it happening on the streets. And there she was, riding her bike until her building lot and climbing off of it, carrying her backpack on her one shoulder. She would tie the bike down to a side post, move her backpack to her chest to extract the keys from the front pocked. I stood up and tried so communicate through my sight with her. Would she finally see me today? I swallowed my breath for few seconds, when she turned around to look over towards me. But her eyes once again didn’t meet mine. She then unlocked the door of her building and disappeared in it.

I sat down and did what I usually did after such a disappointing moment. I began drawing her glance towards me on my paper. Just her eyes and that glimmer of faith in them, that didn’t look into my eyes once again. From time to time I looked up from my drawing, because I could see her through the glass windows walking up the stairs to the third floor of her building. And then she was completely gone and I was left behind with just a drawing of her beautiful eyes.

Her eyes looked empty and sad. They had a shine to them, that was desperate for some attention. I could have given her happiness, if only she had let me. I looked at my skinny bone hands and realized that I was not taking charge of our happiness. I was letting days go by without doing anything at all about making our dreams finally come true. This had to end.

I was dragging dollars out of people's pockets to finance my own life with them, and yet I was not acting upon my wisdom when it came to Layla. Maybe the reason was that I had been a widower for such a long time, that I got used to the loneliness. But Layla was nothing like my ex-wife. She was attractive, young and full of life. I wanted her in my life. I wanted her life. After five years the time had finally come to take charge and to be brave. 

Continue reading Part 2 ... 

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Why Third Impressions Matter

Why Third Impressions Matter

It is just another normal day and you are doing what you are doing every morning, having a coffee and walking your dog. While walking your dog in the park near your home, you get closer to another person and his dog. You see him with your back turned towards you leaning towards a tree in front of him. And you wonder... what is he doing there?

It only takes a few seconds for you to notice that he is peeing on that tree in the middle of the day in a park in a large city. First thought that comes to mind is: he must be a drunk. Too much beer so he cant hold it until he gets home. Then you look at his dog and you wonder if he wishes he was a dog, too, and he therefore pees on trees.

As you approach, he notices you. Took him long enough. He zips his pants quickly and walks over to a spot on the grass. He spreads out all the tissues in his pockets on the glass. Second thought that comes to mind is: He is really really wasted. Then you realize that he didn’t spread the tissues out because he had gone nuts from the booze. He was trying to pick up his dogs business.

You sit down on the bench in the park in quite some distance. He picks up his dogs business and carries the smelly stuff past you with a huge smile, all proud he cleaned up. His look was like he was saying: I may be peeing on trees, but I am a clean one. Yeah, right... Funny to see how people react when they realize what kind of an impression they give to others.

I didn’t say a word to him about anything. He acted it all out by himself to give a good impression. But you see, the first time I had seen him he looked like an okay guy. The second time I had seen him in the park he seemed like a normal person. Today, on the third time I saw him, I will remember him peeing against a tree and smiling about smelly dog poo. The first and second impressions I had got completely substituted by today’s events. And this is why third impressions matter. 

Post-Author: Dange Corral

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