Lady in the Black Dress,
 

This is a "Coming of Age Tale," of a young boy who when he was twelve was introduced to a woman who could dream a thousand dreams.

Being twelve in this present memory, and living in Fort Dix New Jersey, I was internally battling with the issue of how Art as a talent is useless when displaying on a stage.
 There was a talent show set for that year and I refused to lay down my art, for the piano, harmonica, oration, dancing or any of the skits I was offered to be in.  It was a serious issue for me.
I was able to organize a lot of my peers for lunch to join me at specific tables so we could practice line development, story boarding, character creation, and posters for our favorite Icons. Yet my problem remained.
  I could never get the school to agree to using the projectors to display our works and allow us to orate according to what we have designed on paper.

I asked a friend and she killed my dream as much as the teachers. "All you do is draw comics, cartoon characters and myths." Not wanting to argue with her, I allowed her to continue to berate my ideas and individual skill. This is the same girl that I took on a three-wheeling-date to see Planet of the Apes.
  A theatrical film based on myth and developed by story boards and 2D visuals before the producers bought the idea and sold it for millions.
As I sat on the curbside of my home, contemplating this issue of talent and the arts, she walked up.

The lady in the black dress.
She was a brunette, wearing a choker around her neck, viewing the landscape behind me. Seemingly stuck in the past. She did not see me at first; She looked to be about twenty.

"What are you looking for?" I asked her. She smiles and points at most of my stomping ground, "I used to live here, I came back just to see how things have changed."

Packing away my sketch pad and standing with her, seeing as she saw things, " You were a military brat?" I asked. She did not answer. She answered none of my questions yet I knew she was still seeking the reasons for her talent and the proper use for it. She was twenty or more, still soul searching and nearly losing her military dependency, deciding to visit the last place she ever felt secure. Assured of her purpose and safe. She was revisiting her childhood, 'literally,' and desiring to grasp the missing pieces that fed her dreams, in hopes of sailing safely into her future. Where ever it led.

The lady in the black dress looked like a fish out of water by the time she left and when I think of her I always told myself I did not want to be like her by the time I was twenty.

I wanted my talent to carry me.