The Prettiest Marketa

Rudy felt for the key to his flat in the warm cloth of his coat pocket. There it was, propped in the corner in just the way to wear the fabric out the fastest, as all pointed things have a habit of alligning themselves in important things. He was sure that if he were wearing his old hooded sweatshirt with the thumbholes that the key would have been perfectly flat inside the middle pocket. He listened for the bolt to slide out, krept into the flat, and listened for it again to slide back. His brown derby hung on the rack beside the door in the short little hallway, forgotten that morning and vehemently believed missing by it's owner once the cold air reminded him he was without it. Rudy scowled at the hat, then his eyes reversed and reflected a jovial approach to the situation. He thought it was a pity that no one saw him take it so well.
Rudy crossed the landing and peered outside for a sizeable duration of time before doing anything else. A biker was waiting at the corner for the light to change, which was very rare in Rudy's neighborhood as no one really remembered a time when the signs were adhered to. Some men were unloading a floor cleaning ensemble and loading it into the freight elevator in the adjacent building. A little girl was watching the men below along with Rudy, and he was just about to wave to her when she turned at her mother's voice, brown ponytail flying, and disappeared. Rudy went back inside himself, but no at any direct beckoning. Still he did feel pulled as he entered his bedroom and began to undress. He had worn his good shirt for the walk that morning, because the weatherman had said it would be an exceptionally good day and Rudy felt that he carried some degree of importance in being the only senior in the city who still believed that the weather report was usually right. As he put the oxford shirt back on its hanger and looked up to find the bar for the hook, he again felt something. He looked around his tiny room, with nothing but a bed and lamp for reading, but only felt differently when he was staring into the closet. He stood up and began moving various articles of clothing on various colored hangers in hopes of finding the source. Rudy was visually reminded of what surely had to be the cause when he rediscovered shoeboxes lining the far wall of his closet and hidden by all his pants and shirts. He had collected and filled the boxes with various trinkets and mementos of his life, and chose to withdraw five at random, hoping it would satisfy whatever urge was inside him that had jumped at the sight of the boxes, and that was now beginning to annoy him. Even though he had nothing else to do that day, Rudy still didn't like the feeling of being commanded by such a desire.
Inside he recognized everything instantly. The horribly itchy red sweater he had received after graduating college from his aunt, which had marked the last piece of clothing that he had been given as a child played off as a present. The seashell necklace he had been given by a girl upon disembarking his plane to Hawaii, and later discovered that same girl to have three different incurable but very treatable diseases and that that was the closest he could come to summarizing Hawaii: a beautiful girl with a cabinet full of pills behind the bathroom mirror. Rudy was perhaps most excited to find his old film camera, the kind with the wind-up side that distinguished every serious amateur film director. He had almost forgotten all about his original purpose in digging out the boxes and was set on filming down at the park when he discovered a spent roll of film still in the camera. It was not like him to leave film undocumented, and he was immediately curious.
Rudy closed the yellow, embroidered curtains to his street. He thought they fit his age if not his taste, so he had kept them dispite all of his old friends announcing every time they saw them that yellow was not his color (as if it were some new, unbelievable discovery). He was surprised to find his heart rate had increased at the expectation of what could lie on the film. Quickly he set up his old reel set and sat down in his ratty recliner. Rudy declined to recline, and instead stayed with his elbows on his knees as the reel rewound. As soon at it was finished, the reel automatically clicked back and began to play.
The light shone on the screen, and Rudy's eyes followed it to see himself, only much younger. He was in the same park that he had planned on filming in. Rudy stroked his chin, as the Rudy on the screen still had his beard trim and neat. He was smiling and commenting visciously on the day and the people, when he reached with both hands behind the camera, presumably at its director, and after a brief struggle turned it around. Now the light brought a woman on the screen, one with deep grey eyes and a calmness that ran down the background. She was sitting on a black park bench, and kept covering her mouth when she laughed at the young Rudy's flattering description of her. Often she would look off out at something, but the camera never left her face. One tear from each of Rudy's eyes began to make their way down his beaten face, but he didn't notice. He didn't blink. Young Rudy said she was Marketa, and that she was the prettiest Marketa he had met so far, to which she chuckled. The camera jerked randomly for three seconds and then settled to them both, Young Rudy beside the prettiest Marketa. More flattery, more chuckling, and then a little peck of a kiss from Young Rudy. Then there was silence and nothing but homely eye contact until the reel abruptly ran out.
Rudy looked back at the machine as if to embarrass it into starting again. Slowly he reached up and felt the water that had run down his cheeks and onto his undershirt. Marketa. The name was a spice to him. Those grey, ominous eyes echoed all through the history he chose to keep remembering. Had he really continued to live without her? More tears came.
At length the film equiptment returned to its place in storage and that night Rudy kept the filmstrip and the camera under his pillow as he slept. It seemed like as long as he could feel it there, Marketa was the last thing he thought about and the only one he dreamed of. In those dreams Young Rudy always had the prettiest Marketa, and the weather was always mild and the weatherman was always right. So when Old Rudy woke, he could be happy, no matter if he remembered his derby or not. And every day he would walk a new way, one that led him down into the park and to the bench in the film. He would look in the direction that she had looked, and she was there with him, seeing past everything like migrating geese across endless stretches of land.