What the night and morning gave me

Its not so much the yelling as it is the finger, fat and blunt, like a cigar—stabbing at the air, and the vehemence with which the words are sputtered and thrown into the air between us. The air is thick and stale; an elderly person could live here. He screams, ‘Why don’t you look at yourself in the mirror? Look at yourself!!’ I hide a smile in indigo dark. Walking, I prize the great oblivion outside, no stars in a clear sky and a wind that has picked up and chased the clotted breathless opacity that has descended and hung for days. When I arrive home I throw my keys in my purse and turn off my cell phone, perhaps forever. I do not look in the mirror. I sleep as though I’ve been without a bed for too long, enclosed in a protective womb of down and as my alarm drags me rudely out from slumber my immediate thought upon waking is the knowledge that now its really going to happen; I’ve really done it this time.

I park in my usual place and my friend is there beside me, grinning like a loon. It is cool and the sun bright and keen. He starts talking and does not stop until we part ways at the top of the overly long stretch of escalator. He would have preferred to take the elevator but I informed him it was nothing but a casket powered by hydraulics. I did catch a glimpse of myself a few times reflected back from the train window as we had entered into the tunnel. What am I supposed to be able to see beyond myself? I can still see the fat finger jabbing but Lawrence is a kindly and very appreciated distraction. He is so sweet and I am fortunate.

I put on my ipod and set it to shuffle. I hate to place so much importance on whatever the first song is going to be but I cannot help myself. It has a power, the first song. The street is crowded and jarring in monochromatic tones, all reflective; it is pierced violently through with cadmium yellow taxi streaks. Norwegian Wood. This is good, right? It makes me smile. It is music from a time when this kind of song was enough. It’s not going to armor me but this works and I walk and try not to feel vulnerable. The second song is also important and this is how I can doom the quality of my own day; placing this relevance on a somewhat random selection of music—it is just math. I’d Have You Anytime. Oh Jesus, this one is going to break me but still I walk and I’m almost okay with listening to something this beautiful and allowing myself to feel like a fleshy pink mussel with its shell pried open and ripped apart. I’m walking and the weather is perfect and the cadence of a beautiful voice is pushing me through this crowd and then I see the first dead person. He does not stop to acknowledge me but I hold my breath and all sound stops abruptly. I am sure that my ipod is still playing but I cannot hear a thing. Am I still walking? His hair is matted but slicked back in an attempt at order. His hair looks as though there is a layer of dust atop his strangely styled coif. His shirt is an unnatural green—more saturated than any other color there is and he walks slowly, so slowly through the crowded street with unknown purpose. He is not bothered by anyone or anything and is influenced by the splendor of invisibility. I pass him and avert my eyes, cross Madison and regain composure when I see the second one. She is also crossing the street and is pale beyond comparison, also clad in a color that is drenched and indefinable. It is a red, I know that much. Her hair is long and the same color as her flesh, her eyelids are large, deep set and round as moons. Why can I see her eyelids, are her eyes closed? I do not want to know. She too passes. The color of her hair troubles me.

The music kicks back in but now it is Mississippi Goddam and this shall surely fortify and act as a talisman for whatever else I should happen to see. I look up to watch the sky briefly as I navigate. I like the shapes the buildings cut into sky as I pass. A plane flies low across my blue clip of sky and my heart convulses—only momentarily—as I am sure it always will from now on. It too passes.

I turn a corner and walk in silence for the last leg of the journey, where hot coffee awaits me. I stop to put my ipod away and see myself reflected in the mirror at Burger Hell.

I can see. I know something is coming.