Into the City

Through low, crawling clouds of charcoal the train prowls and comes to a stop. A whistle shoots from the beast and pushes its passengers out the doors. Their wing-tip shoes tap like computer key strokes against the cold concrete. As each of them descends from the passenger car they meet my eyes and quickly look away. They each have the same motionless, ash-hued hair. They walk by me with familiar features perched on their faces: olive eyes defined by harsh cutting eyebrows, slender noses with tucked nostrils, moist fish lips and abrupt cheekbones. Each feature stinks of corruption and new money. The station is dyed a muddy color as the passengers walk robotically in their drab suits and matching, striped ties. The drumming of their fingertips on briefcase handles echoes throughout the station. The revolving exits devour them and spit them into the damp streets.

I watch them disperse into the city like a horde of vermin eager to distribute pestilence. Through tinted glass they seem to be shadows, mere silhouettes of actual, breathing creatures. Groups of three spin into alleys and side streets, some climb wiry catwalks and vanish into the ceiling of fog. With their smell still thriving in my nostrils (gourmet coffee, crisp newsprint, and pine-scented shoe-polish) I wonder what thoughts infest their minds.

Their scheme escapes me, like a theme lost among colliding metaphors. My mind conjures theories involving the passengers and I write them on a napkin. Perhaps a crime spree where the perpetrator is released due to doubtful witnesses. "I'm sorry, officer, their kind all look the same." A haggard district attorney gives a frustrated glance to his watch while consoling a sobbing witness. Between mechanical pats on her back, the witness spits out, "How can you decide which one to point your finger at when they all have the same humus fragranced breath?" My pen, recently taken from a bank's front desk, slides across the napkin frenetically.

Maybe they'd each run for political office under the same name. The local cable provider offers thirty unique news channels, as you flip through them you see a different interview with the same man at each one. Guest appearance at the opening of a youth club, a debate over the expansion of financial data research, a casual game of golf with the owner of an influential software company. All live on television. Simultaneously. The bigger the camera, the bigger the smile.

After stuffing the napkin into my pocket I notice the station is empty. The sounds I spawn; the shuffling of my feet, my scratches at the hair dripping down my neck, inject elements of comfort into my surroundings. An ice-storm kidnapped my family's electricity when I was younger. Before that I had never realized just how loud electricity is. A sonic onslaught of mechanical purrs and technosexual moans. The clamor is truly punishing on our ears. But without that furtive abuse I feel lost. I've seen films where battered children cling to the parent who bruises their bodies. I'd watch these movies and think, "How peculiar." And then thoughts of the ice-storm would return. The sanctuary offered by electricity now demands my adoration. I become uncomfortable in moments of even mild silence.

I exit the station and make my way into the city. My pen rests comfortably between friendly calluses. I hobble onto an obscure side street where my hollow footsteps die on the slick pavement. A neon sign of a woman's contour sprays electric crimson across the roadway. I can picture the ambulances surrounding the scene of a vehicular manslaughter incident. A doctor sips from a beverage container while examining a lacerated carcass. He yawns and rakes stiff fingers through hair that no longer exists. "There's an accident every week on this damn street. I swear, I think the neon lights blind the drivers."

I'm forced to adjust to the uneven sidewalks, littered with scrapped tabloids and trampled worms. A wall of bright boutiques stretches into an intersection where men wearing helmets ravage the pavement with brutal implements. Deafening typewriter taps and a steady metallic roar fills the air. Grotesque blades slice through layers of roadway, previously traveled on by maintenance supervisors, politicians, artists, and urban vigilantes. Every individual is equal according to that tormented road. The tire brands are the only difference.

A person standing next to me startles me with an abrupt comment. "This construction is going to turn this place into a madhouse. As if the street weren't cluttered enough already..." His raspy voice trails off into the symphony of metal penetrating concrete. A lit cigarette throws an amber glow against his face. Smooth cheeks with the remnants of acne, tight against a modest skull. His chapped lips and crooked nose leads me to his eyes. Pebbles of obsidian with an avalanche of wrinkles settled beneath them. He sends a phantom sailing from his lips and walks away. He walks without craving in his step, toes drag forward reluctantly. A man once told me that you die as soon as you misplace your motivation. If that's true, human shells promenade through this city, nothing more.

I am drawn to a shop window with a large television in full blaze. Behind the display, customers race to prey on sale items. While staring at the screen I become entranced by its electric allure...sweeping over me like the warmest comforter...a deadline is a pretty morbid sounding term...I leave it behind...I welcome the static...I let it wash away thoughts of isolation...electricity bills...my broken computer monitor desperately needs to be fixed...

With a face splashed with static I drift into a world where no responsibility is my own.