Cabs whizzed past on sixth honking at one another with reckless abandon. I sipped whiskey from a white wine glass. No ice, just lapping liquid against crystal. Across the way were buildings of multivariate height, old brick factories remade into expensive spaces. I spied into empty offices with their fluorescent sheen, into apartments where holiday lights twinkled. Unexpected movement caught my eye in an apartment I knew all too well. The couple stood toe to toe miming angry insults. I reached for my phone, searched frantically for her number. A dial tone. I glanced up, saw her tremble, waiver, fall. The scream erupted from me, waking my wife from heavy slumber.
Saturday, December 15, 2012
The Couple
I give to you a story in eleventy-one words...
Cabs whizzed past on sixth honking at one another with reckless abandon. I sipped whiskey from a white wine glass. No ice, just lapping liquid against crystal. Across the way were buildings of multivariate height, old brick factories remade into expensive spaces. I spied into empty offices with their fluorescent sheen, into apartments where holiday lights twinkled. Unexpected movement caught my eye in an apartment I knew all too well. The couple stood toe to toe miming angry insults. I reached for my phone, searched frantically for her number. A dial tone. I glanced up, saw her tremble, waiver, fall. The scream erupted from me, waking my wife from heavy slumber.
Cabs whizzed past on sixth honking at one another with reckless abandon. I sipped whiskey from a white wine glass. No ice, just lapping liquid against crystal. Across the way were buildings of multivariate height, old brick factories remade into expensive spaces. I spied into empty offices with their fluorescent sheen, into apartments where holiday lights twinkled. Unexpected movement caught my eye in an apartment I knew all too well. The couple stood toe to toe miming angry insults. I reached for my phone, searched frantically for her number. A dial tone. I glanced up, saw her tremble, waiver, fall. The scream erupted from me, waking my wife from heavy slumber.
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
Restart
The hardest thing is not to start. It’s to restart. There’s
no longer that newness, just the dread that comes with thinking that you’ll
never be as good as you were. Or as good as you thought you were. It paralyzes,
pulls you back into its demon clutches, bludgeons you with stale French bread
until your eyes bleed.
Yet I must. Restart. It’s the only way not to sink into oblivion.
Picking myself up by the proverbial bootstraps. Forging ahead like Washington
on the Delaware. Fearlessly sallying forth into the world righting all wrongs.
No. Windmills would eat me alive.
It’s time, methinks, for whatever’s next. That’s nothing I
ever expected.
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