The Minute After the Demise

THE EVENT:
She was clutching her purse like she always did, when she was nervous...Giving some type of an alarming sign only I could detect, in my head. We were fighting. I was losing it. She’d already called me a bastard and an asshole, and I’d already called her a bitch. We’d lost track of what had set us off by then, but it still seemed immensly important that someone come out on top, if only so we could go to bed that night in complete despair and mutual agony and set the stage for a morning of sobbing and apologies followed by tender hours and warmth. Unfortunately, she stopped playing. She’d gone quiet and cold. Her car keys were in her hand. I couldn’t stop her. I was out of ammo.

THE POST EVENT:
Ohhh yea, the evening was calm and full of music. I made my way down the stairs, by the bayou that flows by the university I attend. It is empy, and its a saturday night. To be honest, I wasn’t sure what day it was, but It was not Monday because Monday had color.

The path lead by the stairs, eventually to the parking lot, but not until the marvelous downtown reveals itself in the dependent environment of the weather. The walk down, is normally a pleasant and lonely one. The only witnesses to your descent are the pigeons that noramlly rest in the crevices that flay the cieling above the heavy stone blocks of the campus. The grass, when you touch ground, is mostly a fraction of the green that it used to be.

Its autumn nowadays, and the trip down is still pleasant, quite and lonely. The pigeons have taken refuge into the depths of the crevices, and the downtown is magnificent in the evening. The clear crisp sky behind it is decorated by mr. moon, who peeks through the seams of the structures...hinting the colors of their glass.

I made my way to the car, which stood uninspired facing the skyscrapers. The streetlight above it trembled, and its near future was unknown but guessable. I sit. No point starting the car. Wierd feeling creeping in. Whats this?

Sigh.

Suddenly, shifting uncomfortably in my seat, I gaze out at the landscape. The sky is now filled with grief. There is this cloud, heavy with tears it seems now above the buildings. The unbearable weight of its sudden appearance presses on my sinking shoulders, forcing them further into my seat. My head lowered, my body bent into submission. An ashen gray pallor, not unlike my thoughts, seems to cover my world in this one instant. I feel lazy, hazy, and depressed in a fraction of a second. Most people get casual headaches or heartburn, I suffer from random depression.

"Oh no yaara. Get out get out. Close your eyes, get up and walk towards the rear of the car. Lets go now. Unzip the pants, let it go, who needs a urinal. Surely not us. Thats right my friend." This interior dialogue, I chuckle at.

Time has ceased to be. The clock, unable to conform to the rift in time hangs onto the minutes. Its gears secured, preventing the seconds from passing. My body is weary but still I aimlessly urinate on the grass, whose yellow autumny color shows despite the late evening. Clumsily I stuff myself back in and I feel much better. Warm too.

“I am thirty-eight years old and hurtling towards a nervous breakdown.” The homeless man uttered this sentence so many times it was beginning to sound like a hymnal. Maybe he thinks that if he dwelled on it for long enough the words would lose their meaning. Maybe if I ignore him he’d go away. The man had been lost momentarily in some sort of bewilderment; intently looking at the stopped traffic. He had maine in his hair and locks on his beard. The walking germ mine struddled over to my car, and I tried to act as if oblivious to his existence. He pulled out a mirror and looked in it, but perhaps not at himself but through himself. His eyes glazed over in quiet reflection...as the signal turned green.

Looking around I wondered that all the ones who are present at this time in their cars are this guys family sort of. But its temporary. We stop at the light, and greet him unwelcomingly, and then race away from his convulsing body and then he’s left there alone. Minutes will pass by and his breathing will become shallow...in his mind he is crying out to be saved but the words never do leave his mouth fully. You can normally feel a small hint of death pass with one look at his eyes. It makes you think of his past:

"His yard was once likely full of obstacles when he was young and now it is full of danger. At one time he probably played carelessly underneath the trees, seeing bugs and squirrels pass before his eyes. Pouncing was grand fun and most the excitement was within the adventures into the woods behind his home, as a kid. Then one day the trees became tall for him and no matter how hard he to tried to climb them...he never succeeded into making it to the very top."

I slithered out from the front of the line accelerated the car away from the man. He watches the traffic leave his domain, in essence he watches the world in its element, people living their lives as they plan the future waiting for that something better to come along. He notices the ugliness of it all but forgets his own. And thats his flaw.

The drive home was ordinary. The routine, a simple combination of clever cut ins and the now-conventional gestures towards colleague drivers of the highway...BUT...my old car is what carries me home. It will not last much longer. It creaks and moans like an old and dying creature. It is blind to the world. Mute, it is unable to cry out with grief. I wonder if given a choice would it just drop to dust. It has seen many years. How many is enough? How long must it continue to be? It’s paint rippig off that resembles amassed with wrinkles, it has taken on the maladies of it occupant. I stroke its frail structure while I drive. And together we battle towards solace, our home. My home. My silent ally feels my anger and frustration with silence. Its compassion is in its persistence and we go home.