I like to share wry observations with my own inimitable wit. I can hear the deafening roar of a thousand empty chairs as I compose. And still I wonder at injunctions at starting sentences with conjunctions. The steely gaze of a shepherd with his flock, his tea laced with strychnine. Oh the gods of peril watch over us and blast and fury and faith at the new dawn day. Lovable.
On the bus today going through Chinatown a passenger carried in a bag something that smelled like a rotting rhinoceros head. Yet another passenger had evidently bathed in cilantro and more than a few hadn't bathed in a fortnight. There was a large man sitting across from me who was far too obvious a person to be on public transportation. His desire for attention and recognition belied the fact that he was of decidedly low intellect and insignificant accomplishment. Old ladies practically begged for seats up front where teenagers -- regular roustabouts -- sat idly, blanking looking at their mobiles.
A tall, long legged woman stood imperiously wondering why fate had thrown her among us mortals. I'd have cast an aspersion but who was I to....
And the rain. After an unlikely heat wave even more unlikely chills and clouds and wet weather. The madness. The unpredictable lunacy of a world ravaged by climate change. I walked from bus to subway enduring and enjoying a few sprinkles boasting neither a jacket nor umbrella. Such is. Now it's going to be hot again then normal then...?
The subway station smells of urine and trash then an overly perfumed woman walks by. Someone blasts music that should be coming through ear buds to their ears only. The effrontery. Casually decadent suited 28 year olds promenade on the platform acting self important as they take a call from the office that they just left. The hustle bustles and there is a bustle to the hustle as pickpockets scope out the unwary. Find a tourist mate.
Trains are delayed because a dust mote landed on the tracks. Screeching halts and obnoxious announcements and gruff middle aged men cursing too loudly and I heave a sigh. A child tugs at mother's skirt and is ignored. The train comes and there is a seat waiting for me next to an overly casual looking young woman crossing her beautiful legs. She ignores me and I realize I have daughters her age and out comes the book and my head zeroes in on the beginning of the chapter where I left off 20 minutes ago on the bus. At the next few stops people jostle on and the train becomes packed and I am bumped and I look up to see sullen faces.
Despite this that and the other I have found myself quite happy recently. This is very unfamiliar and most disconcerting. (I just used quite very and most in the last two sentences, so don't think I'm unaware of my propensity to modify adjectives. Lot of people don't like it. So it goes.) Prolonged periods of joy are unusual for me. I often think they are the lull before the storm, that the scales will soon be balanced, gloom or bad news must be just around the corner. I've never trusted happiness. It's too often built on shaky ground and collapses loudly causing acute pain. The missus tells me to enjoy feeling good and that I deserve. I suppose that's the wise course and I'll sure try but it all seems so unreal and so unnatural.
To betray the dragon that haunted. To live the dogged life of the shadowed man. To spit at the inevitability of death. To clash with the conundrums of time and to smile always to smirk at the relentless happiness of the rewarded man.
Kissing the joyous woman of yesterday's solitude against the mustard sky and revel in the distance between this life and the next while slapping at despair and dancing on the outer edge of yesterday for there is no recourse for the penitent man but the sighs of bygone stories sung by the chocolate choir with angel time at the cusp. Go and do and then and only then is your love real. Don't cheat love.
And so I imagined an acetylene torch destroying the dust mote.
Weekend at last. Home on chair. Feet up. Eyes forward. Yes.
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