December: An Interlude (Pt.II)

Lights move, then stay still. They go on in the cubicle on 71st street, off in the first-floor apartment on the corner of Lexington. A stream of dancing cars flows steadily, then disappears—a poorly-timed traffic light, a break between 7 and 8 am rush hours.

A glimmer of red light appears to my left. It blankets some faraway plains, some birds and LGA airplanes. It then recedes, plans a frugal entrance, the amber eventually seeping from the plains to the silhouettes of bridges, street signs and windows.

It was a quiet morning, and I had nowhere to be. My slow but seemingly satisfying online job made me feel pleasantly, gracefully unseen. I stared out the window once more, outlined the day of the man packing a suitcase in a white-linen backdrop.

It occurred to me, out of boredom really, that the only way to remain in such state was through winning the lottery. I daydreamed about it, the fraction of the city that remained steeped in darkness becoming inevitably irrelevant.  

I thought about how our skins felt teal on Sunday. A teal that had caressed the lines around my stomach, his jaw. How that teal felt far, and anchoring. 

Later in the month, I started heading north for morning writing. The city felt more real. Perhaps dirtier, but less infused with the tiredness and self-importance of day workers. I sat at a café where the waiter soon started saving my favorite seat. He had a small limp, brown skin, and orange hair. I liked him. I enjoyed his distant, smiling company.

I mostly stared at people during those mornings. Often, they would not notice. There was a girl with a beautiful, silhouetted face and a black serving dress, her delicate hands placing biscuits next to strangers’ cappuccinos. One of these strangers was an old lady eating a pie, a sandwich and a coke. She sneezed into a napkin, then laid it down beside her feast. She was a bit round, a bit small, and wore a hat that revealed little of what should have been a scant layer of hair. I examined her posture, imagined her potentially brilliant mind.

I read a book in between glances. Switched back and forth between my pages, the biscuits, the napkins. I read a line with the soothing voice of the waitress, another one while imagining a balding head. I moved through the same scene with a delicate shape, then with the napkin as a companion. Sometimes it would do little. Often, I would find myself reading two different stories.

When I got tired of games, I would walk all the way back home. I had read a Salinger story in one of those cold nights, and the voice of his narrator came to me like the beat of an old song during long walks: “I prayed for the city to be cleared of people, for the gift of being alone—a – l – o – n – e: which is the one New York prayer that rarely gets lost and delayed or delayed in the channels.” This, and his overdue distinction that obviously happiness can only be the solid form of joy became the blissful liquid through which I understood my Christmas holidays.

On another lonesome, early morning walk through the park, it became increasingly apparent how that liquid could only cease to be teal. It had matured to this hue through many complex Decembers. Yet had never solidified, kept flowing uncontrollably, in this half-gem, half-muck kind of way.

The thought suggested I should sit down and cry. But it was cold, and it was Christmas day. I entered a CVS, but it was already too depressing, muffled joy carelessly sifted through old roof speakers. I bought some wrapping paper and kept walking, thinking I probably wouldn't have been able to sit very comfortably anyway.

This piece was published in Volume II of the journal Mind, Ocean, Space.