Photo by Zsuzsanna Kilián

I awoke with shit clogging the muscles of my shoulders; the fibers of my tendons, tensed.

My shoulders creak.

The stale glow of an overcast morning glitters onto my locked eyes. I see red dots from underneath my eyelids. I see black enveloping my vision.

I open said eyes.

I see books on my bed. Some shut closed. Some open. I sit up, squeeze my eyes tightly and drag my palms against my face then through my hair.

I’m naked. My pants lie akimbo on the floor. I can’t remember how this happened.

The bright red light of the clock fill a pattern, molding into sharp lines, burning a sharp light, extending its influence across an unknown day, generating numbers emerging as 6:30 a.m. The last words I read before I fell asleep was, “Tomorrow will be a better day.”

I recall dreams. Bad dreams. Scary dreams about work. Dreams that I was there in a cubicle, bathing in the yellow death glow from fluorescent lamps. Dreaming that I had much work to do but my fingers couldn’t type. Couldn’t see the breadth of details required to complete anything. Blurred thoughts. Phone calls from the micromanaging shepherd. This dreamer baas then awakes from said dream to quickly eat breakfast then scram out of the door to eventually drift within a large corral of cattle at Grand Central.

I’m in a crowded clutter of fellow les miserables.
We climb steel metal steps,
heavy from the gravity of our own weight,
which equal tons and tons of watchers of television.
Which equal drinkers, who consume gallons and gallons of alcohol every night.
Who smoke a plethora of cigarettes.
Marlboro, Parliament, Camel,
Jack Daniels, Miller High Life, Blue Moon, Grey Goose,
buckets of Smirnoff, Svedka, Crown Royal, Johnny Walker, Absolute, Maker’s Mark, Southern Comfort, Duvel Beer -
blonde, dark, amber, honey, nut brown ale,
Red Wine, White Wine, Blush -
rivers into waterfalls of drink,
washing out our insides,
covering our cancer in a bath of intoxication,
smoking, watching,
bad thoughts cycling in our brains,
reproducing as negative scars,
x, x, x.

Are we human?
Are we Walden?
Are we couches?

This hulking mass trots along; oppressed by people moving in the opposite direction who are descending into the station to catch the 7 train, the 6, the 4, and the shuttle too. We push into each other to make space for others to move through as they descend. We ascend. They descend.

We are Clash of the Titans.
We are a gridlock.

The herd I’m in shimmies up the railed steps, grasps for space, gasps for air. Finally up the escalator, I can feel wisps of cool air brush against my brow, blowing my hair just a little back behind my forehead. The outside world inhales and then exhales the foul breath of us out into the streets until we are open unto the bluish and grey hue of the sky.

I’m a good sheep.

My shepherd doesn’t have to prod me to the office with a cane or anything. I go on my own. Baa. Baa. No border collies or German shepherds barking near me. Baa. Baa.

At work, I’m bathed in the yellow death ray of fluorescent lights. I’m seated in front of a computer that is equipped with an internet browser dated before 9/11. I think of office workers falling 88 floors, writhing like ragged dolls, flowing in the wind of a great fire like some kind of macabre flag. I think of a short story to write. The concept’s potency diminishes by lunch time, when I’m gorging on mass quantities of MSG-based foodstuffs, drinking caffeine, and scouring the edges of the internet to prove that it’s round. I always return to the same sites. Everything is flat.

By 3PM, I’m outside smoking a cigarette, enjoying the daylight. I’m enjoying the warmth of real sunshine, enviously watching people who, in nice trendy clothes, drift along the street, talking on cell phones, pushing baby carriages – smiling. After fifteen minutes of being outdoors, I am enclosed in a steel box that will return me to the floor where I work so that I can continue more monkey labor. More tap-tapping of the keys.

I scarf down a bag of peppercorn flavored chips. Feeling the savory crunch of a chip, grinding the corn-based product, tasting the homogenized chemicals, which tell my brain that this tastes good. It feels fine in my stomach. I think of sharks horny and hallucinating, bumping into each other clumsily after foraging on the large rotting carcass of a whale.

Morale is down.
Production is low.

Only a couple hours left and I have just enough of an idea for my short story to get me through the ride home.

Finally, it’s time to leave. It’s good to return to the sunshine, but I’m cowering away from the building, moving so fast, speeding through small packs of people until I’m back at Grand Central, descending on the escalator, still speeding through, bumping into people annoyed with folks like me who are too afraid to look back in the direction from whence they came as if there was a T-rex on my heels. A pair of velociraptors hunting those who smell most of fear.

So, I sit down somewhere in the middle of the 7 train, flipping through a book of short stories by Jonathan Lethem. Not really looking to read anything. I just want to look at words. A man ambles through the cars of the train, pulling a rope that is attached to a pallet cart with a large rectangular box covered by a black tarp.

Through this man’s hoodie, I see a black face with a yellowed grin speckled with dark gaps where teeth should be and wafting just five seconds behind him is the stomach-belching perfume of a man unable to engage hygiene. The scent follows him like a poltergeist that goes around pecking my nostrils for attention. This scent is successful if that was the intention.

The man stops and leans against the door of the car. I return to my book to continue where I left off earlier this morning. It’s a short story about a man who lives half his life in Hell – some mainstay of childhood but I’m unsure. I’m only on page seven. The writing’s not bad but the timeliness of my judgment may be unjust. The scent of this vagabond is formidable and it skews my concentration. His voice hums a song, ascending crescendo until unintelligible words break free from his languid mouth. His teeth surely clattering insanely in his gums; crazy in his nerves.

Of course, I feel something terrible for this man. He’s in bad shape but he does not ask for money. He does not request food. Does not demand a donation and I may have given it to him too, but he just stands. His legs are covered in socks made from pus, scabs, and dried blood. His calves are thick with infection and rot. He carries his song through a whistle, minding his own business. A few stops later, he shuffles out slowly, dragging all of his worldly possessions close behind.

I open my journal, turn to the last page and begin to write: “I awoke with shit clogging the muscles of my shoulders; the fibers of my tendons, tensed…”