A beautiful day in the Suck

[jack_babalon]

No money for lunch until my bank clears a few charges its holding on the card. So it was a cigarette brunch today, a picnic actually, since I drifted over to a small undeveloped hill that rises out of the parking lot to the west to have a seat and a smoke on a fat knot of branch that was floating out of the hard dirt under a stoic Japanese Maple. When I stepped out of the office lobby into the cold sunlight I was reminded of diving naked into a still freezing pool in the early summer, the way the cold splashed the dust thoughts from the surface of the eye so that each detail sparkled with a shaprened clarity around me when I burst out of the waters surface.

So I sat there surveying the lot below me with a detached amusement. The rooftops of the cars glittered with white flare bursts off the sun and either filled in the open ended squares that designated the parking spots or left them open so that from up here they formed the random logic of an elaborate game of chess. One car would leave, another would take its place and the car would return ten minutes later a little further down the board.

I imagined a race of extradiemensional beings that would place wagers on this game, floating invisibly above the corporate office parks and perceiving a pattern not discernible to us Three diemensional terrans.

Then I noticed the folks coming in and out of those game pieces. A small flock of African American women came out of one of those square box looking vans that are so big right now. They were all dressed up corporate chic with warm yellows and flirtatious reds. Each one clutched a styrofoam container with their lunch and though I couldn't hear the anecdote-jokes I clearly make out their laughter as if it was coming from only a few feet away. I observed a young white couple walking quickly all the way out to the furthest vehicle, where they shook hands, looked at each other, hugged, looked at each other, then looking everywhere but at me, leaned in and gave a Hollywood ending kiss. Finally the girl gets in the car, backs up, pulls out and drives away. The guy just waves after her, his blue tie fluttering in the wind. A car door slams, angry man is yelling on his cellphone, words blur into a faint squeak on the wind but you can make out the tone of voice: Super-Pissed! You can see his hairs frosted prematurely from too much stress and the vending machine/junk food diet he's on ensures he's wearing a business suit one size too small though good luck getting him to admit that...

...but i'm bored of people now. I spend the last few drags of my smoke studying the vermillion leaves scattered around me. Picking one up and examining the texture of the stem between thumb and forefinger, savoring the network of patterns interlacing, criss-crossing channels of its life-force.

A memory.

Little boy me walking home from the 1st grade with my father. The sidewalks covered in a layer of leaves. They pile up like snow around the corners of buildings, line the gutters in sepia, lime and ochre shades, they scrape under my sneakers and keep falling from the sky. I run off from him, my arms spread wide, Dervish dancing with no idea what a Dervish is, spinning under the rain of foliage, the colors blurring under the distant silver sunlight, faster and faster, the accumulated psychic crap every kid at that age goes through at school was being flung off me by the centrifugal force of the dance, faster and faster...

...until I slip on a bank of raked leaves in front of an apartment scoop...

...laying on back, laughing stupidly, a smirk of a moment in what will be a very long life.

I crush the ember head of the butt into the dirt. Breaks up. The nicotine and the heart attack thick coffee has done the trick. I'm still hungry but my stomachs not growling.

I feel good.

"Absurd Good News" as the poem goes.

Anyway, back to the grind.

Back to you.

Comments

[ltmurnau.livejournal.com]

Great photo - Algerian War?

[jackbabalon23.livejournal.com]

Don't know to be honest. I get these shots from Vintage Photo (a great community on LJ) and use them occasionally to either frame a narrative or adorn them. You should check them out.

[ltmurnau.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[efire360.livejournal.com]

Yummy!