Q:
A: I was on the East side.
Q:
A: I’m sorry, the East side of the river. You see the river splits the city in half from East to West the long way? Vertically?
Q:
A: I live on the West side of the river.
Q:
A: Farther than that, but not as far as the ocean.
Q:
A: Well, like I said, I was on the East side, and the East, you know, it’s just a little more gritty than I’m used to seeing, being from the West side and all. I really don’t mind the grit, but I guess you could say I notice it. People there have sunburn wrinkles, have you seen them? They have sunburns on their faces, but the wrinkles around their eyes are white, so it looks like their face is surprised that their eyes are there. I just don’t see that on the West side.
Q:
A: There are lots of green trees on the West side. People cut them so they don’t look too wild. You know; spheres, squares, spirals. And there are well-dressed runners. Everybody’s running.
Q:
A: I was on the East side, and the grit, and I don’t mind the grit, you know, I just notice it. I like the grit, you could say. It lets me know someone is living some sort of life. I have a scar on my back, and I don’t mind it being there. A doctor took a scalpel to me and removed a birthmark that was all clumpy and veiny, and now I have this long, sensitive scar. My sister used to bite the birthmark that used to be there when we fought. But I guess that mixes up my logic. I had this thing that was a weakness, and now I have this other thing that is less of a weakness, but it shows I had the first weakness.
Q:
A: Yes! Thank you. I was on the East side because I had to go to work.
Q:
A: I wouldn’t call it mundane.
Q:
A: Mundane is sameness; the same thing all the time. I worked in this poster-rolling plant once. For one day. No machine is complex enough to roll a poster and stick it into a plastic sleeve, I guess. The posters weren’t actually made there; there was no machinery. And it looked more like an industrial party tent or a hollowed out warehouse than a factory. I was the new girl, and I rolled the poster of Michael Jordan because my supervisor refused to roll an n-word’s poster. Her word. She kept talking about how she was gonna get fucked up after work on some Malibu and pineapple. “That’s my draaank,” she’d say. And she talked expecting people to crane their necks and open their ears, cartoon style. She’d talk to the space right in front of her mouth, and I thought that was funny. I mean, did she really expect that much? It’s six in the morning, and we’re all standing on these rubber mats in this open air warehouse, and we all have our own reasons for landing there, you know? We’re all somewhere else in our own heads, I think. And the only things that set her apart from the rest of us is having to get more boxes after we fill them up, and getting to choose before everyone else which poster she rolls. And what are we supposed to do? Hear what she has to say? And I think that’s funny until I look around. This scraggly blonde woman, a wisp of a thing, is trying to listen and roll at the same time. I mean, she’s shaking and she’s obviously splitting her attention between her unicorn poster and what the supervisor is saying, which is nothing, really. And it’s an unnecessary burden for the blonde woman, but she doesn’t know that. Or maybe I don’t realize that somehow it is a necessary burden. Anyway, I volunteered to roll Michael Jordan’s poster because it was all the say I had, and then it was just the same sideways glances, the same rolling, the same sleeve, the same cut in between my pointer finger and my thumb, the same tongue wagging out of his mouth, the same arm cocked back behind the same sweaty head.
Q:
A: Boy bands.
Q:
A: I’d really rather not say.
Q:
A: I was going to work and I had just crossed the river.
Q:
A: The only bridge I take. It’s newly refurbished. It has wide sidewalks, and you can see from one end of the bridge where it’s going to take you. The other bridges, oh my goodness. One is so high in the air that if you screw up your eyes it looks like you’re flying. One is covered with all these steel beams, you know, like an erector set? One twists and turns all over the place like you’re taking an off-ramp that spirals down into the river, and then another one is so old, sometimes I think big chunks of concrete just crumble from underneath and splash into the water.
Q:
A:Let me think about that.
Q:
A: I have been diagnosed with depression. It wasn’t so severe that I quit functioning, or anything. I watched this documentary about depression, you know, when I was depressed. It was supposed to make me feel better. This woman. This poor, poor, woman. She lost her child. I mean, her child died. The loss of her daughter slowed time down, like she went into hibernation. She spoke so slowly and so thickly that you couldn’t understand her without subtitles. She needed help getting off of the couch after the interview not because her body was broken, but because her body didn’t move fast enough to fight gravity. She wasn’t anesthetized, she wasn’t a drunk or a drug addict…
Q:
A: Anesthetized.
Q:
A: A-nes-the-tized. Anyway, that hibernation was her natural reaction to the event of her life. I can’t say without speaking metaphorically I’ve experienced that. I mean, her body actually stole time; her being took time out of the equation for her. And all these doctors are buzzing around, trying to understand what she needs to bring her out of it, which seems helpful. But she needs that time for something, you know? Like, did she slow down to conserve memories? I have this picture in my head of a picture she has in her head. She’s looking at her baby girl, who’s looking out the window. And the light is soft and her baby girl’s eyes are clear, and she’s happy to be watching what’s outside. And that’s just one picture out of thousands, probably millions that she needs to remember. And what if she has pictures that she didn’t even know she had? Like, it just pops into her head one day that her daughter had a mole right in the middle of her back, or that she sucked up macaroni noodles one by one. That’s important information! And so why do they need to bring her out of that? What’s the point? I mean, I’m sure it’s painful. There’s a degree of pain she’s feeling, and I’m sure they want to alleviate that, but at what cost? What does she lose in that transaction? Why can’t they just take care of her until she comes out of it on her own? She obviously needs that time. Her body said as much.
Q:
A: Yes, I’m sorry. Back to the bridge. I had crossed over to the East side of the river, and the bridge is busy, you know? Lots of cars going back and forth every day. At the first stoplight there’s this little patch of grass to the left. I look for the pigeons every time I pass it. Sometimes they’re there, and sometimes they’re not. When they are there, there are tons of them. I mean, you never see just one or two. And they’re all different colors; brown, rainbow, pink, and grey, and they’re pretty, you know? And they’re cooing all over the place, and that’s pretty to hear, too. And sometimes they all get spooked and fly off at once. But when they stay, it’s nice to see them all huddled up together.
Q:
A: No, it’s not about the pigeons. I was looking for the pigeons and they weren’t there, so I was a little disappointed. And then two blocks down from the pigeon grass, while I was stopped at the light, I saw it. Right in the middle of the street. Right in the middle of the street in the crosswalk.
Q:
A: Yes.
Q:
A: I’m positive.
Q:
A: What do you mean? I did some research after I saw it. It takes months for it to get that
developed. Like, three to six months.
Q:
A: Yes, luck, sure. I’m sure that had something to do with it. I’m not religious, if that’s what
you’re getting at.
Q:
A: Maybe it was in a sweet spot in the road that never gets driven on, in between where all four tires hit the pavement. Maybe it was closer to the outer edge of the crosswalk, where people wouldn’t walk anyway.
Q:
A: But of course someone had to notice it! A lot of someones had to notice it! It’s one of those things that just cuts right through. I mean, your brain can’t compute that picture, you know? Some crabgrass, a crack in the asphalt, a squirrel standing by, sure. But I don’t think the brains of everyone who went by could let them ignore it. That seems impossible to me.
Q:
A: Think of it this way: say someone who has no good news to tell anyone, they see it. They see it and they leave it alone. They want it to stay for the next person. They don’t take it because they know it just wouldn’t be right. It wouldn’t be fair to the next person who needs something good to tell someone else. Some people maybe even go back and forth about taking it. Like, they really struggle over it. They deserve it after all, and they’ll keep it safe, and when it dies they’ll preserve it so they’ll have something good to tell for a long time. They get close to convincing themselves that they are the only person who would keep it and care for it, you know? And by that time, they’re across the street, standing on the corner, watching it quiver every time a car blows by. And that’s alarming to witness; it may even call them to action. A little step off the curb and back into the street. But they can’t ignore the proof that they aren’t the only person who noticed it and were glad about it because the proof is that it’s still there. And of course, someone else left it for them to see. So, they leave it alone. And I left it alone, too.
Q:
A: I think everyone who left it alone felt the same thing I did.
Q:
A: Well, there’s this lift in your shoulders. So much so that you notice you were hunched over. And then, there’s this warmth all over. It starts in your chest, and then it moves to your arms, if you let it, and it moves to your stomach, and your pelvis and your legs. And it’s not fleeting, you know? It stays as long as you want it to stay. You have the urge to tilt your head back and face the sky. You’ll want to stretch out your neck and open your mouth and let it out. Not to get rid of it, but to give it to someone else.
Q:
A: Yes…thank you.
Fiction - ISSUE #28