greek chance
It happened in a maroon and purple alley way downtown, across from the statue that oughtn’t be there. Maroon from the bricks, with cream in between each; purple from strange nocturnal reflections, dullness illuminated by store signs. But no- this is not about light. It happened when the man who worked at the counter of the business that occupied the building of whose alley way I speak, exited through the back door. A languorous day at work, populated by the multitude of sad and acid-etched faces that flit in and out, purchasing toiletries and trifles for no more than a dollar-a-pop, had drained him. Without cause, it was this night that it really felt lonely, when the solitary walk home just really spelled it out. It happened in the alley. The defense of resplendent meekness shuffled up behind him in the dark, mutilated sadness, replaced it with cool catharsis: feelings of violent evaporation gave way to a wrapping sensation, wrapping of pleasure, pleasantly cold plastic tightening around the limbs. Harsh words from imagined persons produced smiles, the smug smile of self-righteous pity… “oh you poor thing, you dreadful dried up soul, don’t you know that I can see through that? Don’t you know that in your eyes I can see, like a hundred squares of a security camera matrix, whence you gleaned these cruelties? Surely on your ugly death bed you will understand that this is not how you want to treat me. Or anyone else. Treatment is the only thing we really have.”
And maybe that part was true. You can never hug your pretty fabrics the way they hug you everyday but goddamn, cant you see? All this art, these words, this derisive laughter amongst bitter friends… we’re better than that! Sudden inappropriate laughter. The asphalt is winking and orange under street lights’ impure glow. But what can be written about a lonely man? His bitterness has gone… there is no sweet, understanding female awaiting him in the living room, having dutifully and tenderly prepared a mediocre but well-meaning meal. No steaming scrambled eggs with goat cheese. No favorite shows. There is a mouse though! Yes, a little white mouse who will spend the night in a different room because his wheel is squeaky, and oil is just a thing that you never go out to get by itself. And there is jazz on the radio yes… nothing like early morning jazz and a few cigarettes on the couch. A collection of movies, shelves and shelves of books, drawings plastering the walls: all faces of strangers I’ve never met, scenes of cathedrals whose gods are magnificent and their works magnanimous and terrible. Hey listen… its Glen Miller’s rendition of “song of the volga boatment”, cheeky melancholy if you ever heard it, the sort of song that plays during the credits of a movie in which several innocent people die. Catharsis.
Oh, malaise. Crippling monotony… the possibility of the constituents of every pattern being thoroughly unrelated constructs, whose constituents further still are just amalgamations of Aristotle’s airless, naturalist, blind luck. Greek chance. But- the volga boatmen, and, oh my- look out the window…
That hill that the tapering street wraps around, in the distance, look at the lights on it. Little dew drops, bright hazy tiny things… the will o’ the wisp. They’re so beautiful.
