Velociworld

THE XTINA FILES

Christina has another project going. Wherein she supplies the opening graph to a story, and has several bloggers run with it in whatever direction they desire, in a thousand words or so.

She shanghaied sweet talked me into participating, me of misanthropic nature. And, yes, my remonstrances to misanthropy wear thin, I know. I'm actually like, a clubber these days. So here is her opening set up, my follow through:

A person gets on a subway then nods off only to waken just before the appointed stop. When this person exits the station, the surroundings are completely unrecognizable. Individual then realizes he/she had not seen another human since getting on the train.

He exited tentatively, alone, uncertain. No one. Anywhere. He made his way to the stairs, pushed through the turnstile with a hollow ratcheting click, and climbed toward the daylight streaming through the stairwell shaft, dust, mites, glittering in the backlight of the diffused sun.

He exited upon a street of broken back, spavined sway, storefronts boarded, metal grating shut, locks rusted. No one. Anywhere. He decided to head north, what he thought was north, out of indifference. South would have taken him back from whence he came, but he wasn't sure that was the right direction to take at this point.

After three blocks he was feeling oddly claustrophobic due to the wide open spaces, bereft of humanity. No solace, no focus. Wind, whipping newspaper remnants through the wide streets devoid of vehicle, pedestrian. Traffic lights dead, sullen, closed as clam, sealed as oyster.

He rounded a corner, determined to head east, toward the river, and was stunned to see a man sitting on a rickety chair on the edge of the sidewalk, chair as broken as the rest of the street, wobbly, cohesive through willpower alone, it seemed, and this old black man perched precariously upon its edge.

"Where am I?" he asked. He peered at the man, gray as moss, wizened as cocoanut, eyes a filmy pale blue, corneas smoked over as gelatin.

"Where are you? You in Harlem, son." He rocked, dangerously akimbo, on the edge of the devastated chair. "Where you think you are?"

"Okay. Fine. But, what I mean is, where am I?"

"I told you. You're at the intersection of Abomination and Despair, boy. You're in Life." He rocked, the chair creaked, agonizing in its frailty.

"How do I get out?" The man guffawed, slow, amused, grizzled head swaying to and fro in negation.

"You cain't get out of what you've always been in, son. What do you do with your life?"

"I'm an investment banker. Mergers and acquisitions, actually."

"Have you ever created anything?"

"Sure. I mean, I create value for my shareholders every day. I take the besotted company, the loser, and bring it into the fold of a healthier organization. I save jobs! Most of the time..."

"No, you young fool. I mean create something." The old man pulled a harmonica from his shirt pocket, and played a piercing blues song, with a coda that brought tears to the man's eyes. It was beautiful, evocative.

"That was really nice."

"Son, you can't handle nice yet. Do you have chirren?"

"Yes. A boy and a girl. Six and nine. Wonderful creatures."

"Uh huh. Do you hug 'em?"

"Sure. Every night."

"Do you fuck your wife?" The man blanched, and stammered. "Yeah. Sure. Twice a week."

"That's where you're wrong. You can't fuck somebody you love. Fucking takes away from a person. Making love gives 'em something back. Dig?"

"Me?"

"You."

I hadn't thought about it."

"Do she whisper in your ear when you're in there, and tell you she want more? She want you in there?"

"I don't recall that."

"No shit, son! You jes fuckin' her. Think about it. What you givin'?"

"ME!"

"Yeah. And that ain't much. See that stairwell across the street?"

"Yeah."

"That's your ride." At this point the teetering chair crashed, and the milky-eyed man was prostrate, helpless, on the sidewalk, amongst the splinters.

"Help an old man up," he wheezed. The man obliged, and pulled him erect. "Git me that orange crate yon." And he did, and propped the old man upon it.

"That's better. Take your ride, son. What you think?"

I'm really not sure."

"You an asshole, boy. Be sure about that."

"Huh? Who are you? My conscience?"

"Hell, no boy!" And he guffawed again. Hollow, mirthless. "I'm yo damned Libido! I yo pecka! Hell, yeah, I'm yo Conscience. Lookit: you still on that train, asleep. You gots a face smudged agin the window, you gots a line of drool down yo mouth. You look like shit. Yo wallet done been lifted. Yo wife hate you."

He stared at the old man. "What are you saying?"

"Go home, fool. Leave the girl at the strippin' club alone. Be da Man. Find yo soul. You still gots it, right?"

"I think so."

And he was slammed against the forward wall when the engineer locked down in a vain effort to avoid the vagrant splayed alongside the track, the vagrant sliced in two like a schism, wonderfully dead, clean.

And he drew his forearm across his mouth, and felt the dried sputum, the drool dried like cow's cud, and wondered if he could be a lover that night, head with bruised knot, soul enflamed, humbled unto disgust.

And he grinned, and sat back in his seat, the car stopped whilst the vagrant was extricated by small parts from the gear, the wheels, and thought

Sho, now.