Leaving Their Mark

Someone has slapped a TRUMP 2024 sticker up on this ad in the subway station, raising the question of whether or not it’s even possible to deface an eyesore; regardless, I simply can’t allow this kind of blatant bullshit to remain out here, polluting the world.

But as I begin to peel the offending thing off, the diabolical strategy of its perpetrator reveals itself: they’ve used a cheap, thin paper to print the sticker, and a super-strong glue for sticking, meaning that any attempt to remove it will, unless done carefully, leave an ugly residue of torn paper and adhesive, marring permanently anything it’s touched. 

I slow down, delicately working my fingernail all around the edge of the sticker to lift it, then applying even pressure as I pull, and while there’s still a shadow left behind, unless you’re looking for it, you’d hardly know it had ever even been.

But I know it was there, and wasn’t that the vandal's intention all along?

Drinking Poison, Expecting Someone Else to Die

 1. The obviously feral little girl has decided that the best way to gain the attention of everyone is to roll around on the floor of the booth where we sell Katie’s art, screaming about being a pirate, and having unintelligible conversations with what I presume are the demons that goad her. I am barely able to contain my seething hate of this child, as her mother periodically gives a half-hearted, “Now, angel, you can’t do that,” when what is clearly needed is a beating and a priest. 

2. As I’m coming home from the train after closing the booth, I emerge from the subway to encounter a man, standing on the curb, vomiting a jet of pale yellow that arcs from his mouth out into the street, and I am surprised to find my only response as I walk past is the word, “Bummer.”

(The connection between these two scenes the author leaves as an exercise for the reader.)

Time Marches (Backwards)

When I arrive at the office of the Co-op to work (all members have to work short shifts a few times a year) the clock on the wall reads nine.

But the real time is actually eight, because of the time change.  So my first job of the day is to go around to all the clocks in the building and spin the hands back an hour.

It doesn’t seem like much, but there is something very satisfying about fixing something so simple, yet so essential.

What Do I Know?

The little map on the Lyft app has the guy coming into the U-Haul parking lot via an entrance that I know has been closed for years. We keep sending in notices to Google Maps to let them know, and they keep ignoring us, so I settle back with a sigh and watch the arrival time on the screen, waiting for it to update to a later time, if the driver doesn’t just abandon the ride entirely out of irritation.

But here he comes in a lumbering minivan around the corner of the building from where I know the entrance is closed, giving me a friendly wave. 

He pulls up in front, and hops out to help me load my bags in the trunk, and I ask, “How did you get in?"

A Halloween Visitor

Packs of kids roam the streets in colorful costumes, pelting ahead of their parents, swarming the adults on the stoops to grab handfuls of candy, shouting nonsense to each other, trading preferred treats with the cunning and avarice of silk road merchants. 

A scrum of them surround me - minions and superheroes and cuties with bearskin and wide, alien eyes - and I do my best to notice all of them, give them their due in both sugar and attention, so as the most recent wave begins to recede, one catches my eye, and I turn to her next.

It takes me a second to register that she’s not, in fact, in any kind of costume, nor is she a kid: her hair is piled in a ratted, single mass of a dread on top of her head, out from under which eyes with white showing entirely around the irises peer, while her black, shapeless dress, fallen off both shoulders, barely contains her heavy breasts that sag beneath. 

She smiles, but shakes her head when I offer her candy, and turns to Katie, saying, “I have a daughter who looks like you!”

Don’t Spook The Doctors

The new, young doctor and her even younger shadow bustle around the tiny examining room while my usual doctor goes to fight with the pharmacy about where exactly the lidocaine might have gotten to, and why it might be taking an hour to get it. They move the ultrasound machine, then move it back, do-si-do around each other, put on gloves, take them off, misplace them, leave and come back.

My dressing gown and I watch all this hubbub with mild concern. I mean, they’re doctors, so I definitely don’t ask, “How old are you?” or “Have either of you actually done this before?” because I know how that makes me sound, and it certainly wouldn’t help the case of nerves they seem to have, especially when they’re about to stick me with needles, so I keep my mouth shut.

Fall Dusk

There’s a light in the air, a gray light from the overcast sky, that pervades the park. I watch people outside the booth when it’s slow and I want a distraction from the pain in my legs. 

They move through the mild, gloomy evening, and there’s this sense of… not exactly nostalgia, maybe mild deja vu. Everyone is young and beautiful and completely unaware of the cold winter that’s coming.