XVII: A Death Clock Minute

i.

There are stories, in newspapers, tabloids and television documentaries, that may be read by those interested of deadly diseases and unexplained lethal phenomena that leave their victims with a date of death, an ETA of the hooded figure at their doors or, in the best of cases, a general estimate of time left to live and fulfill and love and lose. Within these stories are others of heroism, of vacations and adventures, usually involving skydiving and deep-sea exploration in which these dying persons find meaning and purpose in their last death-clock minute. And still others who, when given their final deadline, loathing with self-importance, pity themselves to death alone.

1.

But at this given moment on this specific last day of life, a man is awakening somberly in a room with two beds, and rolls to his side to address a singing cellular phone that, for all he knew, could have been performing its spastic dance for hours. A firm depression of the "HOME" key reveals a message received at 3:03AM:

IRENE

314-333-8493
----------MESSAGE----------
For sure. 3 weeks!
-------------END-------------
Dec 02, 08 (TUES)
3:03AM

Of the mindset that one reply does not usually warrant another, his lanky fingers span the sleek casing of plastic and polymer in reach of the "END" key, swing back over his head, and with a brush of his short brownish hair nestle in the fabric of his smiley-face adorned pillowcase. It is cool where the space heater cannot reach, a comfort that pushes him back into a serene dreamless sleep. At exactly 9:30AM this same morning Big D and The Kids Table's obnoxious repetition of "MY GIRLFRIEND'S ON DRUGS!" bades him from his slumber. At the realization that he's slept dangerously close to the edge of the bed, and the undesirable consequences had he rolled farther from the wall, his size 12, sometimes 11 and a half, feet plat themselves on the floor. More specifically, on an unmatched sock and the inside of a plastic trashcan, empty. Sliding these obstructions from their path, and working in conjunction with his unworked arms, they lift the man into flight as blood rushes to his temples and behind his eyelids. Stumbling through the wreckage toward a door near the end of the hall, vision returns and he makes the sharp left into a small bathroom. A flick of his wrist to the left illuminates a mirror farther inside and reveals the location of a toothbrush that has taken residence on the tile floor.

2.

The local Starbucks, a short one and a half minute bike ride from home, is somewhat desolate. One, two, three, four baristas, he counts, and one, two, three regular customers, himself included, occupy the establishment. Cracking the binding of a paperback book for the last time, he reads for the third time in the recent past the introduction to Jay Mckerney's Bright Lights, Big City:

"You are not the type of guy who would be at a place like this at this time of the morning."

The sentence has always touched him in some small way, if only because it without fail, no matter where between the hours of 12:00 and 6:00AM, rings true. Two or so hours later, the novel concludes its short, concise story and a digital clock on the corner transitions from 11:56 to 11:57AM. To most successfully reflect on such a work, nicotine is necessary, and so book in one hand, American Spirit cigarette in the other, he strides to the door and slips outside.
"Judas! We've got to stop running into each other like this! How are you?"
The woman steps from her blue Honda Civic and onto the patio of enlightenment. He hadn't planned on such human interaction, and as such finds her appearance at such a crucial scholarly moment unpleasant but politely returns the greeting almost verbatim. She extends to him a napkin on which rests a a single chocolate lump and with an exclamation of the thing's importance ("HOMEMADE TRUFFLE!") disappears inside to find her son, hard at not-work behind the counter. The slightly irritated man picks up his bicycle and sets out on the one and a half mile ride home.

3.

At 3:30PM, his phone rehearses its performance in desperate attempt to shake him from a mess of denim and sheets. Unsuccessfully. At 3:45PM the routine is repeated more vigorously with the addition of a second alarm. A single wide hand argues barbarically for a moment with the keypad, locked before sleep, and upon victory raises the device into sight:

ALARM
3:45PM
------------------------------------
WORK!
------------------------------------
3:45PM
ALARM

He will be late, but is in no hurry to leave the comfort of warmth for his last day of work. And besides, he thinks, the shop won't be busy this time of year anyway. A short ride in his car with a broken driver's side window and a cigarette and a half later, the bundled mass of cotton and wool arrives at Sunset Cyclery, his place of work. He snuffs out the last of his cigarette on the ground and enters the newly decorated glass door.
"I need two innertubes."
"They come in different sizes?"
"What do you know about disk brakes?"
"How much is it worth?"
"Just a tune up."
"How's business this time of year?"
"It's beautiful outside. Too bad you're stuck in here."
With the excuse of refilling his coffee at Panera Bread, he winds down outside with a quick smoke. Narrowly avoiding detection by the shop owner, the work day continues.
"Yeah, I got it at the Trek Store."
"What's a dee-rahl-yor?"
"Too far gone?"
"Think you can get it done in ten? I have to be ready to race in twenty."
"Justin, another wrong ticket!"
"Do you carry GT?"
"Lets get the fuck out of here."
A luxury of thirty seconds is all Sam needs to be at the door with his things. The man punches in for the last time the insecure security code (0000) and waltzes to the door. After fighting the lock on the outside of the door, he turns to his car, waves same off, and realizes a lack of plans for the evening. An aimless drive sounds just fine, he thinks, since he filled the tank on his way in, so padding his pockets for cigarettes and a lighter, he pulls away from the curb and into the windy dark.

4.

At 9:06PM, the man on his last aimless drive to nowhere decides he's travelled far enough west, veers slightly to enter the Beaumont/Antire exit-ramp, makes a pointed left and returns to highway 44, headed east. At 10:34PM the maneuver is repeated at Town And Country, and again at Big Bend. After a longer than necessary detour through Kirkwood, Webster, and county-side Maplewood, he pulls into a driveway at 1041 Trelane Ave, puts the car in park and leaves the engine running so as to finish the last bit of his last cigarrette and the last bit of his last coffee, which inspired by the perfectness observed in big flakes falling across the neighbor's motion-detector lights, afront a soundtrack of Fleet Foxes' "White Winter Hymnal" turns into several more of each. The white and blue patterns continue on and on and on as he watches calmly until 11:58PM, at which time he shuts of the car, silencing the Hymnal that was on repeat, and emerges in the flurry of the outdoors, the lines of the song still continuing between his ears.

"I was following the,
I was following the..."

He steps, after a brief scuffle with the glazed drive, onto the traction of blanketed grass.

"I was following the
pack of swallowed
in their coats..."

His own pulled tightly across his chest and abdomen, he hums lightly to himself in time with his crunching footsteps.

"scarves of red tied
'round their throats..."

The fat flakes melt against the heat of his uncovered neck. The small ones, it seems, never make contact, like the points of an exponential formula portrayed on graph paper. Is it sad, he wonders momentarily, fumbling with his keys, that one must equate natural phenomena to a process determined in a classroom to see its...

"to keep their little heads
from falling in the snow..."

Before the thoughts conclusion, his keys, along with the rest of a body that at this moment and every one hereafter belongs only to the earth, fall from the palm, as do head from air and phone from pocket in a forward direction in line with their former destination.

"and I turn 'round
and there you go."

And it is here where his body is found, hours after the warmth of life ceases to melt the snow beneath, serene and cold, but not shivering, next to a cellular phone that performed its last dance at 12:01AM.

XVI: Christmastime During The Economic Crisis

Beneath the first of three concrete arches that separate the smoking from non-smoking sections of a hiply decorated establishment at Euclid and Maryland, beside a structural pillar adorned in "no loitering" signs, a game of chess is progressing between a young man in a fleece Santa hat and a comfortably dressed one that looks of mostly indecision, refereed by an unofficial in orange. I'm sitting in my usual, feet propped on a wooden platform ofthe uncomfortable seating of the place, ignoring for a moment the conversation droning around in favor of the observation of these characters. Pulling his queen from space 3B, replaced by a white pawn, and resting her at his elbow, the festive man's brows decend slightly toward his hollow temples in shame, then sweep high across his forehead, obscured by the faux fur of his festive headwear.

Santa is nervous

XV

I don't think it's better,
to converse about the weather,
to fill the space in time,
when no one else is speaking.

I don't mind the silence,
I've got thoughts and lots of patience,
to keep me occupied,
when my mouth isn't moving.

I think it's meaningless,
to fill my ears with empty substance,
in fear of awkward looks,
from those by which I'm surrounded.

I wish some could manage,
find beauty in just an image,
instead of adding all,
their subtitles and captions.

XIV

I.

At the coffee shop
down on Maryland
there's a gypsy dancing
with a severed head
and she smiles wide
at those who attend
like she doesn't mind
that her man is dead

As his blood drains out
and decends the wall
it collects and drips
in a bathroom stall
but she smiles still
as she slips and falls
a sound that echoes
in the empty hall

And I wonder now
if the artists intent
of the work's conception
and my sentiments
walk hand in hand
on gray cement
as a destined couple
or as failing friends

So our glances fall
and she smiles on
since my time is nigh
and my paper's done
but she's locked the door
to the blaring sun

and she grins at me
like she's having fun

II.

"Hand Crafted Bread"
reads a banner strung up in the window

Like that French loaf
was the product of elementary school hands

"Alright class, time for arts and crafts."

Or that sour-dough bagel
constructed by an extensive team of architects

Like that bread bowl
is a structure to be admired and dissected
before it's masticated and digested

XIII

GONE

XII: Bicycle Works Stl Mailer

“Nothing compares to the simple pleasure of a bike ride.” --John F. Kennedy

Imagine if our president today, our nation today, felt this way about bicycles. This simple pleasure JFK felt then is still felt by a select few, the green, the naturalists, the money-savers, the competitive, the thrill seeking, the commuter. But in a nation ruled by immediate gratification, using your own power to propel yourself to a destination is not common place. Cycling, in a sense, is the worlds most widespread underground sport, if simply for the fact that “I hope my pant leg doesn’t get caught in my chain,” is not something most people think about on their way to work.

“When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the human race.” --H. G. Wells

The world is in a strange and scary place at this moment. Oil is being used up by the millions of gallons, America is dependant more on oil and war than any other nation in the world--which may be slightly contradictory to our remaining a superpower--and the most popular car of 2007 was the 19 MPG Toyota Camry. Ralph Nader once said that “If, during the Second World War, the United States had retooled its factories for manufacturing bicycles instead of munitions, we’d be one of the healthiest, least oil-dependent, and most environmentally-sound constituents in the Nazi empire today.” While we are not a part of a Nazi Empire, and most believe that this is a good thing, the first part of Ralph’s quote rings true. If as many people rode bikes as arms were produced for WWII, America would hardly have any dependency at all on foreign oil. As a side note, it couldn’t hurt during the whole “obesity epidemic” either.

“Consider a man riding a bicycle. Whoever he is, we can say three things about him. We know he got on the bicycle and started to move. We know that at some point he will stop and get off. Most important of all, we know that if at any point between the beginning and the end of his journey he stops moving and does not get off the bicycle he will fall off it. That is a metaphor for the journey through life of any living thing, and I think of any society of living things.”--William Golding

We can keep the man moving on the bicycle (metaphorically, of course) and we can keep this world alive through the hard times ahead, with your help. Want to stick to your 11MPG SUV? Donate your old bike to Bicycle Works and give someone else a chance to make a difference. Want to ditch the gas guzzler and ride to work or for recreation? Come in and find something you like. But keep in mind, these things will be handy to have when gas prices hit $9.00 a gallon.

XI : Dual-Author Poetry.

"These days are passing easily
and I can feel the weight of things I once knew
falling across my chest
these days are falling lazily
and I can see the places that I once passed
the time on my wrist
catching my eye as i count
the time it takes for me
to breathe again
taking life in contest
fighting through the arguments, between my
eyes, and logic, and blindness
i find myself fumbling
searching for an outlet to arrest you
someway to pull closer to today
and out of tomorrow
anxious and worrying, at times can be
so taxing
the frequent frantics of passing memories
of you standing by the sea
with fish in your hair
sand in the air, a foreign place for
it to be, mingling with passing dreams
closing my eyes, the lids are mine
I project onto my present
resting in things I know, silent consistencies
dormant lies the time, when nothing's
moving, perhaps the ideal, the idea withheld
in its prime
these days are passing hastily
and with it come my thought
the extinction of you and me"

"Pull back the summer set
frequence and wonderment
deep arrest is not your best
and sunsets upset
this space between
unoccupied by anything, anyone
i can feel it more than our distant touch
theories and thought paths
bend through the recent past
familiarity apprehends
I try for something else
a hand that I can handle
I try for boots and leather belts
a wealth that I can wear
and I can hear the sounds
of people moving in their coats
moving across my mind, a scraping thought
or two
the snag of the irresistible
at least to some one the scratches
are irreversible
but are at least tangible
your eyes my everything
at least all of me that I can find
everything to me
nothing to see
perhaps somewhere in between
the space that echoes back
our distractions
the incompatibility of forever existing
the hospitality of never persisting
so passive, so aggressive, aren't we?"

-Justin and Lauren