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

X

Moments ago, you finished the final page of a novel with no conclusion. The familiar feeling of accomplishment that comes with the task of reading never surfaces, and you feel empty, confused, and inquisitive, but alone in this place you are free to endlessly contemplate the meaning of a work intentionally crafted without. It is well rehearsed to you the saying that art imitates life, but life has a beginning a middle and an end, you wonder, and this book, Junior, possesses none such qualities; at most, you think generously, it had a middle, but what's a middle without its companions? Perhaps you remember incorrectly, and life instead imitates its art. In this case, life appears to be doing a lousy job.

Outside dark windows, a man of undeniable age enjoys his machiatto. You are uncertain of what this particular beverage entails, but he appears content, swigging deeply from a ten-percent-post-consumer-fiber cup, between drags of a cigarette that looks tiny in comparison to his fingers. This kind of person , you hope, could provide you with closure, an end. This man has seen the beginning and the middle, and morbidly, you think, the end. You step out into the snow to join the man.

"Its fucking cold out dude," he says in reply to your arrival.

There will be no conclusions had tonight.

IX

"Kick back, against the wall
watch -- life falling fast
like a ball
rolling across -- planes
and i can -- a --
-- in from a part ---
you left open
for everyone to --
the -- moment
--the sun
and the days are getting longer
close your -- baby
-- them but --
see for once
I've told you once before
that love you
but I'll take it back
with no apology."

The place is apprehensive. In McKirney's words, you are not th kind of person that would be at a place like this at this time off the morning. The burgundy couch you've found refuge in spins and spins, opposite the carpet floor, a feeling that is familiar as of last night, yet no more unsettling.. You flip through the pages off your notebook, journal she called it, and come across a poem, scribbled between the lines just two nights prior; the reading of which is difficult as whole words appear written in languages entirely foreign. Now is not the opportune time for the analysis of such a work, but in your current state it seems as good as any. Fumbling through her words once more, you're snagged by the closer:

"I told you once before / that I love you / I'll take it back / with no apology."

Your company this afternoon is docile. The night's events hang heavy on your eyelids, one of which has been swollen shut for the morning, perhaps longer, you don't remember. Your chair is uncomfortable, your book entirely dull. She's here, and you're quiet.

Are you nervous?

VIII

You are a mathematician. At least, that is what logic tells you is the only viable reason for which you shouldn't do your algebra homework, and you don't have it. But the realization of your pent-up arithmetic genius does nothing to vitalize the morning. Cynically, you open your notebook, purple with MUSIC THEOR Y scribbled across its face, and scratch in dull pencil the equation asked of you and your classmates.

y = ^[(x * x) - 16]

It's a hyperbole. You know this because you are a mathematician. You know all things that are math; an omnipotent being in a world of numbers. A term of the same name comes to mind, from eight grade English class. A word that means "to inflate or exaggerate." You wonder why a true mathematician would use such a word, when clearly the only inflating going on is that of the graph's importance.

You awaken, rather abruptly, to "algebra aerobics."

Hell no.

As you slump, forehead to desk, the twenty-one students who are not you bounce in place, jumping jacks, lifting and letting fall their arms with flailing miscalculation, attempting to demonstrate and memorize the characteristics of positive and negative coefficients, alternately.

You leave. You're always leaving. Last night at jonathan's, the night before that at webster, a week ago at Starbucks, before that, the girl. Every time inside and outside your collective memory you are leaving some place. Not once have you been headed somewhere for some purpose other than to not be somewhere else.

Reflecting with disdain on this rather depressing fact, you push open a door to the outside, and wonder where to spend the hour before your next class.

VII

You have to go.  You don't know where.  Anywhere but here, you suppose.  Its wrong.  What is, exactly, you aren't sure, but its wrong.  You haven't been here in over two weeks.  At least, not since the last attack, and you can't stand it.  The purple hooded sweatshirt, Rocky Horror, the girl who now rests her head on another, the whispers, the guffaws, the hair cuts, the lofted beds, the television, sitting indian-style on the sweating tile floor, the heat, the presence, the grinding of teeth, its intense.  It shouldn't be, you think.  Is not normal to feel this way, you think. Thy are going to come looking for you, you think.  Regardless, it is time to leave.  Battling your own sense, your legs, in their torn jeans, lift you involuntarily, and your ankles and feet, in their scuffed black boots, bring you to the door.  You turn, mouth gaping, a portal, an absence of sound; your mind shuts down, unconsciously, you exit.  The room lengthens.  You spread your legs to accomodate the expanding linolium, and with a motion unfamiliarly fluid, you disappear. 

No longer existing in the uncomfortable silence of a television set, the hallway slides into focus.  The cream colored walls breathe hard in your presence, rising and falling, constricting and expanding with your own breath.  You feel your way along them to the common room.  The Lounge, they call it, and its a good thing, since that's exactly what you need.

Don't pass out.

Don't pass out.

Don't pass out.

You feel light, tired, it is hot.  Breathing is a task, and the air is thin.  For a moment, you consider outside, but the ground is cold with last night's ice, and you left your coat and shoes inside with your silent friends.  Are they friends?  You believe you consider them as such, but it appears that your body, which carried you out to this ugly, lonely couch, may feel differently.  Someone down the hall is listening to "Such Great Heights."

Why haven't they come looking?  

VI

The girl's friend is here. Well, more ex-boyfriend than friend, since you haven't been aware of any communication between them for some time. At present, you staring, without real purpose, at a pair of faces painted on the wall above and behind you; your head is tilted back to such a degree, you believe that any passerby would not be able to distinguish the features of your own. The figures on the wall, a plane now horizontal to your line of sight, are malformed. This is not the artistic kind of malformity, but the kind immediately noted as a downfall of its creator, much like the sight of a physically disabled person or animal. Boring of this stressful new vantage, you rest your head back upon its shoulders, and survey your current setting. The place is not unfamiliar. Its Starbucks without armchairs. Between this and the girl's ex-boyfriend's presence, you won't be returning. But you aren't leaving just yet.

"After all," you think, "I just paid two fucking dollars for this coffee."

V

You are dreaming. You know you are dreaming because you've never met these people before, and they appear to know you very well. Glancing around, quickly to regain your bearings, you seem to be in an office building of sorts. Cubicles are scattered in disorderly, random intervals throughout the room, the dingy, gray carpet reeks of the sterile scent of professionalism. There are no walls to seperate this room from any other. It appears that you could walk directly into the open air of this new world, but refrain from doing so. You are being watched by every soul in this strange room, a dozen of them at least. Are you supposed to say soemthing? As if to answer, the room turns away and conversates among itself. The people you don't know speak calmly to one another.

At this exact moment, a television screen above the desk you didn't realize you were even sitting at flickers and comes to life. The newscaster speaks in tongues you do not understand about a scuffle apparent in the background montage. You turn toward the non-existant windows, doubletake, back to the screen, then back outside, with amazement. The world you've become apart of mimics with incredible accuracy the images of war behind the newsman, but this doesn't seem to bother anyone but you.

You are thirsty. Ignoring the outside scenery for the moment, you make your way across the room in which the cubicles have disapeared, to a water cooler in the corner. On your journey, you are stopped by a woman of about thirty.

"Tell me something." She demands. You don't know what to tell the woman, and say nothing. "Is something the matter?"

At the utterance of her question, a spew of words find their way out of your mouth and onto the floor in front of you. The woman stares, as you reach down at your knees to sort out the mess, and find what you intended to say. Evidently something about the apparent certainty of your death in the war waging on outside. She stares apprehensibly through her glasses, and with an outstretched hand, invites you through the wall with her.

Stepping into the heat, you awaken on the couch, the tastelessness of water still on your lips. A look at the clock (it reads 9:18, but its broken. Why did you even look?) a resituation, a gathering of covers gone astray, a muttered "What the hell?" and you're back asleep, hopefully through the morning.

II

The ride home is a dreary one. It is raining, though not quite pouring, and for it being two o'clock in the morning, the road between your house and hers is suprisingly busy. Usually a ride like this is theraputic, but tonight it is cold. You long to be back in the girl's room, between her and the sheets. It's warm there. For a moment you consider turning back. “That would be creepy.” you say allowed, aware that no one in their cars can hear you speak. It would be just that easy though, you think. Turn around an pedal in the opposite direction. Reflecting on this fact a list begins in your head of similar instances:

Turning into oncoming traffic.
Hugging complete strangers.
Throwing yourself out a window.
Tearing pages out of a textbook.
Walking out in the middle of class.
Punching a friend in the neck (you chuckle aloud at the thought.)
Cutting in line. (any line)
Leaving and never coming home.

The final thought sicks in your mind, as it is not the first time the idea has crossed it. The only effort it would take is that to physically pack and leave. But as is the nature of each item on your list, the thought is quickly dismissed. You couldn't do that to your family, your friends, the girl. You suspect that they are the reason behind every occurrence such as this.

Upon arriving home, you pick up your bike, a simple, somehow glamorous machine of vibrant orange and cream, and drag it up the six steps to the back porch. A primitive structure, tacked to the back of the house by your father, a forty-something military man. Through the double doors (which connect the porch to the house) and up the stairs, you find yourself in your own room, debate whether to turn on the lights for a moment, decline, and continue to the sofa on the far side. A faint outline can be made out of the rooms furnishings, but even this seems unneccesary as it is so familiarly laid out. Much more so than the girl's room, you are again reminded of another place. This time a little more clear, but no more distinct. This deja vu is getting strange. Finally settled on the sofa, sleep takes hold and your familiar surroundings sink with you. You hardly ever sleep in your bed anymore.

I

This is not your bed. In fact, you are not in a room that you frequent. A wonderment of why this should be the case crosses your mind and quickly finds its out, sinking deep into the thick comforters and a mattress atop two others, crooked against the wall to your left, her right. It's peculiar, this kind of comfort, you think. The kind that is both claustrophobic and forgiving, which conjures memories of another place, vaguely similar to this one, though you don't remember actually ever being there at all. The word "homely" comes to mind, and is cast aside, as you know it isn't the correct one to describe the place.

Not entirely foreign to the present scenery, you adjust your body in such a way as to maximize your view of the books on their shelf, english standards you decide, the albums in their sleeves, and the flowers in their vases, as your company (to whom this domain belongs) dances around mounds of fabric on the floor. Your aren't paying attention to what the thin girl has to say, but you don't feel guilty, since she is clever enough to know this and perhaps chooses to continue regardless. For minutes, she goes on in this fashion, seldom standing in one place, seldom even glancing in your direction.

Then there is a presence behind you, in the bed that is not your bed, in the room that is not your room. Turning to face it, you wonder when she stopped talking. Since you haven't said more than "mhm" for over an hour, the flowers had caught your attention longer than they normally would have, but the girl appears content, and apologetically informs you that it's come time to leave. At the door, "I'll call you tomorrow" surfaces behind your tongue, but gives way to a simple "Later, man." Best to play it safe, you think, and on the way home reflect on your use of the article "man." You've never said that before in your life.