(Note: lyrics from the song “Leave” by Heavens were used)
Awoke clinging to a park bench thinking, These are the days of our fucking lives and deaths. A dream thought running through my head a hundred times in one moment.
Blinked my eyes in the sunlight. Failed to recall what had led there. Must have missed the train, I decided but neverminded. Always trains. To everywhere.
Sat up in time to catch an officer eyeballing my vagrant ass with dutiful suspicious malice. Arrest not in the plan, I stood and checked my pockets. Ticket, phone, fancy lighter, cash. All in tact. As in jail. Moments like those make such things meaningless. Millions go their whole lives without the bother. Somehow they're hopeless in the eyes of society. Slow thoughts, slow burn: realized I hadn't any cigarettes but did not lament.
Coffee. Onward to a coffee shop. Vaguely knew the neighborhood from early days in that particular city. Couple blocks. Smote them in ambulatory triumph. Arrived. Ordered. Sat outside. A table all my own.
Neighboring table was a group of rowdy types. I began singing without prompt. Current favorite song. Voice vaulted my chair and I into the air and I began to revolve around the round table of rowdy neighbors. Folks who seemed not bothered by my gravitational defiance. Sang: The night is falling, I thank God. I hear the calling of the skeletons under the sod...
Second musical revolution. Could swear I heard another voice in the chorus: Don't leave just yet, quiet on the set. Let's give this one more go... Spotted her, she was pretty. I recognized her face and knew nothing more. We stopped singing. Fell to the ground one comrade away from her with a broad smile. "Hi."
"What are you up to?" she asked as friends of hers tuned us out and carried on their conversation.
"Leaving. I'm leaving. I must leave today. No play on lyrics, either. So perhaps we should sneak off and make love before I vacate. I may grow intrigued and stay, at least a day, maybe awhile."
"And so it always goes that the enlightened must always go. I think you deserve to know that none of this is real. You caught my right ear right before the scatter. Alas there will be no intercourse. Surely it awaits you where you're headed."
"As it always has and does. Before you go I encourage you to note our blue jean colored sky."
"Ah!" she exclaimed at the observation. And then began the scatter she'd mentioned. Every member of the table commenced to mount a stunt bike or a skateboard and charged joyfully every which direction, speeding into the early afternoon.
Sought to chase her for a name I could remember her by but was unable to keep up for even half a block. Retrieved my hot beverage, thieving the crimson ceramic cup, and tried to recall directions from there to the station.
Blocks later I thought it was a station or at least an information booth. Clearly it was neither after a moment's glance inside. Pressed forward into its bowels nonetheless.
Found myself shortly in the middle of a church service looking more like a large meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. The preacher, fervently: "Hell fire and blah blah blah! Praise the Lord and so forth!"
Door slammed behind me and didn't dually function as an exit. Exit was in opposite corner. Could not take direct route, was clouded with members. I had to go to the front by the alter, cross, and was almost free when a stand of coffee appeared, hugging the wall. A free refill, praise the Lord. Began to fill the stolen cup. Whole damn table collapsed. Time suddenly short, I shouted above the clamor: "What I call weakness you call design flaws! You are design flaws! May the sinful merriment never end!" Through the exit I thus ran, up a flight of non-sensical stairs, out a heavy metal door, into an alley.
My vision suddenly reduced itself to grayscale. Did not worry. Kicked the alley wall for a few seconds. Saw a near-full pack of Newports on the floor and bent to seize it. Lit two and let them dangle left and right from my mouth. Sauntered out after thrusting the dark gray cup high into the air and watching it burst to dusty shards like a nuclear plume. Or anyway it didn't merit much description.
Writing on the brick wall: pity concrete refuses to burn. Then initials. Blocky letters. Poor artistry. Beautiful words. Graffiti poet. Perhaps my own handiwork. Or anyway it failed to matter. Soon spit out the smokes and knew instantly where the train station hid. Not far.
Suddenly I awoke to reality, at the destination station. A railway employee bitched: "Last stop on the line, son! Get your ass moving!"
P. H. Madore's been published here and there. Really, he just wants an easy life. That's why he still writes, and he knows that's quite a joke.