i.
It only took 48 hours to get back to Time Square, a mecca for tourists and a hub for flash photography and people stopping in the middle of the sidewalk. I didn’t miss this locale very much, but the familiarity wasn’t the worst thing in the world. These people, from all over, seemed to still be drunk with the holiday spirit, still smiling, still walking around to the tune of their technological GPS, still hovering around the street performers, still looking at that one place where that one ball dropped just moments ago. If anyone had been dropped here from anywhere else, they might just have some luck getting somewhere by following the general crowd. Men and women and children speaking languages of romance or of harsher sounds that might not be familiar. Just a block here or there and within these ancient walls, verbal acrobats and those blessed with hands that create symphonic liquid let their instruments run wild, keeping the audience’s eyes glued and their heartstrings soaring. The claps and roars at the end were not only earned, but deserved.
ii.
Just earlier that day a woman had spoken what she was trained to say, nervous with every statement, and was relieved to learn that her customers spoke her native tongue. “You speak, Spanish?,” she glowed. “A little,” he replied. “It’s easier, isn’t it?”
iii.
I don’t think most people in this neighborhood are used to seeing people run around in winter with shorts and a t-shirt, but then again, this boy was white, and then again, this is gentrification, and then again, he did just get back from the gym, but if they only knew that this stay was temporary and lacked the maliciousness that the impending doom in the form of tech savvy robots with not-so-temporary plans and long-lasting effects and really, that that was the real thing to worry about. If they only knew that.
iv.
The train still breathes like a healthy prime. It opens and closes its doors with ease and acceptance, making the omniphobics twiddle their thumbs in panic, counting down the seconds until the real train arrives—the one that’s delayed and knee-deep in malfunctions and detours. Here on the train, only half of the possible conversations that could occur do. For if people’s compassion led them to listen to a homeless plea for communication, then maybe some of the bridges burned before could be built again. All it takes is for eyes to meet to hear New York slang that you thought might be extinct or a subway story that you might not have known. That’s all it takes really. It might not be about money, but instead a departure from a whole day spent listening to the two figures upon their shoulders, the only voices they’ve heard in quite some time. Maybe you’re the opportunity for them to land on their feet again.
v.
It’s not as cold as it should be, which might be the reason that after coming off a train in Long Island City, everyone on the next block was stuck with their heads craned back looking at ordinary clouds be ordinary and molecules invisibly affecting everybody and a projection even further, miles and miles away, of a future possibility involving their offspring and their offspring’s offspring involving water bottles with no water, chapped lips, a dry throat and a general weakening—*collapses to the ground*
vi.
The next block is much stranger because the origami craned necks have been replaced with many more people face-planted into the ground, noses pressed to the sidewalks, as if their mouths had resorted to sucking in cement, attempting to find an alternative for their softening hearts. Their collective hope must have sunk into the cracks because at eye’s length nobody’s backs are rising— a surefire sign of living, breathing, surviving individuals.
vii.
These mental graveyards are recurring visions of a lingering, deafening past whose outstretched arms had tried to bring the present and future back with them. These arms have subsided. They live in the walls that we walk past and the sinks that we spit in. They will always wait. May they remain dormant.