view from a bridge

Its a diffuse day with ten different directions pulling together and a still blue sky offering no clues. But a day of promise, I can feel it. The traffic worms closer and away, like the day, up and around green shadows of trees. there are cars and cycles everywhere standing alone with no one to ride them. the flowers have all been cut and stuck in plastic foil, they sit around bored, waiting for time to kill. Too many "Go Green" signs, the guilt of this age is quite exhausting and monochrome.

most people are invisible, inside cars, and stations and buses and helmets and seatbelts and phones and iPods and laptops and dreams and crossings and restaurants and friends and lovers and clothes and attitudes and newspapers and cultural stereotypes. some pop alive from time to time beautifully, little glimpses to permit the understanding that life is alive and kicking, even if it has become sporadic and conditional and fearful.

There are two young men dancing on the road, each on the opposite side, the world watches, heads turn, smiles, comments, hurried look-aways, giggles, every instinct of disconnect comes alive. There is very little enjoyment of the dance itself, other than inside the dancers themselves, stages are needed, tickets must be sold, with full page ads, announcement, announcement, there will be dancing here on this date and time, don't be alarmed, you may enjoy, even applaud.

There's a shiny red pickup truck in the parking lot next door, the lot's almost empty, yet the truck has circled it twice trying on first one parking space, then another before finally settling for a fifth. The door opens and an elderly lady in a red dress emerges. How odd. Her husband on the other side is dressed in white, and blue, he clashes with his car woefully. But he does have nice legs. The lady walks out of the parking lot for about a block before she turns to check if he's with her. He's not. He's still fussing with his pickup. She folds her arms and stares grimly at him. He doesn't even check where she went, they've been married a long time.

I understand her feelings perfectly, she figures she can't ditch him just because he makes love to a machine for fifteen minutes, but she can't watch either, it irritates her. She turns away and waits impatiently. The red dress makes more sense now. Give it up lady, the pickup wins this round.

My fever has become a nearly constant companion now, Like a cranky pet. It comes and goes as it pleases, asks for food at odd times, and hates baths. I must get it checked out for any fancy names it might have. Flu, viral, mono, or maybe madhuri's syndrome.