Self-interest continued...


The emcee shows the next placard: IRAQ INVASION. The populace erupts. The screen dissects into scores of tiny squares. There is a cacophony of yelling and screaming, of fists pumping and fingers pointing. The sleeping man wakes, spews epitaphs, shows his yellowed teeth. His face is red, and I wonder if he's breathing. The scribbler wads paper into balls and hurls them. They explode like tiny firecrackers upon impact. A banshee man plunges into a crowd, begins pummeling himself; as witnesses try to stop him, he opens his mouth and eats them. A man lassos several bystanders, uses a pulley to raise them above the crowd, then executes them. Another man (and I ponder why the aggressors are always men) in a tri-colored hat and matching shirt, with feet the size of locomotive engines, steps on groups who disagree with him. People rail until they collapse, spittle gluing their lips to the floor. The stomping feet and landed punches and hurled chair parts and bellicose yells are the bombasts of fired artillery.

The uni-couple pinches my neck. They are sweating, and her mascara looks like charcoal tears. "Who is right?"

I shrug my shoulders.

"Selfish prick," they sneer.

The emcee repeatedly beats the gong, yet few people heed. He raises another placard - HEALTH CARE REFORM - but is again ignored.

I haven't moved. Around me are the groins and butts of fanatics spewing out their vitriol like an electric force field. They refuse to hear words from others. I am bumped, nudged, pushed by neighbors who believe I am their compatriot or who wish me to be merely for their support. I have my own interests and wait for the appropriate placard, but I doubt the emcee will raise it.

Numb, nearly apathetic, I rise into the midst of the rabble and like an insect squirm to the nearest set of stairs. The man with locomotive feet steps on a cadre two aisles from me. Those who had been screaming at the cadre now curse the man. Two people train an effigy of the man, one at each end, pounding in unison. Not noticed, I finally find a tunnel that might lead to an exit.

I pass a mirror, glimpse myself: a hobbled gait from wracked knees and hips, emaciated frame, slumped shoulders, tear streaks over a skeletal face. I pray this vision is a parody. I wonder if Kafka pictured something akin to my image when he imagined Gregor's metamorphosis. I trace my ribcage but don't feel the rippled humps; I gauge my steps by the lines in the concrete and seem to maintain even, parallel strides.

I am hungry, but nothing, in my imagination, tastes good. I should eat…if only for sustenance.

When I step outside, it is night. The moon is full; wind picks up my hair and settles it into a bird's nest. I am assailed by a rushing phalanx of desperate ticket holders. They shove me aside and clamber over fallen and sleeping people, fighting to squeeze in the shutting door. No one bothers me. The building walls hum from the vibration of its inhabitants.

I walk in the direction of the moon. Maybe there's people that way who I know, who will remember me. I am still crying, though I don't know why. Behind my footsteps are diaphanous clouds, colored in muted grays and streaked with black rivulets. I pick one up. It is heavy and smells like fog. I pick up another. It coils around my wrists, feels like sludge laced with thorns. I pick up another. It tastes like the plastic of a frozen tv dinner. I continue walking, peeking behind me now and then to check on the crumb trail I leave behind.

A dog, scared and forlorn, his eyes radiant with hope for compassion yet expecting cruelty, sits on the sidewalk. His head is hung, bowed by the weight of his sadness. I plop next to him and pat my thigh. He crumples, a kite with no air beneath it, and uses my leg as a pillow. We both sigh when I touch his chest.

I whisper, "I wish someone would ask what is wrong, not with the world, but with me."

END