WALKING HOME

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You're walking home. No subway. You knew tonight would be a long commute when you stepped into the evening air, enveloped in the heavy mist resting on the city, capturing the window glows and holding the light still.

The beggar, some beggar, bends at the waist under the scaffolding, and you watch him count his change again and again. His pants slide slowly to his thighs, and each time he stops counting to pull them up he has to start again.

The businessman, THE businessman, pushes past you screaming into his phone because BUSINESS must be done and he does BUSINESS. You want to palm the BlackBerry into his face because his noise pollutes the stillness of the night. Motherfucker. He doesn't belong here.

The brownstones, specifically, a brownstone, you'll never inhabit passes you by while you walk still and admire its warmth. You turn, gaze up up up into the cathedral of the city night sky and watch the steel and stone colossi, the best we can do, the best the best of us can do, fade helplessly into the mist.

Nights like these are not born for descent into the catacombs, stinking of rush and want. At its stillest, the city is alive with characters organic and otherwise. Its chest heaves, and the labored breathing reminds you why you're here, reminds you that you forget you are here. Here, and nowhere else.