“Tell me something,” he began, tired as he slumped into soft cushions of the sofa, “tell me something. What happened to orange juice in the refrigerator?”
He had fallen asleep at the table again and woke up with a strange imprint on his cheek in the shape of his wristwatch. He blinked twice, extended his arms and pushed himself off the desk. Littered with sheets of paper covered in illegible scribbles, gum wrappers, coffee cups, eraser shavings, broken lead, paper clips and neon yellow sticky notes, loose change, rubber bands, a staple, a broken pencil sharpener that refused to be fixed, a cellular phone manual, scotch tape, used forks and crumpled napkins, like a clogged artery, Manhattan traffic in the morning, a few slivers of wood crept through the clutter. His computer monitor sat like the Acropolis, grand, dominating and gleaming above the wasteland of office supplies. Speakers guarded the electronic sanctuary like armor clad warriors. The digital clock showered greenish light across the tabletop, grabbing the clock like a head of lettuce, his mind registered two thirty.
“Two thirty,” he groaned, voice hoarse from sleep, his throat itched as if they were covered in cobwebs. Coughed twice in an attempt to find comfort, he tasted
He had no intention of moving. Just sitting there, hands tucked into the pockets of his overcoat, legs sprawled over the wooden bench, onto the sidewalk, head leaning back against the splintered, chipped paint, grey eyes reflecting a greyer sky. One hand laid upturned, a cigarette caught between the index and middle fingers, smoke lifting from the small, glowing button of burning tobacco. The wind toyed with his hair, each individual strand a thin, clear wire. He brought the cigarette slowly to his lips, cold and hungry, he inhaled. The thing was going to kill him one day, but right now, he could care less.
Protective parents corralled their children around him, strollers swerving to avoid the pollution, the disease that seeped from his cloth, his cigarette, the very pores of his skin. Slowly Manhattan traffic dawdled by, taxis blaring, buses wheezing, bicycles jingling, small children crying and the distant show of wings fluttering. Grey dripped from the sky like rain, like the juice from a crushed pomegranate, the malicious, sweet juice racing down the curves of his fingers, his wrist, his arm. Sticky. The quiet grey muted the city, jamming the cogwheels, the machinery, slowing, silencing, chilling, questioning and inviting.
A gust of wind brought him back to life, tediously he raised his head, neck bent at a strange angle and surveyed the almost empty park before him. Through the mesh of the chain link fence, the jungle gyms and slides painted in dull yellow and red, through the benches and chess tables, the swings and the water fountain, the elderly couple cutting across the park at a forty something degree angle, through his opaque eyes, each jarring crack of grey radiating from the black abyss of his pupils, he caught a glimpse of a viciously maroon scarf. The maroon scarf, flailing like a fish out of water, sharp, demanding, almost painful, announcing itself to the grey, grey world, around the neck of a woman. A noose?
He sat up, alert, the maroon tickled his senses, alluring and distant, he felt bovine. He dropped the cigarette, left it burning, dieing on the sidewalk, pushed himself gingerly off the bench, not sure what force is compelling him to move. The scarf, the scarf fluttering, taunting, he ran, ran across the grey park, hopping over the chess tables, the benches, and to the edge of the road. Panting, the friction of time slowed him to a stop, a burst of wind swept back his hair, the street light blinked red. Across the zebra stripes stood the woman, maroon scarf wrapped around her neck, hands tucked into the pockets of her beige coat, the hemline of her skirt ending shortly after, her boots stopped at her ankles leaving the rest of her legs bare. He suddenly had the urge to touch her skin, her pale, smooth skin, cold from the wind, naked and exposed like a ripe peach about to burst.
She stepped onto the street, the light still red. Her heels clicked like needles across the icy expanse of concrete, her eyes fixed on him and nothing else. He echoed her movements, walking towards her. She stopped inches from his face, so close he could smell faintly the ocean breeze drifting from the ends of her hair, percolating through her cloth.