Another one

Talus woke to the sound of sirens. Looking out his window he realized that the commotion was caused by another jumper. Someone, yet again, thinks he/she can fly. Sometimes Talus wondered if Castle apartments mysteriously drew people to it. Come, my sick, my weary, my suffering and climb my stairs, step onto the platform of transformation and life! Twice, Talus actually witnessed the attempted flight. The first was when he was eight. He had just rounded the corner with his grandmother. They came from the subway after Talus's violin lesson. His mother didn't see them as she stood looking-up into the sky. She stepped forward as if she was stepping onto a train that Talus had seen her do a thousand times. And then she was gone. His grandmother, torn between running to see about her daughter and keeping Talus from seeing her, stood for a moment frozen. Talus took her hand and pulled her forward. She looked at him, told him to stand next to the fruit stalls at the corner grocery and not move. He watched her hurry toward the crowd. Talus sat on a crate and took out his violin. It was his mother's when she played. He started playing, not paying attention to the song or the people who looked curiously toward him. They were drawn by the music and the crowd. Talus notes hung heavy above him. The grocer came out, saw the scene, asked a bystander about the crowd, and then looked at Talus. He stood listening for a moment. Then sat on a crate next to Talus.

The graveyard of hope

The graveyard shift and the grave yard occupied most of Talus's time. The ordinary world of toilet cleaning provided a certain numbness that music once did for him. Playing the violin wasn't about engaging, it was about playing himself into the void to not feel his fingers, or hear his thoughts. Janitorial work didn't provide Talus with much to think about. He didn't worry about the next customer, the next phone call. He only listened to the splat of the mop,and its movement from one side to another. The soft glide of the record sleeves against each other when he replaced one record after another. The tedious sounds gave him meaning. Talus had time to kill before work and he wandered into the graveyard once again. He stood in the middle of the small place with maybe fifty gravestones. All old and lost in the middle of the city. They stood, leaned or even reclined as if waiting for someone or something to arrive. Each quiet and distant. Some of the names Talus knew from his youth. He leaned on the edge of Andrew Matthus's gravestone. Looked at his mother and grandmother's gravestones. He saw a piece of his coat still attached to the small cross. His mind wandered back. After the fall and the subsequent fall into the graveyard on Christmas eve, and the two men beating him-up only to discover that he was trying to give the salvation army money to give himself salvation from the bell, the men left him laying in the snow and pain. The snow helped to numb his cuts and bruises. Blood spotted the snow as he lay looking at the slightly tilted headstone of his mother. Turning his head, Talus looked at his grandmother's grave. He painful stumbled and pulled himself up by using another gravestone brushed off an opposing tombstone, and sat down. Various pains surfaced and Talus could do nothing more than sit staring at their graves. A piece of Talus's coat that was caught by the tiny cross, stirred in a slight breeze that made Talus blink. He looked around at the snow, the clouds moving across the sky in a mass of grays, and he felt something leave him. Something drifted so slightly away from him like a brush from a stranger as they pasted to get off the subway that he looked to see if anyone was in the graveyard with him. Because of his thin Italian leather shoes, Talus noticed he was cold. A cold so deep and numbing that he quickly rose and hurried back to his apartment. He stood in the hot shower unable to find warmth or comfort. As he crawled under the covers, the sun was finally walking away, leaving the remains of the day, an ambient light circled the bed. Talus felt another brush as the darkness came.

Mugshot

Talus hadn't been to work in two weeks. Had given-up on that job, called-in for five days claiming sickness, only to be told on the fifth day that his job was longer available. After hearing the news, he wandered around the neighborhood on a regular basis. His grandmother had left a small fund for him, but he found he needed a job, however small. He had stopped playing the violin as well. For the most part, his life was silent. Quiet, all around him was a loud silence. He found himself on one of his walks standing in front of the radio station. It was early, 6AM or so, and he walked into the station, perhaps for a job. Perhaps to quiet the silence. The manager said he could clean some floors, the bathrooms and maybe re-stack records. Perfect.

His day started at sunset and ended at sunrise. He wasn't too fond of the music played on the graveyard shift, but music was music. He walked for a good hour before going into work. Walking is good for the soul, yet on this day -- probably like many other days, Talus saw an altercation in the parking lot next to the strip club. He wished that the club had burned down instead of the Forever 21 shop. Both were obnoxious, but at least the shop only sold clothes, not real human beings. No one bothered to slow down to see what was happening. A knife, maybe a bottle? Didn't matter. Familiarity breeds apathy. Talus walked past and to his work. Toilets didn't wash themselves.

It's not a wonderful life...

The room was lifeless except for the eerie flashing lights from below. Christmas. Snow. Talus thought of the beach. His grandmother always wanted to go to the beach. Kept insisting to Talus that the sun, sand, and water would be just the elixir he needed. He said he loved the city. The grime and dullness kept him focused on his music. The beach would only distract him. Talus watch the motionless world outside his window. Then it started. The incessant clanging of the bell. Looking out the window only made it worse. The blind man was raising money for the Salvation Army. Talus needed salvation from the bell. He dressed and walked slowly down the stairs, out into the street and stood in front of the blind man.
"Please, if I give you $100 dollars will you go away and stop with the bell ringing?"
"Darkness is cheap" replied the blind man. "And Scrooge liked it."
"No really. I will go insane if you continue with this incessant bell ringing."
"Humbug!"
"Okay, if that's what you want." Talus reached for the bell, the blind man jerked his hand away and yelled for the police. Talus knocked over the kettle running away. As he ran he heard people shouting behind him.
"Hey you ass-hole!"
"Really? Trying to rob the Salvation Army?"
Talus ran into the cemetery. "Appropriate," he thought.
He turned to see if anyone actually was pursuing him and to his surprize, two guys were following him. As he turned he hit the corner of a grave, lost his balance, and nearly impaled himself on a small rusted cross protruding from a small headstone. The cross instead nicked his coat and only scratched his ribs. He looked at the grave stone.
Anna Fugue May she rest in peace.
"Peace, peace, peace. Mother I need peace."

The streets have no name

Talus was propped-up on the side of the Motel 2. He was actually laying next to the motel and his head happened to be against the side of the building. He had not intentionally done so, he was too drunk to do anything intentionally. His head wobbled as he tried to turn it toward the noise. A party was in the streets. He squinted to see, but the effort only made him more confused. With his eyes closed, he searched for the bottle next to him and drank the last of whatever was in the bottle. He tossed it rather weakly aside. The rain confused him. He felt the wind and heard the laughter from the crowd and nothing made sense. Particularly why he was laying next to the motel on wet pavement, with no coat. He shoved himself up to his elbows only to discover that he was missing his left shoe. Did he not put on another one after he threw the first one into the street? Confusion returned with a gust of wind and the rain annoying his face.

"Up, Talus, up." He murmured. "Up." As he got to his feet feeling as if the ship just left the dock, he saw Schaffer the writer, hurrying down the sidewalk toward the Waffle House. Schaffer had told Talus about his novel once while they were riding in the elevator. Trying not to look drunk, Talus took a step forward hoping to get Schaffer's attention, but he stepped on a piece of glass with his shoeless foot and cursed. He lost his balance and fell over, landing on his shoulder in a puddle. The rain kept up its pace. Talus couldn't remember whether or not he had put on another shoe after he had thrown the first one in the street. He again pulled himself up by using the rough edges on the bricks of the building. A gust of wind pushed Talus against the building, wafts of smoke, and a group of homeless men stumbled by gesticulating and talking about the lights, the "spaceship," and eying each other as if they were looking at each other for the first time. Talus thought the apocalypse had arrived. His head started throbbing. If he didn't find shelter he knew he would die. Hungover, shoeless, blown about by the tempest like a discarded newspaper he made his first move. Then he saw a tent tumbling toward him. As he tried to move the tent followed his movements. As he ran toward the apartments, the tent followed wobbling and lulling like a pirate ship chasing its bounty. From a distance, both man and tent looked as though they were caught in a turbulent sea heading into the unknown.

There are no waffles in the world today for me.

Talus's life was a mess. As usual, he was late to catch the train. As usual, there were things which seem to impede his every move. First, he saw the line outside the waffle shop snake around the corner. He hated lines, and people in general. Secondly, he hated not knowing why things are so strange around this block, and thirdly, he was thwarted in his attempt at a detour. A bus, a raving woman decking the bus driver and the ensuing crowd, again, made Talus uneasy. He just stopped twenty feet from the stalled bus and the raving woman. The bus driver trying to pick himself up off the pavement and the lunatic standing over him as if she was standing in the middle of a boxing ring, daring him to stand after the TKO.
"Enough" thought Talus. "Enough." He turned to look for Teddy. Nowhere to be seen. Waffles probably beckoned him to some higher cause.

Talus looked around and saw others more interested in the rumble in the jungle than they were in breaking-up the fight. Each face hoping for the battle to continue.

He looked down at his shoe. Again, yet again, poop stuck to the toe of his shoe.

He turned and walked slowly back to his apartment. Before he entered the building, he stopped, removed his shoe and threw it into the street. As he turned, a bus drove past, flattening his shoe and turned it on it's side. Talus never looked back.

The Blind can hear

His name is Teddy. Talus walked by him almost everyday and turned his head to look at the blind man. On many days, Talus stopped to listen to the odd mix of music that Teddy played from his CD player. Although the music seemed not to emanate from a disc spinning madly in the player; rather, the music seemed come from the box itself. Teddy often sat in that spot to hoping that the sun would clean his clothes and comfort his aches. Talus merely stood and watched the player. Others would walk by, a few dropping random coins into the box. Talus wondered if those passers-by thought Talus and Teddy were a pair. One looking nowhere and one looking at nothing. Once when Talus linger a bit too long, Teddy sputtered a passage that sounded familiar to Talus. When he didn't move on, Teddy stated, "If you are just going to stand there, ask me a question." Startled, Talus jumped a little and asked, "What is your name?" "Teddy." "Is it short for anything?" "Yes." "What." "Don't remember." "Do you have enough money to buy batteries?" "Nope." Talus stopped talking when a Bach for cello piece came out of the speakers. Talus couldn't quite figure out how he knew that there was no CD playing, but he knew. No hum of a spinning disk, no way the local radio station played this music-- at least not this time of day. Teddy stirred and Talus could feel that Teddy was growing agitated with Talus's lingering. As he turned to leave, Teddy muttered, ""I have already. The truth with all its power lies inside me," as if Talus and Teddy were in the midst of a conversation. Strangely,Talus felt as if he were. With Teddy and the CD player. As he sat in his room Talus couldn't stop thinking about the CD player. He sat absently rubbing his fingers up and down the bow of his violin. Talus watched the boxes of fading sun angle across the velvetine couch. Dust floating like notes around the light. After some time, Talus rested the violin on his shoulder, tilted his head to rest his chin and closed his eyes. In the sound and darkness he heard the CD player playing his notes.