trying not to fall
12.15.2004
I expected to fall all winter long. Ice covered the sidewalks, despite the city's efforts to match each snowflake with a grain of salt. I was overcautious, walking flat-footed instead of heel-to-toe. I never put my hands in my pockets, just in case I needed to catch myself. Joggers would occasionally speed past, unknowingly mocking me. I had to imagine them slipping and breaking an arm to get back at them for making fun of my overcautiousness. Of course, then one day I couldn't help it. I was late. I slipped at the top of the hill. My feet flew gracefully out from under me, and I landed gently on my ass. The momentum kept me moving forward, down the hill. I was five feet down before I even really realized I had fallen. I slid past a couple helping each other walk down the hill, and an old man with his hand on the side of a building to keep his balance, and three other people walking carefully, trying to keep themselves from falling and ending up where I was, sliding down the icy hill on my ass.

cohen bros. moment
2003
We waited for the train in darkness, only the timbers of the stop were lit yellow by the lamps. There was tension in the air after we had gotten on the wrong train and ended up going north instead of south due to a change in the schedule after 2 a.m. We watched in silence for the lights down the track, and stood in anticipation when we finally saw them in the distance. The tracks rattled and the train roared up to us, slowing down. And then in the front car the window slid open as it approached us. The conductor leaned out before the train stopped and looked around. He smiled when he saw us. "Have you seen the moon?" he said as the front car slowly rolled past us. "Come look, look," he beckoned us with his hand, gazing ahead, rolling forward. We jogged after him, following his call, to the end of the stop, where he finally stopped rolling ahead. "Look," he pointed at the swollen half red moon recently risen, leaning out of his window. He grinned wildly at the sky and we stood with him for a moment before getting on the train and heading back south.

leaves
2002
The other day I noticed for the first time how the movement of the leaves blowing in the distance in front of the backdrop of the sky looks like static on a television, only it's green and light blue instead of black and white. I stared in a daze at the flickering colors and the living texture. And then I wondered why I thought the leaves looked like television static, when trees are much older than televisions. Then it scared me that I never had the thought when I saw television static that it looks just like the leaves rustling in the distance.

cows in the city
2001
Walking in the smooth yellow artificial light of the street at night, shuffling along in the dry chilly air, stars above, nobody else but me, no cars, just street lights and houses with dark windows, until that truck stopped beside me at the light - that lonely animal truck, immense, singing with the shuffling of cows feet inside and their hollow mooing as the vehicle glided to a stop at the red light, seemingly driven by the collective mind of the cows peeking through the grated metal.