The serenity beyond the window juxtaposed with the fear beneath the news anchors make up was too great a puzzle to let go. I put on my shoes. In the hall, the televisions  from the other apartments bellowed like a choir out of time. A sterile requiem behind which people in suits debated when it would be appropriate to show commercials again. The war over those initial commercial spots were destined to become a thing of advertising legend. A thing that might never be transcribed if all were as bad as it looked.

I stood and watched the traffic light on the corner cycle twice. It was silent save for the mechanical click as the colors changed. With no traffic to regulate, it seemed an odd thing to have hung there above the street. The sun felt good. It was a still brisk out, but the makings of a perfect spring day were congealing. The birds in the city were loud when the din of humanity was gone. Was it always that way or  were calling out to each other that something black was going down?

I headed toward downtown on foot.  There was an organization that painted “chalk” outlines on the street when a pedestrian or bicyclist was killed by a car. You noticed them periodically out of the corner of your eye. Now though, with no traffic on the streets, it was remarkable just how many there were.  Every couple of blocks the outlines were there. Featureless ghosts on the asphalt, dated with stencils. Another death in the city. I looked past  the telephone wires, deep into the branches of nearby trees for the departed perched above their memorials but found only a pair of green boxer shorts camouflaged among the leaves.

The claustrophobic tenements that introduced the outer perimeter of downtown came into view. They were cheap, sweatbox apartments inhabited by immigrants, artists, dreamers and drug addicts.  An empty police cruiser blocked the street that carved a trench between the buildings toward the commercial district. The cruiser’s lights flashed dull blue and white in the bright sun of the day.  

I jogged across the street, hurried out of habit rather than necessity, and peered into the cop car as I passed. My attention was drawn overhead by an ill groan before I could catalog anything unique to the day inside the car. I looked to the sky to see a middle aged woman in a bath robe topple from the seventh floor. The navy blue sleeves of the police officers clutched at the air in her wake. She was a drift of limbs without resistance to the breeze that tore past her. The suspended moment deceived me. By the time I’d ducked into a doorway there was nothing left to fear from above. The birds were drowned out  for a moment by an invasive, dry pop when her head met the filthy concrete.  

“Shit. shit!” The clenched words followed her down and diffused in the slow fan of blood around the body.

~ by the eulogist on July 3, 2009.

Posted in prose
Tags: armageddon, beauty, birds, pedestrian deaths