Second to the Time

stargazing from the sewers / faustian hustle

"Success is not proof of virtue."

-Walter Kaufmann

"rats and roaches

have triumphed again."

-Charles Bukowski

"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars."

-Oscar Wilde

Three hours of sleep and sugar water for the past two out of three meals; a deep, unpleasant farmer's tan around his arms, neck and face. Roofer by trade, Casper's worst enemy was the sun: when he woke up in the dark, he dreaded the sunrise and all the brandishing heat and discomfort it would impress upon him as the day passed, and when the sun set, he dread the night, because he knew what followed. If reincarnation was real, he would pray to be reborn as an owl or a bat. In a world built on moderation, even too much of a good thing is a hazard. He fought with the sun the way Sisyphus pushed a boulder up the hill, and he fought everyday, because he believed he was working towards something substantive and real to him.

Casper was closer to the sun than he had ever been when he was six storeys in the air and hanging off the side of a developing commercial building—he kept an iron grip on his harness, just as the safety handbook instructed. The extra squeeze he was giving it was for good measure. In an attempt to calm himself down, he amused himself in thinking that perhaps Yao Ming always felt this way.

His supervisor, Fyodor, was standing on top of the makeshift roof of this building and waving at Casper to make his way to the top. Groaning and splitting his fingernails into his palms, Casper slowly yet steadily ascended in the direction he had been hoping to avoid all week.

Once his two feet were planted as firmly as they could be on the makeshift roof, Casper wiped his brow and made eye contact with Fyodor. "Framing?" he asked regrettably.

"Framing," Fyodor confirmed shortly. "Check your harness again before you do anything."

Following protocol to the T, and Casper slowly got to his knees and fumbled around what existed of the roof. Eventually, he found the nail gun, an eight-pound pneumatic tool that spat two-inch nails. Checking his harness one more time, he then shuffled on the roof to the most comfortable spot he could before getting to work.

"If you need anything, let one of us know!" said Fyodor. Struggling to blink without sweat dripping into his eye, Casper nodded.

Casper grabbed the nail gun with one hand and then began to punch nails in the wood he was holding with the other hand. Out of fear of putting a hole in his hand, nervousness got the best of him and his hand holding the gun had the shakes. Concentrate...no distractions...

Just as he was about to punch in another nail, a bird appeared out of thin air and cawed in his ear, startling him out of his concentration. He shifted the direction of the gun at the last second and shot a two-inch nail into the palm of his hand. Casper shrieked and dropped the gun, clutching his hand and writhing in pain.

"Get him down!" Fyodor yelled to fellow workers.

Fyodor began to ask questions to Casper, who was brimming on consciousness, but he could hardly speak. He began to grow dizzier by the second—the heat was drying him out, the height was driving him anxious, he needed to be on the ground as quickly as possible. Blood poured out of his skin like a punctured bag of filled milk and was everywhere like in a Gaspar Noë film.

To his relief, Casper touched ground within fifteen minutes and regained slight consciousness. He tried to cup the blood with his good hand and prevent further spillage, but it was like trying to stop the rush of a dam. The blood continued even after pulling the nail out of his hand. It seemed that all rags in the world were offered to him, yet the blood would seep through. He walked out of work that day, squeezing his sliced hand through six layers of cloth, heading in the direction of his apartment. Every few minutes, pedestrians would give him looks, but nobody offered their help.