Meetup

   It wasn't the crudity of the drawing style or the artist's playfulness with spatial design contained within the strip that struck him at first. It was the off-kilter reference to lyrics from an antiquated pop song dating back to the mid-twentieth century; the prattling chorus, long-rumored to be a thinly shrouded conjuration of the dark prince himself, melding themselves to a deliriously infectious rhythm that erupted from within him in swells of aural memory.
The jangle of highly tuned bass plucks bouncily carted him across the light-hearted cartoon as the borderless and framed panels seemingly skipped up and down to the implied sound of the verse. The setting of the comic, a lonesome hump floating against a clear sky with one or two compulsory tree boles extending to the strips ceiling; a young girl accompanied by a strange creature sitting behind a countertop, upon which sat an old vinyl record containing in small print the name of the rock and roll group the aforementioned lyric was attributed to. The gag meant to symbolize ambiguity and transitoriness, much like the context of the funny strip itself, and it had little impact on him in general. But it was the song lyric, and the allusions behind it, that always stirred up bitter recollections of the past.
   His right index finger scanned across each panel's minimalist tableau of scratchy lines through the lustrous plastic display window, the pixelated image casting animated bursts of verdigris and cerulean amid a familiar series of words and sketches which before had been pallid and neutral in his mind's eye. He paused, and with rapid automatic gestures summoned the present date on the tiny screen. In an unsurprising coincidence, he gathered from the strip's collection of background data that only a few days remained until the anniversary of its original date of publication; a complete thirteen years had passed since it first appeared in print format. Back then, it was a black and white facsimile running in the back of a small town circulation, wedged in between a couple of other syndicated morning favorites. The musical reference had jarred him just enough to bear a deeper preternatural signification- so he cut the strip from the newsprint and kept it, referring back to it every now and then to meditate on its association with his own circumstance, perceiving it as a totem symbolizing his regret, a mark of penance to remind him of his mistakes.
   In those days he'd never even heard the song the lyric was based on to his recollection, and yet the unyielding finality of the words had always forced a dull ache down through his insides, as though a fat person were sitting with their full weight on his chest, the air slowly being crushed from his lungs, a cold enveloping shadow blotting out the sky overhead like a cellar door crashing shut in his face, severing the future from ahead of him and then, at last, emptiness. He had held on to the cut-out comic for years until eventually, like all his hopes, it faded off into the past, a discarded memory that may as well never existed at all. It might not have, save for the fact that at the moment he was looking at it through the high resolution screen of a smart device, seeing it for the first time in full color. By now he had heard the song numerous times and even grew to like it, where before he'd always carried a begrudging disdain for the band behind it. Still, it had retained many unfavorable connotations for him through other discrete encounters: envy, frustration, resentment, helplessness. But those situations were trivial and he could control such emotions with the maturity that came alongside time and growth. He could not however, reshape the past, and the root of the song's misfortune had remained with him indefinitely.
   He closed the page containing the strip and then raised the clock on the devices screen: 11:28 a.m. Placing the gadget on the table he turned and began navigating a circuit around the studio loft. 32 minutes. The row of elongated windows lining the outer wall invited the unfocused light into the environment, issuing soft, vague shadows that permeated the blank spaces crossing his path. Looking down, not sullenly so much as introspectively, he let himself drift on the current of light waves casting down gently from the windows, particles of dust swimming around him as he floated through the shadows on a spiraling carousel path around the room; everywhere he turned his own shadow seemed to evade him. He relinquished the fragile hold on his weakening center of gravity and was carried aloft on galloping eddies that, if he so desired, would graciously swallow him under permanently. Instead he stopped, and remembering his appointment he took one last mental picture of his surroundings, said goodbye, and exited through the door.
   The outer hallway was deserted. The couple or so overhead lamps affixed to the ceiling blinked nervously at his emergence from the corridor's final occupancy, it's door situated in the nook to the left, where the passageway zagged at a right angle toward the complex's north end. Burrowing through his pocket, he produced a meager set of keys to which the loft's access was fixed, twisting the dead bolt lock secure above the ripely formed knob as he'd practiced in countless moments of the silent past, realizing that now would be the closing act of safe-guarding his residence and he was departing, never to be seen again. At this, he turned and considered abandoning the key collection inside the lock, but thought better against it- the proper thing would be to deposit the set at the front office where management would assuredly find it, rather than leave it to be pilfered by thieves. The possibility that they would use it to gain entry inside the apartment and loot everything didn't matter to him- there was nothing inside the dwelling worth caring about anymore- but honoring the contract he agreed to and returning the building's property safely was important, even now. Removing the keys from the lock and placing them back in his pocket, he proceeded down the hall. The air was frozen and lifeless, hushed as the moon's surface as he approached the entrance to the stairway. A narrow glass panel in the upper wall of the hallway admitted a glow from the approaching midday sun looming unseen somewhere beyond. It crowded and then finally consumed the lazily diffuse shine of the passage's roof fixtures that stayed on at all hours, day and night, prompting him to contemplate the building's electricity fees each month. Now it was a closed matter- no longer was it for him to chew over. The details of his time living on the apartment's grounds already seemed to be dissipating from the front burners of his consciousness, to transfer over to someone else's inner musings.
   A brief descent down a single flight of steps brought him to a landing of the ground floor's hallway entrance. Flanked on each side were smaller studios, all closed off and emitting no sound from the opposite side of the blank doorways. The double doors guarding the entrance to the hall were thrown aside to welcome the weak light from the ground's outer courtyard, a scrupulously maintained communal zone that fenced in the complex's hind-side and blockaded it's two opposing structural wings. No one could be seen in around the deserted yard as he passed into the rear door of the building's bottom level, which contained the main office and lobby.
   Looking through a smudged window plastered in notices and ephemera past a jumbled reception desk into the office behind and seeing no one, he tapped the service bell once and let the jingle resonate throughout the lobby before it trailed off into nothingness. No result. He tumbled the collection of house and amenity keys over inside his pocket; the plan was to hand them over to whichever staff was on duty in person, a precaution he was inclined to exercise as a guarantee that management received any item of significance without question, like monthly rent and so forth. Even as he tarried in expectation for the arrival of a familiar face, privately he suspected that no one was coming.      Ultimately, he deposited the property's keys through the open slot emplaced in the main office's door that fed into a drop box left for just that particular sort of purpose, then he took his leave, not bothering with a final glance at the vestibule of what'd been his home for such a lengthy span of time. Through the main doors he was met with a piercing gust that parted his open jacket and quite nearly sent him veering in the opposite direction he was headed. Rather, he poised himself against the blustery outbreak and tromped across the barren parking lot in the direction of Third Street which would take him to the heart of downtown, though that wasn't his destination. The park resided in the old historic district southeast of central downtown, along Fifth Street. He would simply cut across Sinclair Avenue and follow it until reaching Fifth and enter the park through there.
   Passing down the sidewalk of Third Street west toward Sinclair, he craned his head behind him in the direction of the studio apartments and realized that they were already swathed in a light film of gauze that was bleaching out the entire structure from view, though he had gone only a dozen or so meters away from the lot. Before he was aware of it, the soup had crept up past him and devoured most of the environs, so that he could only make out the calm intersection waiting ahead of him, and not much else beyond it. The pewter-cast skies above floated spectrally without a hint of disturbance among the limped cloud coverage; a shimmer of gray flame exuded from the satiny, wormhole-like sun as it hung in it's coin-tossed orbit, barely piercing the fortified shell of murk encroaching upon the city. In the soft half-light he could see the verdant embers of the traffic signals suspended like otherworldly torches accepting traffic that cruised through the intersection at laggardly clips, as if being somewhere were the last thing on the drivers' agenda. The lunch hour was in full-swing, yet there was little activity on the roads. Personally, he hadn't thought about eating anything all morning- now it was too late, and getting to the park was foremost in his mind; but, if he were swift enough, perhaps he could grab a quick sandwich in the old district before the meetup.
   Standing at the corner of the junction, he hesitated at the opportunity to cross while the sign was red- albeit there was no approaching vehicles in sight; he recalled memories from a past incident in downtown during his college years that rushed to him like an erratic motorist careening through the intersection: the cross signal had been red, and he'd only just been dropped off by the bus carrying him from school after a long hold-up, desperately trying to catch the transfer that would take him home as it was about to pull out from the stop ahead. Neglecting caution, he scrambled across the street, mindful enough to proceed safely ahead of an oncoming vehicle approaching the light, and would've made it aboard the bus with seconds to spare had he not failed to detect the two uniformed beat cops seemingly waiting in ambush at the stop. It was as though they'd materialized from the ether with the single objective of catching him in the act and spoiling his providential transfer. The one lady officer ignored his suppliant account, all too eager in citing him a violation for jaywalking, still the only ticket infraction he'd ever incurred. The other male officer was so undistinguished as to be a complete nonentity in his recollections- he couldn't remember the guy saying a single word during the encounter and it was amusing now how unmemorable he was.
   The entire affair was a joke to him now. Sure, he'd felt singled out at the time for a bogus crossing infringement, probably to maintain some lousy municipal quota not privy to him, and certainly admitted to nursing a grudge towards the ticketing officer in the past, but what excuse did he really have? All he could do was laugh at himself for being thoughtless. Those were days that did not rate high on the most exemplary periods in his history, and in all honesty a jaywalking charge was a minor penalty when balanced with some of the other stuff he'd gotten away with before. The cross signal emitted a shining uncolored pedestrian glyph from the other side of the street, inviting him through the empty juncture; he intersected Sinclair with the green stoplight ahead of him, beaming down with a weird extremity that reminded him of nighttime. Upon reaching the next corner he waited again to cross Third Street, the red/yellow/green beacons shifting above in a supernatural zodiac. A white passenger vehicle crawled to the light and stood by to continue east on Sinclair in his direction. To his right, emerging from beneath a dark railway overpass with its high beams blazing severely, a mini SUV, also white, pulled to the east Third Street light slightly ahead of the limit line, idled for a moment, then slowly retreated backwards a few feet until its front bumper met the line evenly.
   The instant froze while he contemplated the time; bringing the mobile along would've cleared up the uncertainty and shown him how much longer he had until noon, but it just didn't feel appropriate to have it with him, deciding to trust his judgment and the reliable internal clock he'd honed and calculated down to the minute over his life. That wait back in the apartment lobby wasn't so long, and he surmised that it couldn't be after 11:40 yet. Just the same, he felt like picking up the pace a little. The sudden change in the traffic signals almost went by unnoticed, but he snapped back into the present and marched out into the crosswalk, the white passenger car next to him sprang to life with an excitable rev of its motor and coasted nonchalantly down Sinclair. The mini SUV inched forward hungrily as he passed, stopped by the limit line like a curious shark checked by the high density glass of an indoor aquarium.
   Sinclair stretched into four lanes- two of each going in opposite directions; he quickened his steps on the sidewalk moving east along the flow of traffic, except that there were hardly any cars on the road then, and the effect of the fog was making visibility difficult. He could hardly make out the surroundings on the opposing lane of Sinclair, not that it mattered: His memory of the area reminded him that nothing existed on that side but vacant lots and nondescript buildings. Though he couldn't see it very well, further down the road he knew the small cropping of the city's tiny but esteemed art institutions were floating amid the thick brume across the street, calling to mind again the emblematic cartoon strip of his dead, forgotten past. The colors of that last rendition seen on his phone flashed in his memory against the sickly atmosphere of the downtown haze he was walking through; the image of the comic's first manifestation in black and white newsprint; the fragile, pulpy rectangle cut-out juxtaposed with the bright, machine-rendered shell of pixels that his memory was now wholly fettered to; the real and the digital's precedence in his mind- which version held more significance to him now and what had the process of time contributed in changing the outlook toward it? Would either incarnation remain after he and all traces of it in memory faded out of history?
   It was the feelings conjured through his recollections that gave the incidental cartoon its sway. Now that he'd removed the tokens binding him to those emotions, he could see the strip for what it was: a faux relic, just like the old vinyl LP depicted humorously in the comic as a lost artifact of sage wisdom, but in actuality revealing nothing more or less special about life, himself, his actions or choices than any other fragment of pop nonsense that could've drifted his way in its place. The emptiness and regret were bonds of his own manufacturing, a wretched condition of self-inflicted torment for bygone decisions he couldn't hope to amend, and as for the matter of the totem's survival beyond the duration of memory, in any format... what possible difference could it make to him now? After abjuring it's influence on his perspective, the problem had now become moot.
   Both media were extensions of themselves, two opposing sides of the same coin; one preceded from the other, each feeding on the essence of what made them possible, eventually returning to it's previous form: Either building up into something, or breaking down into nothing. And a memory of nothing is nothing remembered. Like the shadows hidden within the diaphanous curtain around him- experience told him that something rested on the other side of the field, a building or structure made out of the certainty of something remembered, but whatever was there could've easily been something else completely; the difference, the truth, existed somewhere within him. The mystery waited for him to approach it, needed him to search it out, to give it form, purpose and meaning. At certain times it would give something back, but mostly it was just there to take away. Today, he had someplace to be, and whatever was out there no longer mattered, could safely be forgotten.
   A large building began to loom on his right as he approached Fourth Street. Thankfully, the stoplight turned green and the cross signal admitted him without any delay. He was hardly thinking about the time now and was relatively confident that he would make it before noon. His pace remained steady, and the large building manifested itself to reveal the city's main post office branch, which meant he was closing in on Fifth Street, where he would make a right heading west into the historic district. Turning at the light, he studied the drab exterior of the postal facility that processed hundreds of thousands of correspondence material a day, sending them off in four directions, some to be funneled through lesser branches before they were dispatched to their ultimate destinations. It'd been some time since he'd sent a letter of his own through the post; when he thought about the answers he'd gotten back from the intended recipients of old missives in the past years, he couldn't recall what was contained within them, or which ones had been replied to at all. He didn't know why he felt a desire to compose a draft all of a sudden; he was well past the post office's grounds now with no time to write it anyway, so he dismissed it from his mind: Had he the minutes to spare for posting anything, no one would be interested in what he had to tell them now, and he felt he'd already written everything there was to know.
   The road ahead was a swamp of abstract shapes he could only identify in his mind's unclouded view, every so often being illuminated by the passing halos of a solitary automobile; he could distinguish the angular spires of a nearby church, the softly radiant glow of a fast food restaurant's open windows and signage displays- the latter features with their attendant fragrances of midday lunch preparations reminded him of his piqued appetite. After traversing the light at the crossroads of Fifth and Wright Boulevard, bypassing the pubs, diners and nightclubs- some of which were beginning to rouse from their slumber for afternoon business hours- he was at last in the confines of the old historic district. Though he was aware of no traffic moving toward him from the front or the rear, the street having become disquietingly empty during his entrance into the district's east end, he cautiously surveyed both directions of the road out of habit before jumping over to the south side of Fifth Street. The designated area for the planned gathering was now a short block away, allowing him to slacken up his march a bit; he'd guessed the time to be around ten til noon. All the establishments he passed reminded him of how much time he'd once spent down there, all the resources poured into acquiring an additional commodity to add to some growing collection of niche popular culture in his ownership. There was the old used bookstore, a fixture in the neighborhood for three-quarters of a century, handed down within one family through generations, a treasure trove containing rare and hard-to-find editions of timeless and modern classics, if one knew where to look. He'd indulged himself in all manner of literature: novels, history, philosophy and, yes, comics too. He caught his share of exceptional finds, looking back dreamily on his own covetous impulses with a tinge of regret compounded with the irony of having to leave all his acquisitions behind him whenever some life change forced him to move in a different direction.
   The bookshop wasn't the only place to find literary material in the historic district; at times Fifth Street itself held random free libraries on tables lining the sidewalks, piled with whatever locals put there, open for anyone to browse and grab anything they pleased. Some of the most memorable reads came from those. Then there was the thrift store he was passing across the way from where he just came- one never knew what they'd find there: books, music, clothes... depending on what the present moment called for. For more specific musical tastes there was, of course, the record shop further down the road at the district's west entrance (he was approaching his left turn down O Street that would take him over to the park, thereby ignoring the music place, which was right after crossing O.) It carried a decent sized selection of CDs, vinyl and related equipment, memorabilia, etc. along with other entertainment media. A couple of his periodic music phases had been serviced in abundance over the years there, and at one point his presence in the store could be counted on almost everyday. He acquired first copies of films that wound up becoming personal favorites, some notable video games and one vinyl record he could remember purchasing but never actually listening to.
   This wasn't surprising considering the many articles bought and squandered, neglected or otherwise omitted from other places on Fifth Street. He'd invested thousands in the historic district, not always getting his money's worth before things took a sudden turn and everything he'd gained had fallen to the wayside. He'd learned his lesson (for the most part) by now, and rationed the exorbitant purchases as the free-wheeling prodigality of youth, part of the course of edification that made him into the man he was at present. It wasn't as though he couldn't reclaim some of these things once more; what he'd managed to subsume left its peculiar mark on his persona, and the rest- unless they were items of particular scarcity- could be revisited in a future date... or could they? Time was an enemy he couldn't predict, and his thoughts turned to all the opportunities he may've already missed, the experiences he'd never know, because the unremitting force that impelled him would not permit any jaded retreading of foregone anamneses now; each step brought him closer to a final threshold that marked an end to inconsolable dwellings on a ruthless, unshifting yesterday that brought him more grief than solace, more uncertainty than deliverance, and opened a door into tomorrow that held greater substance than much of the delusions he fared on in the years of wasteful gamboling on Fifth Street. The meeting that was to take place shortly had the potential to alter everything and give him a fresh start, away from the lifeless, empty gray streets that felt increasingly like a self-induced bastille than a home, to a brighter place where he'd finally fit, that was made for him and not the other way around. Life there came to represent the desolate- and the knavish; every false smile, shaky word and back-handed kindness had been a nonstop reminder of how fruitless it was to remain in the city, and some of the most harmful instances occurred just down the road from where he was.
   But fortunately things had changed, and he wasn't headed that way. As the comic strip had reechoed to him from the past, life goes on, and he accepted that now. He had no choice. That was one thing he shared in common with the cartoon: the cycle and progression of things forced him to change and move ahead rather than remain in stasis, or worse still, withdraw in reverse, neither of which were truly life but a living death. Whatever fate lay ahead for his surroundings, whether the next phase of it's history was just an artificial trapping of the same old cloth, was no longer a concern for him. His path was his own, and he knew for certain that he chose to live. Amid the ruminant introspections he'd come to his senses just as the last opportunity to purchase nourishment presented itself. There weren't any other food and beverage establishments in the district that he'd ever accustomed himself to besides this one: a small deli that prepared delicious oven-toasted sandwiches at decent prices and pretty quick to boot. There wasn't enough time for him to order food and wait around for the pick-up without missing his appointment, but that didn't exclude grabbing some lighter aliment, such as a bag of potato chips to go; those he could quickly finish on his way down O Street by the time he reach the park. Standing outside the entrance of the deli, he reconsidered going inside, realizing that his hunger had deserted him somewhere on the walk down Fifth while he was wrapped in thought. This came as a relief to him somehow, not needing to waste anymore time on cravings that wouldn't sustain him and would probably only serve to make him sluggish before the anticipated arrival of his conferee. With an assurance that things would go smoothly if he went just as is, he kept walking until he reached the corner of O and Fifth, turning just as somewhere in the fume up ahead in the immediacy of where the record shop was, he heard the far-removed voice of a young woman, taunting him with insults: -COWARD!, was the word directed toward him, but he ignored the barb, continuing on his way south into the district's residential neighborhood. Whoever she might've been, it was all behind him.
   O street contained a few shops and eateries at it's ingress, but quietly morphed into home addresses on the short amble to the park. The mist was so thick now that he couldn't see two houses down from where he walked; not even the thruway carried any motor activity, increasing his sense of isolation. He looked around for any source of light emanating from one of the residences but was only met with more shadows. His shoes crossed the smooth pavement of an intersecting crosswalk almost without him noticing, causing him to examine the approaching lanes for vehicles; there were still no lights to pierce the eradicating smog, and he wondered if he'd recognize a speeding motorist coming at him, high beams on or off- or if they would be able to spot him- before it was too late. The minatory calm was broken by a sudden flash on his right, an elusive car form daemonically floating past in the haze, the coincident barking -COME ON! from an evidently disgruntled driver resounding across the street before the image dissolved into the milky shroud, it's rear taillights blazing madly behind it. It was at the successive crosswalk (which he advanced on cautiously, looking and listening both ways for unseen threats) that he noticed a garbage receptacle installed at the corner sidewalk and he knew that he was at the confirmed location. Somewhere beyond the coverture was the park; in the eye of his memories he could see the various structures that made up the grounds: the gazebo in the middle of the plot, the children's play set over in the corner... it was all clear as a picture in a scrapbook- if only he could see past the accursed fog!
   At a guess, he'd have said there were still a few minutes before noon, leaving time for him to decide where to wait. A bench stood in the corner beside the foot path entrance at the northwest section; on any other day that area would be getting the most sunlight from above at this hour. It might've been a good spot to wait for the expectant party to arrive, but given the momentousness of the occasion he chose his favorite section in the southwest corner of the premises. It contained two benches instead of one, where he might take his place on one seat and the other could have the second positioned at a right angle next to it. The park was comfortably situated at the nexus of the district, surrounded by houses on every side. It was a quiet, reposeful area not too large or exposed, and for a second he wondered if his other acquaintance would find the site easily enough; then he was reminded of the long history this individual had in the city, and the district was likely better known to that one than he could ever hope to become familiar with. It was a correct assessment, because as he waded through the blanket, one of the benches in the corner was revealed to be already occupied by the other gentleman facing him directly, waiting vigilantly in a tailored two-piece suit of muted gray tone that fused with the prevalent miasma like camouflage in the jungle. The gentleman sat, hands together, legs crossed, eyeing him intently with a percipient smile. His brow inclined gracefully in salutation.
   Only half-surprised to find himself arriving in second, he still thought it wisest to apologize if his timing had been a little off:
   - Am I late after all?
   The gentleman shook his head lightly,
   - Early, actually. By five minutes.
   - Still not as early as you though, right?, there was a note of playful jabbing in his voice.
   - My schedule was free. I thought I'd sit here for a while, take in some of this morning sun and clear air before we commence our business., the gentleman extended his left arm, inviting him to be seated at the bench placed ninety-degrees next to his.
   - Yeah... sure., he walked over and sat at the furthest end from the gentleman, face-forward, looking straight ahead at where the gazebo would be in the center of the park. - You almost shocked me. That suit's a nice touch. Fits the weather perfectly.
   His acquaintance scanned himself briefly, -Yes... I suppose it does generate something of a cloaking effect... Still, it's rare that my personal appearance at one of these meetings doesn't take most prospectives by surprise; my simply being here is a testament to how patient and discreet you've been throughout this whole waiting process. I even made it a point to present myself early- as I knew you'd probably be yourself, judging by your history- as an equal sign of good faith and respect. Just for you, of course., this came with a sly wink, the gaze puncturing him with a cold edge that made his skin brittle with the rancorous gall of an ice wind, but he held it with his own in defiance of any timidness that attempted to seize him.
   While they were thus engaged, he took advantage of the moment to observe the gentleman closely: The eyes that beheld him were of a similar wan gray cast as his suit, along with his mustache, hair and even, disturbingly enough, his skin (its appearance at least gave him that impression; it could've easily been a trick of the dim light in the fog.) But the subject would not be scrutinized at length, and, looking down at a curious old-fashioned model time-piece produced from the breast-pocket of his crisply pressed jacket, he marshaled the conversation to the principle focus of their assembly.
   -...You still have a few minutes yet. Is there any preparatory details you wish to settle at this time? Anything you'd like to say perhaps?
   He paused for a moment. -...I've said all I needed to say, to the right parties.
   - No messages even?... ah, you don't even have your phone, I see.
   - It served its function. Let it be someone else's burden for a while.
   - Good for you. But you might've brought it along anyway... to give to me, if nothing else.
   - ...And what exactly would someone in your line of work do with it anyway? Set up a remote call service instead?
   - The world's getting more cramped by the day, my friend. If I don't delegate some of the excess bloat in the workload a competitor might come along with a faster, cheaper processing technique and push me out of my own vocation. This could be your golden opportunity: a guaranteed appointment with one of the oldest and most reliable firms in the city, a chance to meet new people, travel with benefits... and an insurance plan that can't be beaten: coverage for existing, preexisting- even currently non-existing conditions included.
   - It's a relief to discover you have a sense of humor up close.
   - My sole redeeming quality. Besides, I really would've taken the mobile off your hands; the grind gets so boring and I like to preoccupy myself in gratuitous self-idealization as much as anyone else! You think its fun having nothing but this thing to look at all day?, pulling out the timepiece once more.
   - That kind of distraction ill-suits you.
   - Eh... you're probably right. But you ought to see the pretty impressive collection I'm building these days.
   - Of what?
   - Phones, of course.
   - You collect phones?
   - Among other things, yes. It may end up being the largest, most diversified of all my frivolous collections; but ultimately they reside within the domain of the company, and when I'm finally displaced in the ladder, they'll undoubtedly be liquidated along with the rest of the profane evidence shared among us. Everything must go, and all.
   - Well... I suppose even you need a hobby these days, right?
   - A vacation is what I need., the gentleman flicks open the watch a final time, - ... Here we are.
   He felt a gentle nudging on his left leg, and looking beneath him there was a mottled brown house cat rubbing itself amiably across his calf. It was hardly full grown, a collar fitted around the neck signified its domesticity. He inclined forward to stroke the animal, its fur supple and warm under his fingers. It responded with a hearty mew in greeting before bounding upon his lap unexpectedly.
   - Whoa... hi, there., he welcomed the feline with petting and scratches, a rhythmic purring sounding from its chest as it made itself comfortable using its well-honed nails to groom a snug hovel in his jeans.
   The gentleman looked on with an almost tender aspect, - It seems as though you've made a friend.
   Finally settling down under his embrace, the cat reclined with its head cradled on his knee. He looked up into the park area, seeing for the first time since leaving his apartment the outlines of other figures among the recreational facilities as the umbrageous mask and skies above began to break down under the first rays of a fugitive sun, with scattered droplets of light rain. He closed his eyes and let the heat pour down on him, the raindrops pelting like ashes of firewater off of phoenix wings soaring overhead, his face wet with the refreshing tears of a thousand moments receding into infinity or tiny prayers brought back in liquid manna form from the stars. The cat lay sleeping undisturbed, humming contentedly on his legs under the falling dew; he lowered his sight back upon the shadow figures playing around him, their shapes beginning to take form and substance through the evaporating gauze: two young women practiced walking a slackline suspended between two trees; a group of college students were engrossed in a game of croquet over on the lawn; an elderly couple held hands beneath the gazebo watching the sky melt; grade schoolers romped along the variegated sections of the playground set. One by one, the phantoms began to dissolve before him, fleeing into space until the park was once more empty.
   He turned toward the gentleman, seeing nothing but a vacant opening on the wooden bench, another dream faded out of time. That one had served a purpose as well, and now all debts had been repaid; the collector could inform the records department to take him off their list. The past was closed and the wheel in the sky could cease revolving on its beaten, shredded hub. He gently kneaded behind the ears of the supine creature in his lap, and squinted at the abrupt, near-blinding effusiveness of sunshine that moments ago seemed improbable. All was light, and so was he. The trickle of rain had left as he shut his eyes to rest along with his friend.

Thank You, Lord.
Written September 2022 to August 2024
Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S.A.