Ethereal City

Grand Central was eerily silent, almost magic. The clock’s yellow face even seemed dull as I passed by; the hands had stopped moving.

Nearby pedestrians were implicit; staring at their cell phones, with their coffees and their computers. It was as if they somehow knew I was already dead.

Like some tattered rag lost and wandering, I approached the Metro-North, feeling a gust of wind as light sifted through the tunnel.

I stepped closer to the yellow line; just the tips of my toes standing off, now. Others saw but said nothing. The light from the engine just kept streaming in.

It wasn’t until I’d fallen backwards and the train had stopped that I realized I was crying. I was alive. And I couldn’t get on.

I stood for a moment in what seemed to be a hundred years times. Wiping the water from my face and tearing up the ticket in my hand.

Then, when I felt ready, I walked back out into the street.

It was quiet for a Saturday in August.

Hot and humid.

I watched the city lights flicker in and out of focus, perched on the sidewalk like some sort of bird; just a few lingering taxis passed by the area. It was passed midnight.

There in the city’s violet ether, where stretches of smog floated through insignificant spaces of air like ghosts in purgatory, I felt, if just for a moment, if I looked long enough, I could see the stars.