I stand here on the corner of Third and Fourth Street. It connects in a way that leaves no seams for me to count, no cracks for me to break my mother’s back on, and only one pothole to collect the beggar’s change. So I just stand there with my umbrella and smell the air that is intoxicatingly warning me of rain. But it doesn’t rain. It will never rain here; I think if it did, I wouldn’t even know how to open my umbrella—(even though I did.) And the people who have stopped with me on this street corner—however brief, know this too. I am barefoot, so I begin to wonder when I will feel the burning concrete against the pads of my feet. As I shake the invisible rain off of my umbrella I feel a cloud swelling from within me. It pushes against my ribs working down to my stomach as a passerby bumps frantically into my shoulder, managing to shake loose a chip of bone. I wince at this feeling of bone loss; what if I begin to shrink? Still yet, the cloud makes my stomach bloat. As if this allegorical whirl of matter is the only means to suffice the feeling clenched tight between my teeth. Am I suffocating?
Grasping the old man next to me, he shows me no mercy, and shakes me off. Like how I shake my umbrella to clear off the rain I never felt. I kneel here on the corner; allowing the sensation of the chipped bone to tumble like a grain of sand off of each rib until it landed onto my inflated stomach. With both hands on the seamless concrete, my body forced itself to dry heave in attempt to drive the bone out. For it was pressing nauseatingly against the cloud welling in the skin of my stomach. Still yet, the old man stood, never moving his gaze from across the way. I winced and tried to imagine it as just a blink as the old man, who was still standing there, coughed. I could see his abdomen push in and out—yet it did not implode. Will I?
The beggar sang. It was a tune of infidelity—by which time the old man became uneasy and in haste left me. The pothole remained empty before him. The cloud continued to cause waves of nausea, (by which I could not ignore for it forced the tiny broken bone to wobble about on the encasing of my stomach) my umbrella pressed up against my sides, the smell of the air—as always, dry. And I groveled to think of the possibility of rain to ease the dry breath. Alas, as I lay in an estranged agony, I wondered if it did rain; could I drown?
The spot next to me on the street did not remain vacant for long. A woman in heavy makeup took the place of the old man, and she too, stood there, without noticing me—her gaze fixed like the old man’s. I’d question their compassion if only the hot cement did not boil a steam to eradicate my throat. The woman looked down for a split second, her lips redder than the burns on my feet. I could feel the sun continue to proliferate out across the concrete as I watched her lick her front teeth. The lipstick that was stuck on them was the least of my worries. With a shaking arm, I jerked on her leather skirt, again unvoiced, but in all attempt worth the plea. She didn’t budge, not even an inch. Instead, she resettled her gaze outwards after scraping some nail polish off of her thumb. The cloud, I could sense was becoming moist—despite the parched air. The bone relaxing now, with little movement, making home—perhaps it will start a family?
The beggar sang. This time, it was a tune of inexperience—the woman fidgeted in her own skin, cropping her skirt up as she walked away from me. The pothole remained empty. I endeavored to roll over; taking the chance to upset the small bone and reset the cloud into an uproar of intangible pain, I felt compelled to shift and this time look at the beggar. In doing so, I managed to pull myself back up only to realize the beggar was missing his shoes, his shirt, and was only wearing a worn down pair of lounging pants…my umbrella laid still on the ground. I grasped my stomach and almost doubled over into the beggar’s pothole. He did not look at me. Merely, he cast-ironed his eyes into the pothole formed in the cement. The cloud inside me was expanding slowly placing more pressure onto my ribs as the beggar reached into his empty pothole. I wriggled in my skin as the cloud became so boisterous, that it simply began to spill from my porous skin. It poured, and it poured, and as hard as I tried I couldn’t stop the water from spilling out from me. It oozed out of my fingernails, wept from my eyes, and more so left my hot feet in a puddle—which I should further mention, was becoming much more than a “puddle”. As the water leaked from me, it forced my body to heave once more. The bone finally relinquishes from my body, and fell precariously into the pothole. The cloud that was welling up was now slowly relieving itself.
Suddenly, my ears perked to the sound of the beggar singing. This time it was a tune of luxury. The beggar kept singing as the water that filled the pothole, stayed there because of the broken bone blocking the only fissure that would let it flow elsewhere. The water glimmered under the hot sun and began to instantly steam. I stood in front of the beggar and watched him hum, watched him scoop the water between his hands and lift it up to his dry lips. I grabbed my umbrella—opened it wide, and not just before my feet felt the urge to leave in the same direction as the old man and the woman, the beggar spoke, “Don’t you sense the rain coming?” ….and I couldn’t help but wonder, can he see me?
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