The Drunkards

berliners

I ran out as soon as I heard the bottle shatter, and I was begging someone, anyone, please don’t let me fall down these stairs I anxiously descended ‘twards U-Bahn, watching every step-by-rickety-step I took in my crummy sneakers. When the doors of the train opened, I pushed a few bodies aside and fell onto the first empty seat I found; it was only after a few minutes of sweaty calm that I’d realized I’d lost my drinking companion. I wiped my face a few times with the edge of my shirt— salty residue mixed with smog to form a white urban paste. I looked ‘round; I spotted a few of my ‘colleagues,’ holding miniature vodka bottles in their hands, face already red ‘n bruised by the early afternoon. They shucked ‘n jived, in that crude mix of German phrases & Polish, pierdoli and kurva and whatever else, cut ‘tween the teeth. I pulled my cap down over my face and got up towards the door, revolted by their careless laughter and spirit.

After I got off from the stop at Wedding, I’d begged for a few coins and then bought myself the cheapest ‘lil bottle of whatever. I took shelter under electric train signals. I tore the cap open; tears come to my eyes as I suck on the bottle and let the good times flow down my throat, and I laugh as I saunter down the street into the park, spitting in defiance at whatever flew above me. A few teenagers shouted abuse at me in German, but I felt too much contentment to let my spittle fly; I danced and I bowed, happy to be of use to someone.

At the other side of the park, beyond the cemetery, I bought another bottle; Berliner Luft this time, to give me something pretty to look at. I had a few gulps ‘sides the fountain shaped like a screw, and walked up a few peaks, up a few hills, and sat at a bench beside a few bushes, and I laid in the sun with the hot wood under me, wanting to feel the heat on my skin, wanting to feel the tenderness. Though I missed the comfort of my bed, I hated being at the house; I sense the judgement in their silence, in the distance they set by their words. I feel human in name only, it’s a byproduct of my illness. They all sit in judgement, no offer of redress, reconciliation. “Fuck it,” I roll together my last cigarette from the tabak I’d found in my pocket, and kill my mind. I think of beautiful mermaids, washing up on some distant shore.

I woke up a few minutes later to the sounds of dogs barking, children running, the distant echoes of car alarms and honking. I light up what’s left of my cigarette and descend down a few bushes into a fog of hazy green, holding my cock in my hand in search of a shady spot. Once I’d found my spot, I started to relieve myself like a wild dog, to piss away the day with my cigarette ‘tween my lips; I try to spell my name in the soil, a personal touch.

I listened to the trickling, all ears, the pitter-patter, crystalline and sharp, acid rain. I heard the wind rush through piss-stained branches, I heard the yellow sap flow down the crackling stalk. And I heard the Earth moan, for I’d watered her. Yesss; ah. I shook my cock, once, twice; I heard the Earth moan once more. Once more.

The breeze dies down, and I put my cock away in my sweatpants. I started breaking through the bushes with my hands and the groaning grew louder, even louder; I felt like I was digging into raw Earth herself, with blood flowing down my fingers. I crushed the maple, the linden, and I found a pair of sneakers sticking out of a bushel of torn up leaves and broken branches. I froze in fear, uncertainty; I jumped when I’d heard the groan and the sneakers twisted and jolted. “Are you okay,” I said first; in a louder voice, I added “brauchst du hilfe?” A groan came in response. I pulled aside the branches, and found a woman lying in the shrubs, her face embedded in the dirt. Her half-blonde hair was covered in leaves, coiled up like a snake beside her. A sudden empathy rocket-struck me out of the clouds; I pulled her up on her waist, bringing her up to her knees— a few bottles fell out of her embrace and rolled down the sides of the hill in a glass avalanche. I put her on my back, pulling her arms on my shoulders, holding her legs with my arms, and I ran down the hill, shouting for help.

Down the hill, “through the parking lot,” I ran into the emergency room. I looked like I’d walked through a tidal wave; sweat was dripping from my chin and my clothes were tousled and wet. I didn’t know I had the strength in me; the words I tried to speak drown in labored breath. The orderlies took her off my back and set her on a stretcher, and quickly wheeled her into the white haze of what lies beyond the hospital doors. I stood there in the emptiness of the waiting room, among a few children coughing into their hands; I sat down and I finished my bottle, I sipped the idle hours away.

The nurse woke me up with a shake— I didn’t even know I’d fallen asleep. Her face was sharp, defined; her nose pursued its purpose like an arrow does its target. She spoke. “She says she doesn’t know you,” a slight accusation. I rubbed my face and put my bottle aside. “I found her,” I answered. I don’t expect to be heard. “I found her in the park. She was in trouble and I brought her.” The nurse rubbed her hands. “You don’t know her,” she said. “Gut,” she added. The nurse left and I thought about leaving. I looked at the automatic doors and imagined myself walking through them. I looked at the staff; the intent and focus on their faces, the knowledge that they are needed.

The nurse returned, pushing a wheelchair towards me, parking it beside my seat. The woman in the wheelchair looked down, brushing her hair with a plastic comb, pained by the sun coming through the windows; she didn’t meet my gaze. “She’s fine,” the nurse said to me in the voice of an exasperated schoolmarm. “Just a bit dehydrated.” She goes down on her knees as if speaking to a child and pulls something from her pocket. “This is an organization called Kay-El-Eye-Kay, and they can help you with finding help.” The woman didn’t respond, nor look the nurse in the eyes, intent on combing the rest of the dirt from her hair. The nurse stood back up, saying nothing before she left. “Styerva,” the woman muttered. I looked at her face; a blush had returned to her face, beside a long beak, rose under two heavy green eyes. When she realized I’d been staring, she looked up at me, into my eyes, back down, into my eyes again; “you don’t know to say ‘hello?’ You don’t speak English?” Her voice was coarse and throaty, her accent percussive. I muttered a few sounds, and I said my name. Her face became stiff, unyielding like a piece of tarnished gold.

She laughed, combed her hair for a few more minutes; her face suddenly softened up, doing away with the lines on her face. “I’m sorry,” she said in a quiet voice. “Tasha,” she said. “They call me Tasha.” She look at my eyes and flashed me a minute smile. “My real name is Tatiana, but they call me Tasha.” She touched her forehead; she looked as if she wanted to collapse into herself, her shoulders up beside her ears. “I’m sorry, I have a huge headache. Thank you for helping me.”

She combed her hair for a little while longer, then set it down. She touched the metal on her wheelchair, and I felt a sudden need to say something. “Where,” I said before clearing my throat, “where are you from?” She smiled and shook her head. “I’m from a small town. A bit outside of a mining center. It doesn’t matter. Russia.” She bit her nails. “How did you end up here?” I answered. Her smile was more tooth-y this time; she rubbed the metal of the wheelchair a few times. “I had a husband. German man. I think he got tired of me. Bored of me. He wanted to get rid of me, but I didn’t want to accept that. I’m not a dog. I’m not anyone’s dog. I decided myself to leave. I’m not his dog.” She wouldn’t meet my gaze, and scratched at her skin. I didn’t say anything. A few people walked by us, and another stretcher came from the doors to pick up someone from an ambulance, followed by running paramedics.

After a few minutes, she spoke again. “His friends didn’t like me. They pretended to like me, but they didn’t. You know, I’m like this, I’m like that; they didn’t like my personality. His parents felt sorry for me, I think, but that’s not love. I had to take care of myself. I didn’t speak the language. I went into the shelter, I didn’t know anyone, no one helped me, no one cared about me.” I didn’t say anything. After a few minutes of silence, I stood up. “Tasha, I need to drink something.” She looked up at me, looked down, she rubbed her nose; “you can go, it’s okay.” I got behind her wheelchair, took the handles in my hands, and I pushed her out through the automatic doors; we didn’t speak for a while.

I left her outside the späti while I searched for coins— I parked her wheelchair beside the bicycle rack. She looked at the pigeons descending onto the decaying metal, twitching with nervous fervor. The street was littered with trash, broken glass. I wondered what was in her mind, so far from where she was born; I thought about what I’d ask her as I put the bottles of beer and liquor into my backpack. Beside the large display of vape cartridges, there were lollipops. I stole a cherry lollipop while the späti attendant was looking for change, and I hid it up my sleeve. When I came out of the späti, Tasha was looking at a few children goading each other into smoking cigarettes. “Tasha,” I said. She looked up at me. I took the lollipop from my sleeve and handed it to her, and she studied it, looked at it as if it were an alien artifact. She looked up at me again, her eyes suddenly falling narrow; “thank you,” she said in a quiet voice I’d barely heard over the roaring of wild cars.

I handed her a bottle of Gorbatschow to hold in her lap, and I wheeled her down the street, back towards the park where we’d met. I asked her about anything I could think of; I asked her what she liked to eat, what her childhood was like, what her parents were like. As Tasha told me more and more about herself, her body grew lighter and lighter; her shoulders lowered, her head pointed towards the sky and not the soil. She loved sushi, had a simple but stable childhood, and was raised by economists. The longer she spoke, the more I realized that she hid her smarts; she’d met her former husband at an international chess competition where they’d both been competing. I felt inferior, not in a bad way; I imagined myself to be the hands on which she might vault upwards into a somersault.

We travelled beyond the cemetery to reach Plötzensee, and I pulled her out of her wheelchair and set her beside the lake under a canopy of trees. She opened the Gorbatschow, took a few large gulps, then handed it to me. Before I took a gulp myself, I sat down beside her, watching the boats sail past us. “You seem too smart to be here,” I said without much thought. Tasha looked at me, her lips running to the left side of her face. She thought for a bit, then looked back at the water. “Smart is never enough,” she said, leaving it at that.

After another gulp, Tasha started to ramble on, drifting from chess openings to economic theories to existential literature without much concern for me. I did not mind; the little I did understand seemed so fascinating. With each gulp, Tasha’s body changed more and more, shifting and transforming. The tension in her limbs loosened, grew larger; she blossomed, taking up more and more of the ground. It was as if I’d been granted passage into the corridor of her life, given ‘lil glimpses of who she’d once been.

Once we’d finished the Gorbatschow, Tasha’s mood shifted suddenly. Her legs were drawn up to her chest, her arms wrapped loosely around her knees. Her gaze never left the water. “Give me cigarette,” she demanded. I handed her one, and I lit it up with a lighter when she put it on her lips and presented it to me. “I’m sorry,” she said in demi-whisper. “I haven’t talked in a long time.” She took a few drags and wiped some ash off of her jacket. “Tell me about you. Why are you here?”

I told Tasha all the stories that now bore even me. I told Tasha about how my wife grew cold, indifferent to my pain. I told Tasha about how her reaction to my drinking was not concern but willful blindness. I told Tasha about how my friends tolerated me, then turned their backs when I’d needed them, when I’d gone past my expiration date. How her parents blamed me for their troubles, for their sickness, for her depression. I told Tasha about how I took back control of my life by stepping out on all of them, how I would not let them feel pity, feel sorry for me, how I would not be the little problem they’d all need to solve with secrets whispered behind closed doors. No, no no, not me.

I lifted up Tasha from the soil and placed her back into her wheelchair, and we walked back towards the S-Bahn. With a few gulps in me, I feel powerful; I felt the cool wind brush my hot face. I set her beside the seats, her hands holding onto the yellow handrails. “What would you say to him?” “Hmm?” Tasha licked her lips, wiped her mouth with her wrist. “What would you say to him, your husband? I always think of all the things I want to say.” She looked around at the people in the train. “So much to say. Lot of bad words. ‘I'm so happy I didn’t give you a child,’ maybe. ‘I can’t believe I let you hit me,’ maybe.” She lowered her face; I didn’t know what to ask so I just looked at her, expectantly. “It doesn’t matter,” she answered. “It doesn’t matter.”

We left the S-Bahn and stood in line at a rundown little establishment full of frosted tips ‘n slogans, ringworm’d and drunk, the smell of beans and cabbage ran down the street, fettered by cigarette smoke, ‘tween yellowing teeth. When they’d handed us two plates of a jumble of food, a few of the punks helped Tasha onto a wooden bench, and poured her a glass of cold beer, of which I stole a few gulps after I sat opposite of her.

“What would you say to her?” she asked with sudden focus after having a few spoonful of beans. “Mhm?” “What would you say to your ex-wife, I meant,” she answered. I looked down at the beans swimming ‘tween a mountain of boiled cabbage and congealed rice. “I don’t know. I mean, I think a lot about it, I rehearse it in my head. I imagine myself going up to her place all of a sudden, after work when I know she’s there, and just telling her everything I was too nice to tell her before.” Tasha started to grin, a few pieces of bean dangling from her lips. “Like what,” she asked. “How she’s lazy, cruel, uncaring for others, and that’s the source of all her problems. She always blames others because she doesn’t want to look at herself, ask herself why she’s unsuccessful in her marriages, in her careers. But the truth is that it’s her. It’s all her. And even with my best years, I couldn’t help her.” Tasha started to laugh, with a percussive tremble. “We should go!” Tasha said, with a sudden excitement that shot her up onto her elbows on the table. “We should go, and you should tell her everything you want to say. Doesn’t matter, just fucking say it.” I started to laugh, unable to control myself. “Say everything to that bitch you have always wanted to say! Say it in Russian; say ‘yob tvoyu matj.’” I repeated after her, “yob tvoya mati;” she shook her finger, “no; no, the tee at the end has to be different.”

We stood in front of her building, Jonasstrasse thirty-seven, looking up at the windows; the handles of Tasha’s wheelchair felt wet in my hands. Nothing had changed; the bricks remained the same off-white, and the same plants hung from the balconies as memories of green. The doors had been repainted in a color reminiscent of rust. A few marooned café zombies looked at us from afar, certain that we were intruding. I felt like I’d crashed onto a distant planet, only to find that everyone knew me by name. “Should I stay here?” Tasha murmured. “No,” I answered; I carried Tasha up the stairs on my back with the wheelchair folded up in my arms, up to the third floor, the path I’d taken so many times in my life and then never took again, up to the door now painted in a color reminiscent of rust. I set Tasha down in her wheelchair and she knocked on the door with confident blows. “What is her name,” Tasha whispered. “Anneke,” I answered.

When Anneke opened the door, only about half-way as always, she looked down at Tasha first. I bit my lip to hide my laughter; Anneke’s face jumped from surprise, to disgust, to a sort-of feigned sympathy. “Kh-ello, I am Tasha-aa,” Tasha said in an exaggerated put-on of her own voice. “Hello Tasha,” my ex-wife said before finally meeting my gaze. I saw Anneke’s face shoot violently between different modes of expression. “Warum bist du hier?” my ex-wife’s voice rose to become strident, accusatory. “Was meinst du damit?” Tasha shot up in her seat and her face started to contort, baring teeth. “Rude, I do not speak this language! I am disability person! I am immigrant! I am still a person!” Anneke’s face revealed a deep discomfort; she closed her eyes and stammered a bit: “I’m so sorry, Tasha, it’s just… I’m not sure what’s going on.” Tasha took her wheels into her own hands and moved her wheelchair around in a sway as a sort of angry dance: “before you put me into gas chamber, my friend here has something he wants to say to you.” Anneke looked back up at me, and her anger bled dry, and her eyes seemed to grow heavy, tired in a way I’d never seen before.

I wasn’t sure what to say, even though I’d rehearsed it so many times in my head. In my nervousness, I took Tasha’s handles, but I did not move away. “Was wolltest du sagen?” Anneke said in the brittle voice of an animal reluctantly offering its neck to you. I couldn’t meet her eyes; I looked at the few white hairs that grew within Tasha’s golden lake. “I want to say,” I said it in English for Tasha, for myself, to make it seem like someone else’s voice— “I want to say that you were not there for me when I needed you. And that I wasted my best years hoping you’d become someone you are not, become someone you can’t ever be. I’ve wasted my life. And I blame myself because I was stupid and wanted to see what I wanted to see, instead of the truth. That’s it.” I looked back up at Anneke. Her eyes had grown into glowing chunks of coal, and her lips twisted to one side; in a sudden burst of motion, she shook her head and slammed the door, which made the hamsa hanging from the handle violently shake. “Styerva!” Tasha shouted. She put her head up against the door to make herself heard: “Yob tvoyu matj, shlyuxa!”

“That was so good!” Tasha shouted with excitement as we wheeled back down towards the S-Bahn. “I’m super proud of you,” she said as she opened up another bottle of Gorbatschow and drank a few gulps. “That bitch is going to cry herself to sleep.” She cackled. Tasha looked at me, and she withdrew her excitement— “how do you feel?” she asked, putting a hand on my arm. I didn’t feel anything; in my mind, I’d imagined some great sort of emotional release, an apocalyptic revelation that might shake the habitual off my shoulders. But the world remained just as indifferent as it did when my marriage, my friendships, my idea of how things should be fell apart. I touched Tasha’s hand with my own. “I feel good,” I said. “It needed to be said. I needed to say it.” Tasha’s face became so soft that she seemed to me suddenly a child, and she smiled with such calm that I felt as if I’d been submerged into a bath: “I know,” she said. “I know, for sure.” She looked away, her smile returned to its cage. “Who is next?”

We rode the Ringbahn for what seemed like hours. As the signage of every station rolled across Tasha’s face, I relived the memories of the past with those I once knew— the plants we’d carried in our arms, the late-nights with crumbs falling from our hands. I remember how we’d kissed as the rain poured down from the steel rafters. I remember all of us huddling for warmth together as the snow covered the city in glittering emptiness, the horizon burning with gold. I thought of the secrets we’d exchanged, and the promises those secrets became heir to, and everything we’d shared— it clings like stubborn dust to the soles of your shoes, it clings like the gunk ‘tween the wheels of a train, and it clings it clings.

It was dinner time in Berlin; the crowds rolled by us with shopping bags and gaunt faces; they looked warm in their leather coats and fleece. The sidewalks were crowded with chatter, with little cups of amber and silk, with mouths full of smoke and steam. And I know these alleys, and I remember how I used to sit with a glass of wine, the jokes I used to tell over & over, the monotony of sharing the same dreams again and again. And I know them, I know them better than I know anyone, but they don't know me; they see me in my torn shirt and my dirty sneakers and their faces fall silent as if I am a secret to be kept.

“They always have their birthdays at the same place. It's a tradition in the friend's group; every birthday, the same place,” I sez to Tasha as I push her past the dozens of tables set beside the street. “Fucking pathetic,” she muttered under her breath. “Shit sushi, expensive drinks;” she pointed at a sign that read “Asia Imbiss.” I set her outside, but she scowls in protest. “I want to go with you, I want to see you say everything to them.” She lights up a cigarette and stares down a curious child. “Wait,” I touch her shoulders. “I have to see if they're here. It's Michael's birthday but maybe they don't celebrate it today.” I take the last of the Gorbatschow and drink it down.

I peek my head into the restaurant, looking for a table with a crowd. The faces blend together, but one of them meets my gaze; long, piercing, pleading, negative recognition. They're here and I am here. I walk back out and take Tasha by the handles, and she Cheshire-grins with anticipation. One of the waiters helps her through the door, and she tries to ignore the staring, the words hidden in a hush; she tries to ignore the feeling she’d wasted her years intruding on someone else’s life, and she bites on a piece of bread she’d stolen. I push her towards the table, and I meet the gaze of every face I’d once held near, memories projected onto the blank canvases of their faces, their features molten, noses replaced by apartment buildings and eyes replaced by lamps and ears replaced by beer bottles and their hair is flowers & plants and their mouths are speakers.

I set Tasha at the table, beside a few plates of nigiri. “Someone forgot to invite me,” I said with bile threatening to shoot up my throat. The people at the table are taut with tension. I realize that I barely remember their names. I wonder how I appear to them; my face swollen and red with a wheelchair in my hands. Some of them look away, reaching for their phones, their purses; some of them look at Tasha as if she were a building on fire. “You don’t remember me?” My words dripped off my tongue. “You don’t remember me at all? Are you surprised I’m still alive?” I feel like a crow sitting amongst the owls. “You’re fucking drunk,” Sofia rises from her seat, her phone falling from her lap, her arms rising like a bird of prey. Tasha twisted her wheelchair towards Sofia, and a vicious scowl flashed across her face: “sit down, stupid woman.” Sofia stepped away from the table, walking ‘round the others who were covering their faces; “come fight me, yebanashka!” Tasha said with a shake. I pulled Tasha back by her handles; “I was at my lowest and you all abandoned me.” I turned back to the people at the table, “you all abandoned me!” Sofia folded her arms. “Look I’m sorry about what happened but it’s not our fault. Ok, we don’t owe you anything,” she spat on the last few syllables. Tasha rolled her eyes; “Yes you do,” she interjected. “That’s friendship, you owe each other things. But all you people do is take and you don’t give. You only care about yourself. It’s shitty friendship. You used him.”

Hannah withdrew from the safety of her manicured hands: “I’m sorry, who the fuck are you?” I sprung towards her, and pulled Tasha back; “you don’t talk like that to her!” I shouted. Lukas jumped up behind me and pulled on my arm; “okay, time for you to go, cowboy!” Ah, there… my Amerikan-ness, always the splinter on which to press, a cause of a revolting mixture of jealous and pity. I pulled Lukas’ hand off my arm, which forces Lukas to grasp my shoulder with his other hand. His body is stiff; I smell his aftershave. “Stop touching me;” I tried to be calm. Sofia stepped behind Tasha and came up towards me; “can you be fucking normal? You’re a fucking loser. A fucking freak.” she spat in my ear. “I hope you’re enjoying all the shit I gave you!” I bellowed in return. “I never even asked for the money back!” Lukas yanked on my shoulder, enough to knock me off my balance. “What is your problem, dude?” I tried to keep myself upright, unwilling to indulge Lukas. “You people lie about me, you talk about me; I want to know what you say!” Tasha rolled herself between me and Lukas, using her own hands to keep Lukas away who hangs on me like an ape on a branch. “Do you talk about what I did to help you? The money I lent you? Years and years, and now fucking nothing.”

“No-one talks about you, you’re not fucking important!” Sofia pushed me, and Hannah stood up behind her, and Lukas stepped beside Tasha and pulled on my shirt, ripping it into two. “Fuck off, man!” I whined, and I shoved Lukas with enough force to cause plates and cups to clatter onto the ground, to cause the owls to scatter in hoots of terror. Sofia and Hannah yelp, screech; they begin taking videos on their phones. “Everyone knows about you and Lily!” Lukas shouted as he shoved me in return, hard enough that I fall over Tasha and she pushes me back onto my feet with steely eyes, with a hard grip that cuts into my flesh. “Beat him! Beat him super bad!” she shouted. Lukas’ body becomes stiff, a statue. “Beat me? I should beat you. You cheated! You fucking scumbag, you cheated!” Lukas yelled as he went for a half-hearted jab to the left of my face. I covered my face with my wrists, and felt Tasha holding my waist upright. “Bullshit. Bullshit. You’re just angry; you’re angry I stole Anneke from you. Gay my ass; you love her.” Lukas went for a heavier punch to my jaw, and suddenly I felt my face grow leaden, buzzing with bees, falling under water somehow. I stumble backwards with my hands holding onto Tasha’s shoulder, and I watch as Tasha jumps up to her feet and unloads a furious salvo of punches onto Lukas’ head; the wheelchair was rolling away from her towards another table. I spit into my hand; the blood is pale and thick. I see a small man running towards me with a broomstick; “geh auf! Geh auf! Doo zoey! Geh auf!” Lukas shoves Tasha with all his might— she falls over a table, covered in salt and pepper, and I respond in kind by forcefully butting my head into Lukas’ nose, causing blood to spurt all over my face, all over the nigiri and seaweed salad, all over the damp carpet.

I pull Tasha up to her feet and I scream at her to move— we dash out through the exit, leaving the wheelchair behind us, running down the street like a gust of violent wind. “Piiiiisdets;” Tasha yelps, almost falling to the floor as we run down the stairs, into an S-Bahn arriving just on time to enable our escape. As the automatic doors shut behind us, I fall onto my knees, trying to catch my breath as an incredible pain gnaws at my temples. Tasha clutches onto her stomach, her hair is slick with sweat; fits of laughter possess her, throaty and hoarse— “that was so cool how you hit him!” she said between sharp inhales. “I wanted to punch that stupid bitch too;” the words squeezed out of her throat before she tumbled down onto a seat.

“We should leave to somewhere,” I said as I crawled to the seat next to Tasha. Her breathing returned to normal; her face was glittering, muddy, a pearl buried in wet sand. “Go where, man?” I rubbed my face with the hem of my shirt. “I dunno. Where would you want to go?” Tasha closed her eyes for a while, then looked up at the transit map above the seats. “I want to go to Australia,” she murmured before closing her eyes. I looked at the other people on the train, I looked at the buildings passing by; I looked at the warm glow of thousands of living rooms, full of television chatter and photo albums. Most people left at the third stop— Tasha closes her eyes, and then lets her head rest on my shoulder as the S-Bahn rides on to its final destination.

“Why didn’t you tell me you could walk?” Her breathing was soft. She opened her eyes after a few minutes pass. Her jagged lips opened once, then fell shut, then opened once again to let a whisper come through: “people care about me because I’m in a wheelchair.” Her eyes narrowed before falling shut again. I had nothing else to say. I felt pain in my jaw, in my body; I was surprised, disappointed to find that nothing had changed as I thought it would. I merely felt more tired than I did before.

We left the train at the last station. Tasha stayed silent as she held onto my arm and we walked down the stairs towards the park. The grounds were full of happy bicyclists, women pushing strollers, joggers & aesthetes… above their heads, the city groaned & shuddered with pleasure and love, thundering ‘twards death— and we drink the hours away, leave the bottles in our wake like seafoam, puffing & smoking like smokestacks on legs, Heaven’s dinnerplate sinking down the clouds… we are restless, we nestle ‘tween weeds and greens, the open mouth of a still lake greedy & needy before us. And the sun fell behind the trees, and so many rays of deep red and orange begin to pour onto the water, begin to sway and shake and jig on the surface. I looked down at Tasha; her face looked peaceful, unburdened, resting on my lap without movement. The cigarette in her hand burned like an oil lamp, nestled ‘tween two yellow nubs. She sneezes, she coughs, her eyes close. A cold breeze ran up my neck and I watch a few birds descend onto the surface of the lake, breaking up its perfect portrait of the city into thousands of restless pieces.