Evening in an Empty City, Part Two

Every window is open.

I crawl down the side of the building, down the rickety fire escape which is forest green in its current incarnation. In the spots where the paint is chipping you can see that it was last bright orange, previously seafoam green, and before that a dashing shade of sepia. I wonder how these rusty joints can sustain my weight. This fire escape has had many lives, I wonder how it even holds itself up.

Every window is open. I indulge in the voyeurism afforded by this peculiar situation. The curtains, often improvised from flat sheets (sometimes bunchy fitted sheets), are all drawn. I stop at the first flight down, sit with my legs crossed, back facing the street, eyes pressed past the open window and let the scenes play out. I am a quiet theater-goer, latchkey kid in front of a TV at 4PM; my gaze is fixed. Sometimes, I see more with my eyes closed, particularly when there is a lot of interference. Today, I barely have to concentrate, all I have to do is sit still. The green-orange-green-sepia chips stick to my calves and the backs of my thighs where my shorts don't cover. My spotted legs distract me from the scene that is beginning to develop before me and I wish they were permanent spots on my skin; a marker of my difference, a physical admission that I am something more than human. I flick them off watch them float all the way to the sidewalk without interruption.

I refocus. Memorize the details of this room. The wooden bunk beds on the left side of the room, Full size mattress on the right, aged wooden floors, yellow walls, and emptiness. Apparitions. Four kids. Two boys and two girls, taking turns jumping off the top bunk onto the Full size bed. I look into their eyes. They are ghosts standing before me, huge brown eyes, brown skin that glistens salty summertime like mine. I begin to miss them, I hear them laugh and I start to cry. There is something temporal and fragile about them. It hurts me to look at them, I only sense tragedy. I want to scream, and I do. There is no one around to hear me, and I forget that these kids are just apparitions. They are not really there. I find myself feeling completely helpless, dig in the small bag slung across my back for whatever I can pull together. Four amulets, a piece of camphor, my water bottle. I crawl in the window, the ghost-kids go about their jumping uninterrupted and I rustle through their pointedly empty apartment looking for a clear glass. I fill it with water, drop in the camphor and put the cup behind the bedroom door. I walk up to each kid and they look at me, acknowledging me for the first time. I open my hand and one by one they grab an amulet, balled up tiny jet hands, and slip them onto their bracelets or chains, next to the identical amulets their grandmothers slipped on them at the exact time of their birth. No one says a word to me. I slide out of the window, turn my back to them, and continue to cry. In my heart I know that this is going to take a lot more than camphor and amulets. In my heart I know that they are the casualties of this world. These beautiful beaming children, born and raised by magic, their balled up fists holding small bunches of hope, handfuls of laughter, millions of atoms of imagination; will not be here to grow old. I miss them already.

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