bananafish

I do not think I’ve ever told anyone this story. Right after it happened, the memory lived then left, trespassing the dark edge that neighbors the mind: the void at the back of our head. I once read somewhere about a neurological effect, one in which memories forever stay inside our heads; they linger camouflaged into the wallpapers of our minds until abruptly popping into thought again. Like this morning when I woke up to the bright lights of this story you’re about to read; it seemed to be the only thing to fit inside my head: omnipresent as the blues in the sky; self-evident as sin in a church.

It happened in New York City a while back when a lady on the N train sat by my side. Books laid on both of our laps, only none of us read. She asked me if like her, I stopped my reading when the tracks of the train rose above ground. I can’t remember what I answered, but next thing I knew her words were walking me through her world: 67, a widow, avid reader, a walker when her knees cooperate.

She seemed to have a predilection for the affirmative; a sort of soft spot for full stops. At some point in our talk she voiced “You’ll think me a lunatic, but I’ve spent a great chunk of this day thinking about the letter B”. “How it comes second in the alphabet; how nobody acknowledges its prominence despite being of more consequence than any other letter there is. Do you ever think like this?” I said I didn’t, her eyes spotting my lie.

“It has become my favorite letter, the more I think of it” she added, then moved on to explain —through the deafening shrieks of the tracks—how many words beginning with the letter B were pivotal to illustrating the nuance of a life. “Think of the bright & the burned, the born & buried, the blessed & the blamed, the bountiful & the broke, the balanced & the belligerent. It goes full circle, doesn’t it? A cycle where opposing extremes slip their skins into the same gown. Black & white, beginning & ending are just that: sisters” Her eloquence, exquisite.

I stopped listening to commuters and their pressing chatter, the train’s wheels in the tracks screeched the weight of friction. My thinking surrendered to the dragging strengths of the wave this lady had spilled out of her mouth. I flicked through a million thoughts. “You’re absolutely right” I uttered.

“And isn’t that how we conjugate an existence? With the verb to be?” she topped her previous words.

This lady's imagery & clever murdered me unready. For a split now the world paused, our bodies yanked to the rhythm of inertia bred by our train hitting the brakes.

Awestruck & blank, I didn’t know how to react. Her analogies were skilled.

“Oh BBBBBrooklyn, this is me”.

She walked out, sly as a cat, and stood on the platform looking back into my eyes. Her lips spread a smile whilst the MTA guy begged for the 50th time to stand clear of the closing doors, please.

As the rubber edges of the doors rushed to a close, she mouthed:

but isn’t time just the carbon copy of a man-made concept brewed                           when a few thousand breaths                           twist their heads in reverse?

then there’s daddy hawkin saying time is an everlasting pie                           where its ending meets our cries &                           its purpose, don’t dare to fuckin’ ask.