Nothing Else

-Our feet collapse the snow as they fall heavy and create our path of footprints. The winter has stopped its tears as we stand feeling the cold breeze bite into us. The lighter’s flame is quickly snuffed and it’s orange hue freezes into the pale winter blue. Parts of the city have been erased by the fallen white. The lighter jiggles in his hand as he sparks the orange hue, again. The cigarette ignites with a crackling and he inhales deeply, his stare, into the dissipating cloud of smoke. His hand falls before him, the cigarette dangling, reminiscent of a plea.
“You should tell them about your accident,” he says. Then quickly rebuts his own comment, “forget it.”
As my cigarette ignites, I think, ‘sell yourself, it might work.’ He didn’t say it, but that’s what he meant. I close my eyes as I inhale. The latent image of fourth grade materializes into the photograph of my recollection, the long hallways, the nurse’s office and the group that would gather to hear my story. They followed me through the cracks on the playground, across the grassy field and into my corner in the nurse’s office. It was something between release and tension, attention, for months I didn’t have a word more than those belonging to the story. Eventually, they stopped gathering, the group, and I made my way through the cracks in the concrete and the dried grassy field by myself. By then though, I stopped visiting the nurse’s office as frequently.
I taste the filter in the smoke, as the cherry falls out onto the snow. I look around me and I’m standing alone. My friend is back inside with the others, inside the pizza shop. They’re all laughing again.
The straw twirls in the cup, splashing coke around. My hand tires and the straw falls still, inert, amidst the laughing. I have a certain affinity toward stillness myself. I feel the distance growing with each eruption of laughter, as I sit staring at the littered table and the still quiet straw. I feel the empty space between me and happiness. There’s this great empty space these days, not that it’s new, but there are those moments of awareness in which I could feel nothing else. Then as my eyes drift in and out of focus, I feel someone’s hands pressing on my shoulders, gently, and then the weight is lifted. I turn, in time to see Monica rushing toward the hallway that leads to the restroom. She winks at me before ducking into the hallway with her innocently blissful smile.
I trace smiles in my memory and start thinking about the little kid spinning on the sidewalk and how amazingly happy she was. I start thinking about spinning and losing control and happiness. Just then Mark taps me on the shoulder, “ready?”
“Yeah,” I reply, but feel as if I’ve only thought it. And I follow as the cold rush of wind pours in through the open door.
I walk behind them, as we make our way through the icy streets, partly listening but mostly oblivious to their conversation about midnight rendezvous’ and the oddest places you’ve had sex. At times I close my eyes trying to grasp at a coherent thought, but I can’t. I disappear and only the world remains, the four bodies in front of me, taxis racing through the snow, the woman playing hop scotch to avoid snow banks and the neon signs at a distance advertising ‘Whisiky’ and ‘Hof’.
There’s a frozen parking lot in one corner and three half sober teens play soccer with chunks of snow. They walk past them and come to a descending staircase the sign above it says ‘Rock & Roll,’ so they make their journey through the crushed ice covered steps. Down to the basement den like bar. The music, most reminiscent of now than of any era of rock and roll. The four bodies I disappeared behind go straight to the bar and order pitchers and shots, it’s just another weekend night.
There’s an older man, and by older I mean, than I would be if I were there. He wriggles around the dance floor in a move reminiscent of the jitterbug but with a touch of the trance infused rave movement of the body. Three Asian girls sit around a table in their Sunday’s best watching him and in rhythmic bursts giggle collectively at his display. When Mark makes his way over to this school girl table and attempts to encourage one of these girls onto the dance floor, he remains posited there for the length of three songs. At the end of the third, one of the school girls feels confident enough to attempt a go round the dance floor, but returns shortly after two chorus’ and half a song. So the four bodies of my disappearance fill the dance floor as if there is nobody else.
The older man now sitting with the school girl crowd drinks heavily, he downs one as two more atomic sunrises sit before him as well as one more blue margarita. The night is clouded by the fuzzy consciousness of faded memory and what happens disappears into a moment that has now become history, even as it is still passing. Who will remember, certainly not those who have never disappeared.
As the sun rises, there’s the blur of consciousness still, the same consciousness that comes in the middle of the night when you wake shaken and have no idea where you are. Usually to get the body moving, I have two cigarettes and a beer, but we’re out of both at the moment so the first step is to the door, slip on some shoes and run around the block to the wanna be seven eleven that by virtue of not being foreign in this country actually has a friendlier feel. The only problem here is they don’t carry reds, so I a take a quick glance at their stock and notice that I’ve tried them all except for one, so that’s the one I want and I tell the clerk behind the counter. Another interesting conversation spoken in broken languages. It’s good we both know about pointing. I grab a couple of bottles of beer and drink one on the way to the counter. The clerk just smiles and points at the sixth bottle in my hand and only charges me for five.
I make my way back to the small space of the apartment and up three flights of steps. I leave my shoes at the door and slip on the sandals on my way onto the balcony and as I sit there drinking, covered in a cloud of smoke, I start thinking about alcohol, happiness, pounding drinks to forget consciousness and I smile. I realize, there’s another party today but again I won’t be there.