All the ugly people be quiet!
--Will Smith the Fresh Prince on a Def Jam Tour, (circa 1980's)

Party People,



This night in the middle of a Metropolis busy because yellow headlights and red taillights shoot between the buildings, like they were the city's life-blood and the streets the veins and arteries, in the middle of a street busy because you are there and see the cars rushing by and hear the the susurrus of tires sliding on road under all the clattering voices and clanking of struck sewer gratings and are shouldered by unnoticing people rushing just as frenzied and anxious, someone steps off from the sidewalk.

Just a figure wearing a dark sweatshirt, hood over the head, and sweat pants, you can't tell if he is a he or she is a she. This person steps onto the street and a car approaches. The anonymous is made a shadow in between the headlights. The car swerves to avoid a hit. Long after the car passes its horn lingers and the sound slowly fades into the din of everything else. The figure keeps moving across, more cars passing honk.

This one, in dark fatigue, stands there in the middle of the street and is out of view for only a moment. A woman with a strange feathered hat has stepped in the way. It takes just that split second. When the woman takes her next step and the view is clear again, this person in the middle of the street is gone. Not on the other side. No where.

It could have been a daydream. You watch a lot of TV and you read enough books. You have good imagination. Later that night when you're home in bed laying awake for a moment you go over the things you have to do tomorrow. You hear your lover breath harder as she begins to dream next to you. Kiss her goodnight on the cheek. You close your eyes. The next day that small little moment transpired last evening will not even be a memory.

----------------------

The kid liked to bike to school in the morning because there were not too many people around. He biked to where things were a cacophony just hours ago. Now, just a handful of sleepy people in suites, overcoats and work dresses walking with attache cases swinging or purses clutched close to the ribs to get their morning coffee.

The kid barely slowed to see if there was oncoming traffic and rode on. He stood with his hands on the handles, more power for his pedalling. Eyes squint because of the cold, warm tears forming at the corners, his vision blurred a little. About the middle of the road his bike suddenly stopped moving and he was flipped tossed from the momentum and wound up on his back on the asphalt. Good thing he wore a helmet.

He lay there for a moment. The sky was grey and the air cooled his eyes. Someone on the sidewalk said something in surprise. But no one yet calling out to check if he was alright. No one come up to help him. Just the sky and the city towers reaching up in his periphery.

"What the hell."

When the kid stood, he pressed up from the ground and looked to see what his bike had caught on. A few feet behind him, his bike lay on the street and a small plant was there sprung from an open crack. Just a foot tall, it looked like the beginning of a tree.



"What the hell."

How would something like that spring from the ground, here, in the middle asphalt in the middle of a wide road, he didn't know. Someone should do something about it. He kicked at the plant and it didn't move, it's hard green stock stood strong. The leaf attached to the tiny point at the top just shivered as a slight breeze swept through the street. Real green.

The kid stood his bike up and wheeled it to the other side of the street before he mounted it again and went on his way to school. Just a small shock in the morning. No big deal.