During his morning drive into work, he drove passed a building he surveyed once many years ago:
There was a set of stairs on one end of the building and a second set of stairs on the other side. There were long halls in between the stairs on the first and second floors. Large windows provided daylight for each staircase. He was told by the building manager to take the near set of stairs. As they walked up to the second floor, the stairway became increasingly scattered with bird shit. Then bird feathers. Then bird carcasses. Making his way down the carcass littered second floor hallway, he could see that many more pigeons, stuck inside the building, were at the far set of stairs. There must have been an open window somewhere, and they couldn’t find a way out. The reason he was told to go up the near set of stairs was that there was a large red hawk, also at the far set of stairs. The red hawk was feeding on the pigeons.
What would it be like, he thought, to be stuck somewhere, defenseless, where you could be eaten alive at any moment? You are left waiting and wondering, will today be the day?
~~~
Arriving at his parking space, a film crew is preparing a car that is hooked up to a truck with rigging and a camera on the back. The crew members are all around, quietly doing their individual tasks to get ready for the day of filming. He gets out of his car and asks to no one in particular:
‘How can I help?’
‘You would make the perfect extra as a man on his way to work. Would you be willing to help us with that?’
That is what he imagines to himself as he walks with his coffee and his briefcase to his office and his desk. He walks up the steps to the office door with his keys in hand, unlocks the door, enters, and the door closes behind him. And then it turns to black.
Over the blackness a voice speaks:
“He enters the office, where as soon as he sits down at his desk, he is already behind schedule with too much to do and not enough time to do it. Working on projects that he has no interest in whatsoever.”
~~~
Five hours later.
~~~
Blackness opens, with the office door, to a beautiful afternoon. He looks right and then left before descending the steps to the sidewalk and takes his usual lunchtime walk:
He walks in quiet solitude. He circumnavigates the perimeter of the small parks that flank the Washington Monument in Mount Vernon Place. His path creates a cross. He is seen walking away, and then slowly, from above. First from ten feet above, then from the rooftops, and then from above the central structure of the park. Finally, he is obscured by the trees and the buildings and then the view opens up to the sky and cityscape below and to the far-off horizon.
A piece of paper, worn, blown along by the wind, follows him from behind. He stops to pick it up. It is from out of a book, torn, with sentences underlined:
“I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart. I am, I am, I am.”
~~~
At the end of the day:
Daydreaming as he drives. He passes through an intersection and looks up quickly to check if the light was green as he passed. He then imagines what could have happened if the light was red:
A car crashes into his passenger door. The impact causes his body to be jerked to the side, slightly airborne. His arms and legs and head helplessly lagging behind his body, seat-belted in and being carried the way of the crashing car. Slow motion and silent. It must feel like you are floating in that brief moment beyond the laws of gravity.
He catches up with the traffic. With a song playing on his car radio, he looks out the car window and sees himself, small, indistinguishable, and distorted in the warped storefront’s glazing as he inchworms slowly home. The music playing is wide open, leaving space to be filled. There is enough space within the music for many things. Space for regret, maybe, or fear, if they exist. If it can be acknowledged that they exist. But they do not. Not after his conclusion, which he came to long before and possibly on a similar drive home. He is not meant for greatness. He has no grand purpose. He is not the hero in the movie. This is his life and, currently, it will have to be enough.
This is how his weeks go.
So, in the mornings before work, he parks his car at the far end of the block where the coffee shop is located, even if there are closer spots. Across the street from the coffee shop there is a promenade overlooking an idyllic body of water. A glass-like surface with small ripples turning reflections into imagination. The people using this promenade, jogging, walking their dog, sitting on benches enjoying the view; they seem without worry. When he walks back to his car, he crosses the street directly across from the coffee shop to the promenade. The half block along the water back to his car, for that short while, he too can gaze out and reflect as he walks.
