Creative: New York Day One

New York City. Santa Fe to Albuquerque to Dallas to New York. Exit row window. One of the hottest flights I’ve been on in years. The man next to me in a long sleeve hoodie, hood up and synched down tight, plus a down vest. A surgical mask around his chin. His mouth and nose exposed, telling me this man is a peculiar beast not yet abreast of science and procedure. I sleep, as I always do, and before long, the cylindrical bird arches its back and descends to the playfields below. Bridges and water and wastelands of New Jersey and beyond.

In one side and out the other. a gentle squeeze of human toothpaste. Colored tile and cops, and delivery vehicles. I study the drivers from the backseat of the Uber. Lost in their miniature worlds of glass and silence. For brief moments, they exist alone. A human microclimate of fake wood and plastic moulding. Inching to and from the prestige of place.

Dinner at a classic. Tight bar and waiters in black vests. The barback with a drink hidden up high on a small shelf. A sip between tasks before he returns to scanning the room. Sharp light over ice and across the encrusted ribs of clamshells. Red sauce, tiny forks, and the chewy relics of some bay, somewhere. The taste of the bottom of the sea.

One block back to the spot for the night. Streets lit from all angles. Pizza and gelato and E-bike bandits ripping red lights. Doormen and couches just inside the polished glass. Through the red door and into sheets and blankets and old times. Sleep comes fast and easy. Outside, New York continues to hum. Horns and shouts and desires just outside our reach. Tomorrow will be better, we think, as the world fades behind thin lids and dreams of green lasers and pulsing light.