Turn up the music. Leave the television on. Drown out the murmurings and exclamations. There is no need to look out the window – I can hear well enough how it is going out there tonight. There is yelpings and accusations. Cries and shouts and an overspilling of negative emotions. The motorcycles roar, the dogs reach frenzied paroxyms of fear, couples fight and the night falls down solidly in sheets of lovely darkness.
I am not afraid of the dark, I love it’s corners and hiding places. It is safety and respite from those who seek to torture me in the daylight. Sundays are the only daylight day that I do not fear – nobody does anything on a Sunday, but beware Monday mornings when the busybodies and interferers come alive and and knock and ring and hassle and hurt. I hate Mondays with a passion.
I have got used to the city and its noises. The cars never stop. In return the rain does not seek to drive me insane tapping out hostile tattoos on tin rooves and tent tarps. Sirens and engines and chatter and the hustle of a city trying to pay the rent. Rent is exorbitant, so the city is loud about its business.
A couple outside half hug. She is partly holding up her lover. He is telling her loudly outside my window, how he is ‘fucked up….like really fucked up’. She agrees and keeps on holding on. She really should let go. Let him fall where he may. It is his own damn fault. She will be picking him up and holding him up as long as she allows him to drag her down.
Car horns beep. They agree with me.
The flowers sit silently growing on my window seat. I have tulips and miniature roses, and two plants unknown and beautifully rich in color, one showing deepest red flowers with long thin petals, the other with twee clusters of tiny orange blossoms. The cacti and bamboo reach for the skies. The rush of the traffic sounds like water. The sounds of cooking come from the kitchen. I am banned from cake for a while, my celiac disease is too bad right now. Instead I have latkes and roasted eggplant.
There is no rain tonight.
What a crying shame.