Billboard from IKEA. Clouds like cobblestones against an inky sky. A train passes; we pick up speed, underground again, lights reflecting against windows. So few people. Behind me now. I feel him behind me now.
It’s late. White shirts, blank faces, no babies or commuters. More white shirts. Good, I think he’s leaving. My black hair, my black shirt. I don’t fit.
* * *
Another train passes. Still a long way, not enough people.
Doors open. Doors close. It’s summer and the city wears white. Sweat and white. Smells and white. Now past Civic Center, past another station I cannot read, then another, and above ground again, lights of the highway beneath me. Platforms, orange signs, putty-colored concrete, stations, more white shirts. Is he there again?
* * *
Airport. The safety of crowds. Escalator, arrivals board, cell phone, arrivals board again. How many times – these same turnstyles, automatic doors, arrival boards, departure boards, airports?
Delayed, dammit.
The bar, a glass of wine, eight dollars. Fucking bandits.
* * *
A group of pasty-faced men in candy-colored shirts glance my way. Polo shirts with the proper emblem. Chatting, laughing. I’m in no hurry, but I sip quickly, finish quickly, and leave. I’d rather wander through the gift shops, to the newsstand, past Wendy’s, past Seattle Coffee, past the currency counters, the bad art.
* * *
Escalator, now watching. Faces blur, luggage blurs, crowds in fits and starts and stops. What looks like a team rising in yellow shirts, speaking a language I cannot recognize. Men embracing. Strangers appearing, clustering, dispersing. One I recognize. Stranger. Not a stranger.
* * *
Return: tap tapping to take my dollars from a laminate card. Escalator, trains, white shirts, yellow shirts. Languages I don’t understand.
“This is shit. Even for the morning and my eyes swollen shut.” I shuffle around a little, under the comforter. Reach for the coffee. It’s not helping.
“Why are intelligent people so self-deprecating?” he asks.
“It’s what we do,” I reply.
More damn yellow shirts. Red wine. Two bottles.
Behind me.
* * *
Recyclable materials. Renewable. Biodegradable. I read that once. Balsa wood and airplane wings. Lacquer cabinets reflecting yellow shirts, now a crowd of cabinets and steel, concrete and balsa wood, with airplane wings and legs behind me.
Squirrels scampering on the roof. Arms around me. Chest behind me. Smooth. Warm. Teasing through a terrain of tightening thighs. Sleep, I want to sleep. I want to sleep. I cannot scream or sleep.
* * *
“What wood are the tables at IKEA?”
He’s startled. One leg pulls back. Another moves in again.
“Something light – like ash?”
“Pine maybe. Hell, balsa wood, like a toy airplane.”
He’s laughing. White shirt on the foot of the bed. Yellow shirt on the foot of the bed. Shirts beneath shirts? Legs behind me, rustling under the covers. IKEA billboard on the right. Clouds like cobblestones. Inky sky. Red wine.
Squirrels on the roof.
© D A Wolf
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