July 17, 2007

• the lonely new york night

   

   

   

  The lonely new york night begins with a glass of wine (or two), usually after a long new york week. Walking home from the stately vertical labyrinthe of office buildings, our step unknowingly quickens with anticipation what is to come. The click-click of heels on cement begins to complement the other night noises, horns occassionally blaring, sirens in the distance, the slow rush of traffic like an eternal river.

  The music we sway to is a mixture of newfound liberation and delirious lightness. Fatigue, tension, self-deprecation and anxiety disappear as a delicious opaque gauze is pulled over our consciousnesses, inflated suddenly to the invincible. The air around us is crisp in our nostrils, sharp and clean to the dulled senses.

  Home looms ahead, a haven for the ritual undressing. Have you ever watched a woman dress before a night such as this? Though layers are carefully placed one by one, it is actually an act of erasure. Foundation a shade lighter than skin erases facial planes and valleys, leaving only the trace outlines of a face to be hand-drawn later. High sweep of artificial cheekbones and artfully shadowed cheeks recreate what nature had neglected. And last but not least, dark liner and heavy mascara shield the earnestness of actual eyes, masking in one sweep every remnant of delicate human expression, leaving in its place only an outline, an idea - doll's eyes. She leaves the house a ghost - nothing more than the clothes she wears, and an idea.

  Away from the city lights we thread, from dark hole to dark hole, each one throbbing with the pulsing beat of empty-eyed youth. Scintillating city lights dim to red. We are lost in this ocean of anonymity, bumping against each other in the womb of the earth with a desperation that borders on desolation. Every face is a reflection, hollow cheeks, empty eyes, slack lips lost in strobelight snapshots. It is a canonical masquerade, this twilight rite of heady rhythm.

  Presently, the waltz begins with such a purposeful kinetic bump. What starts as an anonymous mass of mask and limb has a voice, a name. Often this name does not matter, not yet, for in this red world in the womb of the earth the bothersome nuances that define us as human are meaningless, purposely hidden and sanitized and simplified down to nothingness. We are comprised of a simple concept - a simple summation of our desires, our motivations, the consciousness pared down to the Id.

  The waltz continues from hallway to spacious room, laid out in pure minimalist style that puts Ikea to shame. Artfully placed mirrors counterpoint smooth panels of mahogany and oak. A flatscreen gleams emptily, its function purely show. The seemingly endless expanse of white hotel-grade sheets beckons at even the most diligent of souls.

  The waltz continues, no longer the throbbing headache of the club but the deeper udulation of the heartbeat. Can you imagine the freedom of two souls freed completely of the constraints we unknowingly consent to daily? Propiety, place, awareness, shame, all dissolving in the swirl of if wine, warmed wantonly to the temperature of human blood. The layers of clothing that hide our shame grow weak and loose, allowing the sudden infiltration of the evening air (admist a few bubbles of delirious giggle.)

   

   

   

  The lonely new york sky scintillates with the tempetuous daydreams of artificial stars, overwhemling in its complexity. It is not beautiful, this sky - only overwhelming. If there is a Creator who looks upon us he is surely on hiatus at this moment, for momentarily spreading across this sprawling metropolis is something as dark and vacuous as infinity. In this darkness we wander, collide, lose direction, and love (but love as rhythmic and unfeeling as strokes of an elliptical trainer...just as perfunctory!), until amidst the city lights, we drown.

   

   

   

  • 11:40 am
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