Author: Michael Angelo

Sparrows drinking water cooled by night hours and shining with gasoline runoff. A pothole gathering for the tired merry, grateful to have found a potion to ease the aching of their flappings. How sweet and small, ticklish with purity, are these sparrows lapping, humble and guttural with desperation. Cars blare, dispersing these delicate aspirations, but they soon again flock and round the jagged crater. Such rich vibrant water, this rainbow runoff of death.  

In the lounge room, hanging, was an air of bitterness and exhaustion. Long hours and unsatisfied desires pressed heavily against his coworkers’ hearts. A pool table with scattered billiard balls collected dust in the center of the room. Phones—only phones hummed. He couldn’t make out the specific sounds, but their muted noises were enough, it seemed, to pull the sleepers out of their shells. One told a joke, pointing at the bright black rectangle, and another faintly smiled. This was enough, he knew. To get them through the day, this was enough.

It was night, he stood by the traffic pole, just a few steps from his apartment. The weight of the day tugged at the nerves of his shoulders causing his back to round and ache. He can drag himself home right now, discard his body onto the bed, but he lingers, a faint dot in a winter wasteland, a cigarette end on the corner of a street. His lungs take in the black ice air, holding it. His heart beats; time is frozen. Then out comes the mist. It glimmers and disappears into the sky like stars behind streetlamps.