Limbo

Today in the taxi, driving a commercial real estate type from 43rd and Madison to 57th and Park, I said, “Would you prefer to go up Madison or Park?” He said, “It doesn’t matter…either way we’re fucked.”

And it was true when a black pier of birds burst from the building, like fulfillment. I, too, seek to weave a memory from foam. A black bottle opener and the blackest bottle, and the flow of liquids. You cannot know it; you can see it.

General “Beedle” Smith reported that in April 1945 when they liberated Buchenwald, he witnessed:

“General Eisenhower go to the opposite side of the road and vomit. From distance I saw Patton bend over, holding his head with one hand and his abdomen with the other. I too became sick.”

When the oncoming headlights are too bright, it is said you should look to the side at the lines on the road. You would stop yourself from being blinded, and stop yourself to imagine the road ahead, unstrung, and the rubber against it.