The Ordinary Times

Straight up and down, like 12 o’clock.

The freeway moved, then stopped, clogged by a mishap. It became something else, and then changed again. The hills were there, and then they weren’t hills at all but just the other side, the river plunging lower and lower.

A blade, a single blade, spanned two train cars’ length. Count how many – six, seven, eight, nine. How many are on the hills? How many are alive on the hills? Some churn slowly, quickly. Neighbors defy each other’s will, holding when it makes sense to let go. Is it their will, or are there brakes? Have you heard them? “Like a passing train that never does,” they say. How can something so big, so graceful, be anything but gentle?

There’s a town in a hole. A town downwind from a depot. There: a town on the river. It’s volleyball, it’s wrestling, it’s softball; not football. They try to compete, but they know not to push too hard.

Every home has a remote alert, a small, gray box with a stubby antenna. If the VX or the Sarin gets out from the depot (they’ve destroyed the Mustard), everyone will know. On New Year’s Eve there was nothing happening in town at all.

Few choices for commerce are unique to the town; most places are the same places that everywhere has. One is a diner with a bassinet in the entryway and strange photos of all of the staff above the cashier. One of the cooks wore an eye patch. One of the patrons talked loudly about Jesus being present, very present. One of the sports cards that came out of the trading-card machine was of an old man, kneeling.

A junk shop has old paintings, old cast-iron skillets and an old man who likes Juice Newton. The woman across the street at the Tienda de Ropas doesn’t know that man.