n'est pas

this is long and windy so don't read it unless you are compelled to do so by powers beyond your control.

I guess it would be a half-hour ago by now, about a half-hour ago the token dispenser at the transit station nearest to my house was operating sub-par, from what I could gather it didn’t seem to have the dispensing portion of its functionality worked out yet, a flaw causing it to be the brunt of two white sneakers head-on flying almost and it rocked back and forth, full of change. I took a step nearer to inform mister skilled in pseudo-judo (there’s your band name, sir) that if he was going to behave like that well why didn’t he just jump the turnstile because clearly no one was standing watch. Tokens shaking inside a metal box is, besides the train itself, the loudest noise that can be made by things contained within this transit stop (barring any further research) and no one took notice, came running, turned a head, and I was going to let him in on my turnstile idea when a whole mess of coins fell through the slot and he won, tiny-vegas style, like when you hit exactly $20.00 on the gas pump and confetti is sent flying through some insignificant corner of your head.
About fifteen minutes ago I was reminded that the escalator closest to the closest exit was closed, everyone in the car was reminded and in the process of doubling-back someone behind me shouted "damn you Decatur!" She was behind me but was she looking skyward to ground level, to the recipient of said damnation out to Decatur and all its concrete? And if so, could that be considered “raging at the heavens?” I certainly hope so.
Transit is worth noting if the weather is nice and you are reading Nabakov, nobody wants to read about the same damp flier you memorized due to lack of worthwhile stimulation- meaning to say bring a damn book, note to self. (Unless, of course, the information on this flier serves an important purpose at some later point, though honestly does anything serve such a purpose and if so does anyone care enough to search back for the two that may or may not pair with some future two- both of whose parameters remain hopelessly vague? In regards to this errant beep beep beep show flier I would say no, and make a note that I think the members of beep beep beep are replicating- a phenomena which this band may or may not be aware of. For the time being I’m calling it "the carbona-effect", but only for the time being.) I’m thinking about starting, I’m wondering where to start.
Or if it even matters, no of course not, events recalled are just that- recalled and recalled, called and recalled, call-re-called-around looped and everything’s a loop, neat little loops, my memory is composed entirely of 1. cheerios or 2. trampoline somersaults in montage-slow motion. It may be that I am unwillingly throwing together breakfast cereal commercials, nothing more than generic clips pasted together in such a way as to move product. Having had the same golden grahams jingle in my head for 18 years I’d say such repercussions are likely, if not inevitable. But even this jingle and it’s bastard offspring slide neatly into the aforementioned loops and I start to think around the lines of it doesn’t matter where I start, no it really doesn’t because it’s all gonna be there provided that this named “there” is it’s intended destination. (The previous sentence falls somewhere between motion-sick logic and old country inspirational down home lemonade wisdom, either way it makes no sense yeah I’m aware.) Take CNN for example- or rather watch CNN for example- watch it for only 20 or maybe even 10 minutes and information starts being repeated. The same clips get played over and over and you wonder just how many more times you can tolerate watching some faceless stylist comb through saddam’s beard before marching the two blocks between you and the CNN Center and then the ten escalators between the center and the actual working news hub and maneuvering through countless production assistants before finding the one with the play-button happy finger and giving him a very stern look a look that says "I’m disappointed in you, Mark" and it all just sounds so tiring that you sit back and watch the clip. And you just take it. Because it’s news and that is what you are supposed to do when there is news.
Ok, then. Two years ago. It's two years ago to this day. People are starting to appear and I mean really appear like they were born to appear right there and then and what once was a mass of designer jeans, chuck taylors and irony, tattoos and a sea of black hair dye becomes individuals, living smoking individuals. Wait-
Two years ago is a ridiculous starting point. Good god, its two whole years. Synapses are misfiring at the very mention of such a task, scrap that idea before someone gets hurt and someone else says its friendly fire, says it loudly in the general direction of the rumor mill. Forget I said anything about two years.
Yesterday afternoon, about 30 hours ago, I was cleaning out the drawer to my bedside table, the what they call junk drawer and in the process found a past waiting to crush me into the second dimension, making me feel less like shit and more like the surface material that shit occasionally lands on, on top of which everyone else in the world is having a better time of it.
A week ago, around seven days and five hours ago, I was mid-conversation or maybe halfheartedly searching for a lost topic and definitely on my 10th if not more cigarette when my friend says: "He asks about you, when you aren’t there." And right there in the front-porch quiet of 5am a goddamn imaginary aftershock almost knocked me off the hammock. Everyone feels it when time moves as it does and in it’s ways but sometimes I can feel these pieces of time stopping, getting trapped in the spaces between the words of an otherwise inconsequential sentence.
"He asks about you, when you’re not there." Did you feel it?
But good god where to start on that one.