Methodically Morning

Stepping out of the 71 degree conditioned air in the lobby as I move from the elevator to the exit, and out into the 51 degree morning chill that waits there to wage a full frontal assault on my exposed face, announces my entry into the line-up. It's cold. Not painfully cold, but cold enough that the pores on my cheeks open as wide as mouths that need feedin', inhaling much more than their share of said air that swirls and twists down my neck and simultaneously up past my untied shoes and ankle socks with each step, having achieved full infiltration in a matter of seconds. I'm awake now. It's 5:41am, but suddenly I'm very much awake, and acutely aware. There is a certain quiet calm that a cool morning possesses that gives it an eerie, surreal feel. But I've got it virtually all to myself and I like it.

I step off the curb, giving only a cursory glance back over my left shoulder where the would-be traffic, would be, had it been afternoon, perhaps a quarter of three. The guy with the hoody like mine is little cause for alarm, advancing scarcely as fast as sunlight at this hour, and with a pronounced limp. Nevermind that there are three others just like him wandering aimlessly at this hour across the street, through the vacant parking lot and down the block, respectively. I'm not worried about them, and they're not worried about me. Not worried, but aware. Acutely aware. Aware enough to have my hands swinging at my sides, not nestled in cozy, cotton, hooded-sweatshirt pockets.

A ray of light from an adjacent street lamp catches the surface of a bottle partially concealed in a brown bag, set in the recessed doorway to a building I come upon, just before the corner and shines like fire in my eyes. My eyes, that were at once looking at everything and nothing at all, fixed their gaze on the exposed, wide mouth of the bottle, cap long since gone A.W.O.L., followed the threading down the neck to the label.

Dark, maybe red, gold crowned...

Old..at base of long, fat neck

40...across barrel-chest...

Lightly malted, now just well past fermented, and still quite obscured. Stench stinging nose through cold nostrils, jolting body and mind back to fast from super slo-mo. How slow? It's a good thing my ears defied that memo, cutting back on after the frozen sequence of events, hearing footsteps, but only my own. But how slow? Turtle slow? No, slower. Not exactly paint-drying slow but black trench-coated Keanu as Neo slow. So slow as to step outside the slowness of the slow and even gain a new vantage point on slow.

The silence is deafening, but it's wonderful. Chaos is still asleep. I seem to have arrived just in time for the urban street-corner sound check. Hum street light. Rattle and sway, hanging metal parking-lot sign. Rustle oak tree leaves. Swish street sweeper, two blocks away. Listen. Escucha la! Where was the moon that should shine down from high on this metropolis? Maybe that guy riding the bike like Ms. Gulch around the tornado in Wizard of Oz stole it. No, wait...this just in! It's the marine layer claiming responsibility like Hamas for the lunar abduction. What is he doing riding that bike at this hour anyway? Where is he going? I know he's cold.

I'll be at the gym soon. Starbucks is already alive and kickin'. Wait a minute? Somebody else has arrived late for the soundcheck. Rumbling deep down from within, my stomach growls and even seems to groan. Won't be tending to this for a few hours yet. Ahhhhhhhhh! Light. Heat. Real-time. Weights. Stretching. Basketball. Yoga. Showers. Forget clothes in locker room. Free Jamba Juice.

There but by the grace of God go I. Mourning the migration of morning until the next morning.