I

Fog rises in wisps from a field,

The sounds of night fading as the mantle of darkness lifts,

Time seems suspended… Waiting, anticipation of the great next,

Hanging heavy in the air.

Waves crash against a cliff, the steady rhythm of the surf mocking the stones,

Wearing them down… Imperceptibly.

The cliff as oblivious to its inevitable demise as it is to the slightly brightening sky.

A city street… Empty of life yet pregnant with possibility,

As the sky brightens.

The woman rolls over on the grate that warms her in her sleep,

Eyes and mind closed,

Warding off the coming sunrise as she unconsciously ignores any clearing

Of her mind.

A man holds the hand of his wife…

As he coaches her to breathe,

As she struggles to bring life into the world… As the sky brightens

Outside the hospital window.

A woman holds the hand of the man she has loved her entire life…

As she coaches him to lay still,

To avoid the alarm on the machine that pumps air into him,

As he struggles to remain in the world… As the sky brightens,

And his mind slips into darkness…

On An Ordinary Day…

On An Ordinary Day… Life is borne

                                           Life is lived

                                                  Life is lost…

All of this … on a single tick of that universal clock that begins and ends…

On An Ordinary Day…

                                                       II

The rising sun illuminates the empty corridors of the man’s soul,

Coffee cup in a death grip as he walks the filling streets.

Bitter heat filling his mind with agitated thoughts of the family he loses every day…

As he leaves them… To go to work… Only to return emptier than he started,

Not wondering, not caring… merely hiding from the sun as his life burns away

Daily, on his purposeful march towards death.

Lovers watch the sunrise caress their skin… bodies entwined…

Each caressing the other… Sensing, feeling, smiling at the memory of recent ecstasy.

Leaning over, she whispers words she means-at the moment… Her armor gone

Heart vulnerable as her body…

He repeats the words… Reveling in the drowsy certainty of sated passion

This morning begins the journey.

Dust rises from armored wheels on a mountain road.

Crunching earth beneath boots on a journey to what passes for home,

A night of searching… ends,

Sound… fear… pain… burning,

The girl… woman… mother… falls… watching herself lay on that road.

Curious, the leg that was once hers… pale… bloodied.

She grins at the sight as she lay there on the road…

Laughing at the morning, laughing at the pain, laughing at her life…

Flowing out like water… onto the dust of the that mountain road… 

On An Ordinary Day…

                                                     III

The hum becomes louder yet decreases in pitch as the steel and concrete monoliths empty… Streets coursing with the life’s blood of humanity flowing towards the patches of green, each cell that is a person seeking to connect to the earth by touch, by scent, by longing as noon arrives.

Those without escape, without recourse, consume… 

Add to themselves, trying to satisfy the hunger that cannot be slaked.

Fear… Emptiness… Regret… Each one attacked by the handful,

Taking in what feels right… Right now.

The Fear, Emptiness, and Regret mocking them as they return with a vengeance… on the scale and the mirror.

Cicada fill the air with sound… the buzz, the frantic ululation of insects baking in the sun.

The woman closes her eyes as she lounges, taking in the calming background music of the suburb in which she exists… 

Lunch eaten… 

The warmth of the alcohol flowing through her… adding to the heat of the noon sun.

She smiles as she swallows the last of the pills that will take her through the heat to the eternal cool… 

Stroking the scars on her wrists… hoping that this time, she won’t be found…

Until she has won.

A wailing bundle is handed to the man, his partner… lover… and wife smiling at the frightened look on his face.

He looks at the tiny creature in his arms, the boy… his son crying the fearful tears of new life, the child’s new soul longing for encouragement and comfort. 

The father feels the resonance with this small miracle before him and holds his son closely, opening his heart to his eventual replacement on Earth… unconsciously vowing to protect him from all harm.

The woman smiles at them, sighs, and closes her eyes, satisfied… knowing that life… and her family… continues and will… always,

As it is now and ever will be, on An Ordinary Day…

IV

Her head bobs as she forces her eyes open… staring,

At the screen whose numbers tell a story she has long now forgotten that she cares about.

Every word before her another privileged piece of the human condition, a life, a journey that to her are merely boxes to be ticked off, names to be crossed off her list as she looks at her watch and counts the minutes before she can go home.

Sweat rolls down the back of his neck, the helmet’s visor fogging up as he stands behind the wall of plastic. Looking up at the sun beating down on them, he wonders why police always wear black.

The rioters are coming, he can see that now, and his heart races as bottles arc overhead to explode in flames behind him.

The screams of his burning friends fill the air as the shielded phalanx breaks and he rushes towards the crowd.

He cannot see… all is red and hate.

He cannot hear… the blood pumping drowns out all sound.

Until he stands over the body of a woman who lies limp, rock in hand. He turns and coughs at the tear gas, looking once at the woman and back to his blood stained baton and uniform.

Not for the last time he wonders in the heat… why do police always wear black?

It was cloudy as he held she held the stem of the little puff-ball in front of her granddaughter.

“You know what to do!”, she said and the little girl’s peals of laughter filled her ears as bits of dandelion flew through the autumn afternoon, the little girl running around in circles chasing them.

Hand in hand they walked to the porch, the crunch of the fallen leaves underfoot, and the woman sat on the steps, her granddaughter on her lap, each building the memory of love and laughter and the softness of each other’s hands, in the perfect moment, of a perfect afternoon… on An Ordinary day.

V

The whine of the engines reaches a crescendo as she pulled back on the yoke, executing the right turn that took them out of the pattern, nose still pointed up towards the darkening sky.

The sounds of the cockpit… a concert of information, the song of technology that allows her soul to fly on these massive pair of wings.

She smiles at her co-pilot, all furrowed brow and concentration to her right… he doesn’t notice.

She feels in her heart, her life is here, as she turns towards the east, ever rising, climbing the heights with a view most will never see.

She flies on…

Finally, she brings her wings level, aimed properly towards the world that colonized the new, her heart calming as she settles in, the monotony of busywork… a proper afterglow to the glorious beginning, and in her heart, the promise of a glorious landing.

It was weird, the “zushz, zushz, zushz” of the blue shoe covers he wore over his sneakers on the not at all shiny floor of the OR corridor, he never notices the sound anymore.

The doors opened in front of him as he scanned the PACU for the patient.

He found her and walked to the foot of her bed and watched as the skilled hands of the nurses attached the dozens of wires and tubes.

“PACU,” he thought and grinned under his mask, “post anesthesia care unit is more descriptive for sure than what we used to call it.”

As he sat down at the dictation area he closed his eyes as he began to compose his thoughts before picking up the handset.

He looked at her again and shook his head, “no matter what I do… she isn’t gonna recover anyway”, he whispered.

A slight shake of his head and he was back in surgeon mode.

He quickly (almost unintelligibly) said his name and started: “the patient is a 46 year old Hispanic female who presented to the trauma service with multiple gun shot wounds, apparently an innocent bystander…” he shook his head and droned on…

The sky was ablaze in orange, sun at the horizon, its lower limb touching the crystal blue water, a warm summer breeze moving the red no-lifeguard flags back and forth lazily. Overhead, seagulls hung suspended on that breeze as they jockeyed for position then dove onto the beach hunting the day’s crop of discarded pretzels and french fries.

They walked the boardwalk slowly, hand in hand, watching the vendors close their umbrellas and wheel away their carts, listening to the gentle susurrus of the calm surf.

“This should last forever,” he said as they reached a bench and sat watching the evening unfold before them.

She looked at him and smiled, “yeah, it should,” she said picking up his hand and kissing it, “you know how it could?” She asked.

“And how’s that?” He asked absently turning from the evening tableau to look at her

She beamed and took a gold ring from her pocket, slipping it on his finger.

He looked surprised but smiled and took her in his arms, “Of course I will”, he said as he kissed her, the beginning of a life together that began in the evening of… an Ordinary Day.

VI

It was quiet…serene, the sounds of the city’s night muffled by the falling snow, the large flakes creating a monochromatic kaleidoscope in the bright halogen streetlights. He was calm as he watched the snow falling, covering his body… as his tired eyes fluttered once… then once again.

A part of him – a part he thought was long gone, drowned in the drink and the drugs, that kept him from feeling his pain – yeah, that part thought, for a brief instant, “I never thought freezing to death was so pleasant” … and he smiled as his soul left the pain forever far behind.

The smiles came easily as they watched from the door as their daughter rolled over and pulled the blanket with her. “Goodnight Mom… goodnight Mommy”, she whispered. They looked at each other, and momentarily quietly reveled in the life which was theirs to nurture.

“Good night baby girl,” you both whispered back as you close the room door.

All was well here in their home, tonight… at the end of this Ordinary Day.

His hair gleamed silver under the cap as she clutched him tightly, a scream of joy escaping her throat … unplanned.

The sounds of the airport terminal now forgotten.

It was eleven months and he was back… back to her, and he wouldn’t ever leave her again,

he’s aged out, can’t be deployed, she finally has him back!

Her mind was racing as she breathed him in, his scent the promise of the future always postponed but now hers.

The look in his eyes proved it.

She clutched at him, his heart raced, mind tamping down the reflex to run, hide, “put one quickly in her center of mass”… but no…

He loved her.

He was done, but what was he?

The flight didn’t help.

Too many people, too crowded, movement everywhere…

He holds her tight, a shield, a life preserver, and an anchor.

He is afraid.

Of everything, of everyone, of no one, and he clutches her as he trembles and looks at her with terror and tears in his eyes.

The night is quiet, sky clear, crickets and the occasional frog’s groan punctuate the tranquility of the empty field.

Idyllic, the world… right here and right now, is peaceful.

The darkness, a blanket covered by the early pearls of dew, as if

Re-setting the world after the end of and awaiting the beginning of

An Ordinary Day…