i felt like an island

I felt like an island on Saturday. When it's before ten in the morning on the weekend, time seems to crawl. When you're standing in the entry of the cafe down the street and waiting, I think it stops. The sign on the wall near the entrance claims "53 Maximum Occupancy" in faded letters. People crowd around the door, listening for their names, looking longingly at the coffee counter.

You can see everyone from the doorway - the elderly couple sharing pancakes and bacon with strong black coffee, college kids who couldn't sleep anymore for the headaches pushing migas around on their plates, the waitress with with the nose ring who's been on shift since 4am bustling between them all. The smell of breakfast makes it hard to wait for a seat. A young girl in pigtails lets her mother know that pancakes are the only thing that can cure her hunger at least four times before I'm led to my table. She interjects into her parents' conversation about Important Things, only to be shushed while the grownups talk. I think she just wanted to be a part of it.

freight elevator

The public elevators in this building are much like other public elevators. They're small and dimly lit, they've got mirrors on the back wall to hide away the idea that you're trapped in a small metal box, and they make an unintrusive "ding" sound right before they open. It's the freight elevator that I like.

The freight elevator is hidden around behind the others, closed off by a nondescript door. When you call it, you can hear the old machines groan to life behind the solid metal door that clanks open when the elevator arrives. It's lit by three bare florescent bulbs glowing behind wire cages that have begun to rust in place. If you look closely, you see a small hole in the corner of the ceiling, the pitch black of the elevator shaft peering in from behind the blades of a dull metal ventilation fan.

It shakes when it moves, it stutters to start and stop like some great weary beast of burden. It growls and complains as it secrets away janitors, dollies of plain brown packages and postal employees with electronic scanners, and smokers from the public eye. The walls inside are hung with heavy-duty black covers, patched with electrical tape and dotted with tears, to protect the surface beneath, but I'm not sure from what. Peeling back the shabby armor reveals graffiti, thin and worn scrawls in pen declaring past visitors. I added my name once, joining myself to the dozen or so who left their own traces. I imagine someone coming years later and seeing all the names in a different context, when the building is abandoned and broken down.

basement animals

The basement walls in my building are made of gray concrete. As they dried, they were held up by long wooden planks; you can still see the imprint of wood grain that lingered when the concrete hardened and the boards were pulled away. Years of wear have required patches of new, darker gray concrete to be applied to hide cracks and deformities. The patches hide the wood grain pattern and assume shapes that you recognize if you're down there smoking a cigarette and thinking.

An eagle with two heads soars on an updraft over a lion that roars up at him, standing on his hind legs and wishing that he, too, were flying. A man at a desk is working so hard that he isn't aware of a large, furry tarantula that is descending on him silently. There is a huge prehistoric lizard ponderously loping across a cold gray river. Florescent garage lights stand witness to the soundless parade, casting small shadows over the textured surface.

I wonder what they do when they close the carport door, when the building is locked and dark, when I am not there to see them.

good morning, horse

I had to fuss with the lock to get my key out of it, like always. It never seems to want to let go. Maybe it's caught on to my own reluctance to leave the house for the trek to work and is just trying to help me out. The weather has been warm and muggy since the rain stopped, and outside is a vibrant spectrum of greens buzzing with all sorts of life that seems just as confused as I am at the damp and relatively cool Texas summer.

Still groggy and grumpy, I walked down the sidewalk toward the parking lot. There's a little valley next to the walkway at the back of the complex that is covered in grass, sloping downward towards a drainage stream. The kind of place you'd have picnics if the drainage was a real stream and not stagnant runoff. Right there, partially obscured by the willow tree and not ten feet from me, was a horse. All the way there, in the back of my apartment complex, in the middle of Dallas. A horse.

I waved as I walked by, and he stood there calmly and regarded me from the shade. I had to hurry or I'd be late for work, so I didn't stop, though I'm almost convinced I never woke up at all.