Colson Whitehead - The Colossus of New York

PECK GOOD-BYES to loved ones. You don’t want to know what goes on in your apartment when you’re not around. Before he crosses the threshold he must recite the manifesto that makes him steel. The door clicks locked behind and then outside into cold morning. The wind is a harsh critic, renowned for sardonic turn-of-phrase, but for once it is nice to be free of politeness, to receive the world without sugar coating. That Today Is the First Day of the Rest of Your Life crap. Outside objects are snug in a white coat. Button the top button you save for emergencies, throw fists into pockets. The snow is already shamed and grimed: five minutes is all it takes for this city to break you. Canines add pigment to piles, rescuing snowballs within from mittened hands. As it melts, snow will disinter dog shit, yet no archaeologists rush to catalogue. Fleas of salt scare away snow. Maintenance men shovel snow from walkways to shoo away lawsuits. Along buildings and curbs, herded by shovels and wind, the snow huddles together for warmth. Everybody stick together. We have little else but safety in numbers.

A MOTLEY CREW waits for transportation. Leave the house fifteen minutes later or earlier and join a different cast of characters. This is a whole new troupe with their strange repertoire. Time it right to see your secret crush at the bus stop. Moved away two weeks ago without telling you but keep the fire burning, my faithful. Forget something upstairs and make the calculation. Bitter coalition of the workbound. They hoist the flags of their native countries. Just an hour into her day she sags, already defeated. Frozen eyeglasses fog. Roll past landmarks, we have private landmarks everyone can see. Seeing the particular awning through the bus window that announces he is almost there. Can you make it to the door in time. Pardon me, excuse me, where’s the fire. He has timed this route down to the second and today they are whole minutes off and everything is awry.

A PATH in the snow. Following in footsteps makes it easy as we retrace each other. No songs or statues for the early pioneers except their footprints. Every uneven step reacquaints you with the hazards of citizenship. So morning becomes required reading, a manual of struggle against odds. The frozen-to-death wait for someone to notice. They walk past him, seeing or not seeing, ignoring or indifferent. Avoid slush and its intimations. Forces work against you to melt your resolve into slush. Put your worst foot forward. As if you were not already wide awake and well shocked. Melting snow drips off awnings. No snow on street grates. Such abominable heat from below, what wouldn’t melt. The superstitious and the merely wary avoid walking on the steel doors that speak of the underworld. Gossip tells of people who have fallen into the unseen below. Goblins, hobgoblins, the homeless. Steel rattles under her brave treads and warns. Mornings will kill you with their trapdoors.

SKIRTS ARUFFLE, hats launch, eyes grit up under the effects of this wind tunnel. Things are set fleeing. Hands pat down. Determination sets. This wind will mug you of everything, make you look ridiculous as you try to maintain. It’s these tall buildings and their architectural tricks. Shade in summer, cruelty in winter and truth be told it is this season they savor. Bang fingers against thighs to beat warmth into them, give up on ears. Note to self: Get Gloves. Vendors of papers and muffins haunt their staked-out corners. The same greetings to each customer. Remembering how you like your bagel, anointing you a regular with privileges. I like it black. Gooey surprises at the bottom of the coffee cup, dunes of undissolved sugar. His entire shipment of coffee lids is defective, irritating customers one by one. Two drops of java on his shirt is enough to make the day unsalvageable. Pulses quicken, percolating consciousness. Not until the third cup will he be human. Drag knuckles until then.

HEADLINES TRY to get under your skin and cheap ink on top of it. Wrassle and grapple newspapers. If only he knew the proper way to fold a newspaper on public transportation. If only my robot double were working, I’d send him to the office in my place. They like him better anyway. Over that stranger’s shoulder, a writer of horoscopes is an intimate friend. He looks like an idiot in this suit, but it’s the only one he owns and he can mask his too short sleeves by magic-show posture. Too big for these pants and considering that popular weight-loss program. At her bulging waistband the zipper tab stands at attention. Just now noticing the dry cleaner’s sabotage and devising ways to hide this treachery through the long day. Little things like that ruin promotions. It popped up on her cheek overnight and now no one will look her in the eye all day. Notice your first wrinkle, it made you late in front of the bathroom sink. No time to buy the advertised creams. First it snows and now this personal frost to consider. Forget what calendars say — it is these unimpeachable signs that tell us when a new season is upon us.

LAST NIGHT hangs heavy in the morning sky, weather that forecasters cannot describe for lack of proper instrumentation. Try to interpret last night’s passion. Try to make sense of last night — this time we will make this relationship work despite precedent. The only scholar in the discipline called yourself, never mentored, sans colleagues. Her smell still on him. After work and before sleep you let your true self out for a few hours and now you must pay for it. What were their names and what did it mean. Such is the reach of happy hour and its deceptively long hands. Someone probably deserves an apology. You never made it home. Maybe no one will notice she is wearing the same clothes. No one comments on the strange marks on his neck and when he gets home he will curse each of his coworkers for saying nothing. What will you share around the hypothetical water cooler or that solid coffee station. If you don’t plan ahead, who will you be: just another idiot holding a paper cup. Hung over from spirits. How do I smell and is this evil coming out of my pores. Discreetly sniff yourself. All of them have things waiting to come out through their skins. Unmetabolized inadequacy, dread, hope, although no one has told them that this last item has no scent.

SOLDIER ON. Pass the night shift on their way home. They have already seen the new situation on the front but cannot describe, lest you run back to bunker of home. Let us not neglect the children, for they also brave this minefield. They have smaller feet but are not exempt from disaster. Mittens clipped to sleeves. Bent bus passes brandished. Hide a toy in your pocket. He’s not supposed to take it to school, but who can dispute the power of cereal box talismans. Instructing kids in the workaday world through elementary threats. If they knew it will always be like this, they would revolt, go back to sleep where they stand, fall to the floor on buses, topple onto sidewalks. The only sane response, really.

PLACES, EVERYONE. Keep this machine up and running. Deliver and pick up. Every day a down payment. Get busy in the fine print of this contract while there is still time. Practice inflections for the big proposal. Devise busywork for the intern. Cram for the big test. After all that fear, the boss won’t be in today, the teacher is sick, and instead of what we expected, we have gullible substitutes. This fact summoning from reluctant lips the first smile of the day. All that hustle was for naught you think, but in fact it was down payment. One after the other the long days stretch ahead until the day you decide. Not today. Maybe tomorrow. Take five seconds to collect yourself starting now. Then back to work everybody and I mean it.