Waking and Sleeping

Swinging. Dangling. It spins out of sight before passing by again.

I wake. Eat. Go to work. Return. Eat. Sleep. It’s still there. Swinging back and forth. I don’t know it. Is it the hanging from the other morning? The swinging crane from the path to work? No. A pale, white arm holds onto it.

Wake. Eat. Work. Eat. Sleep.

Wake. Eat. Work. Eat. Sleep.

Wake. It’s still there. Eat. Why won’t it go away? It’s always there. Swinging past my gaze even as I rise up the great steel buildings. Into the grey clouds I go. Work. Clatter clatter, tick tick, clatter clatter. It swings again. Return. The neon at street level doesn’t drown it out. Eat. Sleep.

Wake. Eat. Work. Eat. Sleep.

Wake. Eat. Work. Return. No. Not today. Beyond the steel and grey I go. To find other greys. Out to the fleas where the old greys sit and sell all day. The old greys know about things. Maybe they know this thing.

Among them I go. It’s heavy, I tell them. Each swing makes it heavier. Thick. With a latch. Is there something inside it? Heavy and large but held in a hand. No. Swinging from the hand.

One old grey knows it. A “locked” she calls it. Locked. That must be right. The locked keeps its meaning from me, just as it should. People used to keep secrets in them. Secrets. Locked secrets.

Return. Can’t eat. Almost sleep.

Rise. Work. Return. Sleep. It swings past. Taunting. Mocking.

Wake. Work. Clatter clatter. It doesn’t stop. The clattering. The swinging. It won’t leave me alone. Do I want to know? Would it leave me be then? Eat. Sleep. Wake. Eat. Work. Eat. Sleep. Wake. Eat. Work. Eat. Sleep. Wake. Eat. Work. Eat. Sleep. Wake. Eat. Work. Eat. Sleep.

Back to the fleas. Back to answers. I describe it, though it can’t be described. There’s a point and the sides go up smooth from it. Then they curve towards each other like a pair of young breasts, only to fall into another point. The grey from before doesn’t know it. The oldest of them all says nothing of it. The locked holds its own secrets. Not even its shape can escape its hold.

No use. None. Back towards the forest of steel. Ruins on the path. A house looms, curled with smoke and draped in cloth. I visit. The hosts help me forget. The smoke erases my thoughts. I sleep.

The swinging stops. It just hangs there, strangled by the pale hand. The metal face cracks.

Wake. Eat. Work. Eat. Sleep.

Wake. Eat. Work. Eat. Sleep.

Wake. Eat. Work. Eat. Sleep.

It’s still dangling. Waiting. But the swinging has stopped. Even the dangling begins to fade.

Wake. Eat. Work. Eat. Sleep.

Wake. Can’t eat. Body won’t work. The clatter clatter too loud, too rattling. Down to the neon streets. Beyond the grey towards the fleas. Or perhaps the house of cloth and smoke. There’s rubble out here. The old stones that no one wanted. An alley catches my eye. The grey paint streaked with red. The red shape is pierced with arrows, blood flowing from it, gushing almost to the ground. Withered grass laps at the edges of the shattered wall. I look at the shape. I remember.

Mother called it a heart. Even though hearts look nothing like it. But it was a heart. It spoke dreams of love, safety, comfort. Love. The swinging starts again. She was holding the locked, its heart-shaped face still unblemished. Just tarnished. Old. Great-grandmother had bought it. Sealed away a picture of her baby. The baby she loved. Mother loved that locked like it was that baby.

My eye sees what was. The wall behind mother shatters. The dust never seems to settle. Screams. Chalk to choke on. Stuck. Trapped. Locked between the wall and the ground. I remember now. Gazing from beneath the stone, too trapped to move. The smell of blood, the eventual stench of rot. That pale arm jutting out from rubble. Stuck before my eyes. The locked still caught up in the hand. Swinging with the shifting winds. Dangling in the silence. Its tarnished metal face cracked. Not awake. Not asleep. No eating. No working. Just the locked. A reminder of a world that had broken before memory could recall.

The bleeding heart on this other wall bores into my eyes. Accusing. Taunting. In my eyes, as if asleep, the blood pools over and floods out to engulf me. But it doesn’t. The wreckage about is as unchanged as every day. Beyond is the fleas. But back behind there are lights and tall steel to drown out that which was.

But how can there be an after when there was never a before? When there is only today? I retreat from the wall. I gaze to the grey beyond. To the fleas and further. There, the greys hold on, thinking to resurrect both before and after. Pretend that after can mean something. I return my gaze to where I came from. Back to today. To the steel, the lights, to other greys. One last time, it swings.

There are other smoke houses. Many drenched in neon light. Others high upon the steel. High enough that even grey clouds cannot reach them. I turn from smoke and fleas to steel and neon. I leave my locked there in the rubble. It crashes to the ground as the pale arm finally gives way. Heavy. Thud. Back to steel. Back to today.

Return. Eat. Sleep. Forget.