Your Sunday Sip #4

I’d arrived by train just before sunset, one of those antiquated trains that jerks from side to side like a wild horse and has a wire rack for an overhead luggage compartment, leading you to spend possibly the last hour of your life wondering whether you will die by train wreck or by a boulder disguised as a backpack falling on your head. The station was surprisingly modern: an air-conditioned lobby with a sparkling, grey and white speckled floor, an escalator that softly buzzed like a bee, an elevator that rose and fell swiftly like the tide, self-service train ticket machines that flashed with neon yellow and green lights, giving an impression of a casino slot machine. With a jet of cold air from the automatic doors, I stepped out of the station and into the noon heat, a wave of warmth rushing through my body, as if I had just opened an oven. Suddenly I was on that old train again, my wrist cranking the saturation down on the world around me until it could twist no more, my violet veil replaced by parchment paper, coating everything in a grainy layer of grey like the sea beyond.

With a ding of my glass slippers, I began walking toward my carriage. The first two steps had fallen off (death by jumping children, I’d been told). The driver, his brows cinched and his lips slightly parted, looked like he had just watched a portal open its mouth and spit me out in front of him. He opened his palm before me to help me on, brutally tanned by the scorching sun and rough like sandpaper. Pink and white splotches of chewing gum and sunscreen, scratches of black pen, windows lathered in a thick layer of salt adorned the sides of the bus. It seemed like someone had robbed a classroom of its plastic grey chairs and dragged them onto the bus, holding each one in place with a metal tube that attached to the floor. The center of the seat had a thin felt cushion resembling the grey rugs covered in colorful abstract shapes that could be found encrusted with tears, mucus, and eraser shavings at a pre-school. I sat on the edge of my seat, my knees bumping against the seat in front of me, the backs of my thighs itching from my sweat droplets mixing with the felt seat underneath me, like morning dew on grass. The sea blended with the sky at the horizon in a smooth stroke of greyish purple and for miles down this two-way street, the only bright colors I saw through the cloudy window came from a patch of turquoise and yellow umbrellas on the beach; I had the sensation of being in Wonderland, the umbrellas suddenly springing up out of the ground like giant mushrooms. The feeling was short-lived, as the blur of dust quickly returned along with the feeling of being trapped in a vacuum filter, sending my mind inward again.

With a slipper on the verge of cracking on the asphalt, I waited for the bus to pass by in front of me, deafened by the starting engine, rumbling like thunder. I lifted my gaze and when the thick, grey cloud it left in its wake finally subsided, I saw it. A soft, ashy pink, it stuck out like a pig standing in a dirt pen, illuminated by a lamppost at the end of the street. It was three stories tall, with three white balconies stacked on top of each other like dominoes and a single entrance door with a smooth, white ceramic handle. The sharp scent of basil flooded my nose, trailing down from the highest balcony. I stood directly in front of the balconies, watching every movement reflected in the glass sliding door, every forearm pinned back, every wrist gone limp, every jaw tilted up, every neck curved down, every nose nestled in. The echo of muffled breathing and tortured whispering reverberated off the walls and burned through my ears.

I stared up at the second story apartment long enough that the lights around me began to shut off one by one, a car horn that set off being the only thing making me blink. I rubbed the inner corners of my eyes with my thumb and middle finger, passing the palm of my hand down my face, stopping at the base of my damp neck. Slow, inebriated steps took me to that patch of soil inches from the entrance door, muscle memory forcing my eyes and knees to the ground. I loosed a long, labored breath and, with my delicate, gloved hands, I began to dig.