Intersections

            Evening to you, reader. Autumn seems to finally be setting in around here. Maybe it’s just the heavy cloudy veil in the sky and the drizzle that keeps prickling the ground, but to this point at least there’s not much in the way of classic fall crispness in the air. The air is damp like a pneumonia patient’s lung, the grass is damp and cloying, and the leaves that have begun to clutter on the ground seem somehow flat, desiccated, even embalmed. There’s a feeling of decay in the autumn this year, a chthonic, degenerate vector in the air, the cloying, nauseous tang of something gone bad. I usually love the autumn; something’s gone amiss, this year.

            Now, of course, if you talked to my neighbors, anyone on the street, in the city, anyone in the entire breadth of the fine Commonwealth of Kentucky—well, they’d say the weather’s gotten noticeably cooler of late and it’s been pretty cloudy and wet for a few days… but on the balance it’s not too bad. The long and the short of it, reader, is that it’s all in my head. The mind is its own place, you know. Maybe it was something I ate? Maybe I get stir-crazy every time I go a few days without seeing the sun? Who knows?

            I have another guess, reader; do stay if you’d like to hear about it.

            Well, I was out walking the dog this afternoon, thinking about oranges, when I came to the overpass that runs above the train tracks. Now, this is nothing unusual, far from it, this is the very essence of a daily occurrence. It struck me, however, that an overpass (although much like a bridge in many respects) is less like a bridge than like an intersection that… that, well, fails to intersect. This thought somehow troubled me, and so I stood leaning over the railing for a time, scrutinizing the linear streaks of rail, their crossties nearly black with dampness. The puppy, meanwhile, sniffed along the ground, happening to find a bit of pizza crust that she happily chomped down.

            I can’t tell you how long I stood there, reader. I can only say that my eyes seemed to become glass, my feet seemed to strike root in the concrete, and my hair seemed to crumble into sand, scattering like chalk. I looked about me, and time itself took flight. I could say, though it would be absurd, that for every second that passed for me, a thousand years seemed to flash by. I could say, though it would be foolish, that I saw the city around me grow into a great metropolis of millions of millions, that I saw the city grow and shrink like a beating heart. I could say, though it would be ridiculous, that I saw wars and plagues pass like insects in the night, and times of ferment pass like a drunken evening.

            I could say, though it would not be entirely true, that I saw the sun grow old, expand to devour the earth, and shrink to consume itself.

            As I stood there in the darkness, uncertain of the solidity or even of the reality of the ground beneath me, I felt, rather than saw, a deeper darkness behind me. Its presence was cold, yet it burned me throughout. I did not turn to see it, yet I knew its gestures. It did not speak, yet its thoughts were engraved in my vision.

            “Who are you?” I asked. And I knew who it was.

            “What do you want?” I asked. And I knew what it wanted.

            “What will the future bring?” I asked.

            And I knew it would not tell me.

            At that, I stood once again on the overpass, surveying the train tracks yet again. My heart was light, my thoughts were bright, and the happy puppy tugged impatiently at the leash. Without warning, I stumbled and fell over a rock on the sidewalk, unfortunately scraping my knee a bit.

            The sight of my own blood always makes me a little woozy. I think that’s what put me in such a funk, reader.