The streets, oiled with watered down dreams, wait to bear the loads of slapping feet or rolling rubber. Manholes to another world rust in the rain, walked over, never opened. The crust of the earth encased in steel framework the world over, locked and locked again, heavy upon itself, of itself. And who speaks under the drone of the train cars? Who mumbles through the leaves of a forest aflame with autumn? What words escape those lips that are not heard? What tired thoughts trudge through the minds of earthy souls, scraping to find buried treasure and coming away again and again with handfuls of soil? And what thoughts, fleeing forever the conscious brain, are kept in the oak trunks of nightmares and secret places of sleep and fog? And what feelings lie beneath those thoughts, the ragged walkers of plains and deserts who find no home to inhabit and to become; what sleeping giants rest untouched even in the death throes of a drowning unconsciousness? There is too much here. Streetlights spread a film of fire on the town below, and somewhere inside, nailed to his adversities, stands a man. The night his favorite lamp post went out forever, he was standing on that street corner under his favorite lamp post. He was wearing his only trench coat. It was ugly, brown, covered with stains and burns. The edges of the bottom and the ends of the sleeves were tattered and the invisible sinew of string drifted on the tides of the air.

It had begun to rain again and he wanted to do something he couldn’t remember. He was extremely well dressed, under his trench coat. He wanted someone to see but he did not want to go inside and he did not want to ruin his suit. He couldn’t remember why he had dressed so well for tonight. He may have wanted to go into town, tonight, and see it alive and bustling. But he had ended up here again. Under his favorite lamp post, at the street corner, his polished black shoes accumulating grime from the tiny rivers that swam under his feet on the sidewalk, the cracked lip of the curb framing the shining, textured black between this side and the other. Only a few people came by here. He usually wanted to say hello. He usually did not say hello. He thought maybe he would meet someone here who liked lamp posts and liked standing. He reasoned, all the people in the world who liked standing must be too busy standing in different places to ever meet anywhere. But it was possible.

The light above him flickered, and went out. Where now? Who? The corner must be somewhere close by. His eyes did what little they could and soon he could see a dim outline of his surroundings. There were faint reflections of orange carried inside the heavy raindrops, and sinking in the streams that flowed into the storm drains. Why so tired, aching? He would have moved to another light. A lamp post that was still working. But this one was his favorite. It had always been his favorite. The water pooled on the brim of his hat and dripped off onto the brick sidewalk below. He could hear it, but it was difficult to see. He reached out. Yes, the pole that held aloft his favorite source of light was still there. He was so happy to feel it. He tried to smile, and even let out a strangled laugh into the dark. It was forced and it made him feel terrible, to force something like that. The water chilled him. Was it getting through the coat? He couldn’t tell, but it was cold, and he would go inside but he couldn’t leave his favorite street light. Not like this. He waited.

He saw a few shapes walking on the other side of the street. He wondered what sort of people they were. They must be good people, strong people. Out here in the rain like this. He wanted to tell them this because they might not know it. He opened his mouth to call over to them. He closed his mouth. He watched them turn the corner and walk further and further away from him. He could see their silhouettes now against the light coming from the next block down. It was two men, and three ladies. He liked the lady on the left. She seemed like a very nice lady. He knew he could spend the rest of his life with her. He knew. He smiled. His eyes felt choked from underneath by the strange shifting of skin. He removed the smile. He would tell her, the next time she walked by. Because she might not know just how perfect they were for each other, and she certainly did not know how well he would treat her, and how he would cook her breakfast and find a good job and bring her home flowers every day. They would be so happy, and she needed to know. He would tell her, the next time she came past.

His favorite streetlight came back on. The rain was suddenly visible around him as cool, thin lines of flame. It made him feel something to see it. It did not make him happy. But it was good to look at, and it made him feel something that he liked to feel, but in the end it seemed only to make him sink further into himself. Maybe he was drowning but it never seemed to matter. Not here. Not under his favorite street light.

He wanted to sleep but it was too early to go home. He had just been home and he had needed to leave and go somewhere, so he had. And he had ended up at the street corner, watching, like last time, and maybe the time before. They all seemed the same. He couldn’t go home, not when he had just left from home. But he wanted to sleep. He wanted to sleep for a very long time, and wake up just as the sunlight was creeping through his window, new sunlight this time. How would it be new? Maybe a different color, maybe it would be from a different direction, maybe it would feel like something. Maybe it would be not just warm but soft and embracing like a towel or a blanket, and it would carry him away. But the morning would be the same, he knew. The morning would come and it would dry up all the rainwater, and the grass would be greener and longer but the grass would not know it. The morning would be so familiar. He wanted to laugh at all of this but instead he could feel the laughter outside of him laughing at his laughter, so he held it back.

Someone was walking up from behind him. He collected his thoughts––a simple task, being unable to remember them exactly––and waited. He wondered how he would look to this person. Maybe not so good. But that didn’t matter. He would be kind and everyone can recognize kindness. Every single person.

The footsteps grew in volume. They sounded urgent, strained. You can learn a lot about someone, thought the man in the trench coat, by listening to their footsteps. Whoever was approaching had a destination. He probably did not want to be in the rain. He probably had an umbrella. Maybe he was going home to his wife and children. Maybe he was going to say his good byes to a friend. Maybe he was looking for a place to forget his friends and his wife and children. Or maybe he was alone. Of course he was alone. When people are alone they invent destinations. A workplace. A house. A tree. A lamp post. He looked up at his favorite lamp post. It was shining so brightly. He loved it more than himself. There were insects gathered on the warm glass, walking around each other in ambling circles, huddled under the steel rim, trying to escape the rain. He knew how they felt. He mouthed the words to them. They wouldn’t hear, and if they did hear they wouldn’t understand, and if they understood they wouldn’t be able to reply, and if they could reply they wouldn’t have anything to say. Too much distance. But enough light. And plenty of water. And so much time. Rain slipped off his face, pooling and streaming, forming a map of crags, rivers, swamps, and huge empty spaces.

The footsteps were dying away. Off to one side, now. Whoever it was had turned at the corner and walked behind him. He wondered where that traveller was going. He knew the answer. Somewhere else. The only destination of people and water and light. To move was to live. So what was he, standing still and quiet at the corner? Weighed down with too much love, too much sentiment. There is too much here. And it would cause no problems, if he could only keep himself from stopping to feel it all. Stop only when you need to sleep, that would be his advice, if someone came by and asked him for advice. Stopping is letting time catch up to you and fill you up inside. But how could it fill him up, when it has no substance? Was there a shell? Maybe a shell of emotion, or of logical thought, or flesh. Flesh, so soft and yielding. And so strong. So resistant. So ugly and unforgiving and losing all the time. But strong.

The lamp post went out. He prayed to the shadows that the traveller would make it home safely until it came back on. When it did he looked at the streets. They had no names. The men who built them had no names. The energy they wielded had no purpose. So it found a destination. A street. Make a street. That’s where we’ll go, into a street. The lamp post flickered. And when that street is built more people will have more ways to reach more destinations, so that they can move, and keep everything they are safely behind them, miles away, glimmering phantoms of time that cannot be summoned, as they walk forward. The lamp post flickered twice more. Ever forward, splintering each new moment into ringing shards with eyes and ears and grinding it all down and melting it with the fire of their emotion to make glass, hot and clean. And the rising steam as they even out its temperature drifts up to the sky and joins the clouds and becomes rain, thick rain. The lamp post went out. And through the glass they see it all again, just the same, the same as it was, but now if their vision is tenderly refocused, they see a reflection scowling and laughing and it stings like a red iron to the heart, so that steam of blood leaks out their ears and poisons the air. The lamp post came on again. Dimmer now, the glass chipping and falling apart, and a new moment is forged by the grand illusion, each one different, but always familiar and smooth and nothing new. The lamp post was dying. Its cold iron, crying with tears loaned by the heavy black sky, suddenly clutched his crumbling fingers. The liquid ran down his arm, into the coat through the narrow sleeve, all the way to his clenched chest. And falling is all that is known, until all is given up and it feels like flying, or dreaming, or nothing at all. And so beautiful. So much color and texture and power. Too much. Too much here. The weight is crushing. The weight is building. One grain of sand at a time the load becomes heavier, one song at a time the ears grow deaf, one sight at a time the eyes grow blind. The weight is becoming solid, gaining substance, gaining physical presence, like a ghost brought forth out of a tribal fire it makes itself known, makes itself alive and visible and it howls like an animal and it howls like it is dying but it is not dying it is born it is living now and more comes into it the smoke from the fire is given shape it is defined it becomes straight and hard and the friction sparks and the shapes fill the heads of the observers who applaud and laugh like it is nothing and soon they see what is happening it is an arrow from the dark end of the room it is making something it is becoming something manmade something physical something dense something black and tall and painful and endless. A road, a path, a fence, a staircase, a lighthouse, a door.

The lamp post went out. His hand left the metal and swung limp at his side. He could not see, and he was stunned by the sudden darkness, and afraid of how comforting it was. Dust was washed off the buildings a piece at a time by the falling waters as he waited for the lamp post to come back on. He could feel all the love inside him being taken somewhere else. It had nowhere to go. Not from him. And never to him. The city listened while it struggled to breathe. It was a vast, empty thing. Nothing new and nothing and so beautiful. The man stood at his favorite lamp post, a trudging padlock, a soaring key.