Everything has led to this. All the indiscretions, the ill timed decisions, the drunken disasters and the lefts taken when I should have taken rights. It all brings me to right now, looking out my window at a woman pushing an infant in a stroller. All the possibility of the baby’s life lost on the mother absently drinking bottled water and blathering away on her cellular phone.

I can’t go to work. I’m paralyzed here in my small apartment, wondering when the next knock at the door comes. Wondering who will open my mail, where the money will come from to pay the bills. I see my boss’s face in my nightmares. I see the piling files on my desk, the e-mails in my inbox, the expectant faces of people reduced to sheep calculating deadlines and counting vacation days.

There’s beer in my refrigerator, liquor in my cabinet next to the stale crackers and canned cream corn that works well as a dust collector. Yet I am distracted enough without intoxicants. I am paralyzed, remember? I can’t go to work, because my brain would remain in my sunless apartment without a vehicle to occupy it’s time. The shadows play well with my fidgety hands and my nervous feet. Out the window lives appear and vanish and I cannot work today. The phone feels cold on my face as I call my boss’s secretary to tell her I can’t make it. I pick the excuse from a laminated list. I sound earnest, regretful and under the weather. I pretend to anxiously anticipate a rebound in wellness.

At the same time, in a city one thousand miles away from my own, a first year first grade teacher sees recognition in the eyes of a student struggling to read. He has red hair and freckled cheeks and big blue eyes. His teacher’s approval means everything in the world to him and he’s read his assignment to the best of his ability. The teacher beams with pride and puts her hand on his and he keeps this moment like a coin in his pocket, waiting to retrieve it the moment his mother picks him up from school.

I’m cleaning my windows with glass cleaner and paper towels and I’m thinking about the word ‘loneliness’ and what it means to me. I’m young and inquisitive and anxious and I don’t want to deal with people anymore. I’d be satisfied if someone told me I’d get a check once a month with enough money to feed myself, clothe myself and house myself. I don’t know where this check would come from and I don’t care. It would be enough. Then I could just stay here and wonder what regular people do with their days. How they go about thinking normal thoughts and taking care of mundane things. I could sit and wonder. How does Jane find time to walk the dog? How does Bill make it to work five minutes early every day? How does Joe meet women that smile so brightly? How does Mary manage to be so shiny and courteous to strangers?

At the same time an elderly grandmother in the next town over from me walks with her two grandchildren to the park. She holds both of their hands, one boy and one girl, in her gray and black, wrinkled little hands. She looks frail and old, her reading glasses propped at the tip of her nose and her housedress two sizes too big. But she walks with the strength and self assuredness of a Marine. She surveys her surroundings like a tiger guarding cubs. And the children look up to her in unconscious reverence, pride in their eyes that they don’t even realize is there. Because they love grandma and there’s no doubting that. Grandma smiles because she knows unconditional love. She gave it to her late husband not so long ago and he reciprocated. Now all her love goes to these two children and grandma would have it no other way.

I open a beer and it doesn’t taste good. I think about days in my past where I’ve misbehaved and it doesn’t sting as badly as it once did. I lead the life of ‘have to’ now and days of recklessness seem like they belong to someone else’s past. I walk in and out of buildings, in and out of people’s lives, in and out of my home and I don’t even know where I’m going. It’s all rote behavior. I go to the grocery store and ten minutes later I’ve forgotten what I’ve purchased. I go to work and the coffee is tasteless, Bill tells the same jokes and Jane is on her eighth divorce. Joe is writing the list of what people want for lunch and Mary is smiling at everyone that walks by her. I walk to the bathroom and I look at myself in the mirror. And I wonder why time has taken me by the shirt collar and beat me until my face is contorted and bloody. That is how I feel about time.

I walk out into the hallway shirtless and I see my neighbor leaving for the day. We exchange uncomfortable smiles and I wonder if she knows I pine for her. That sometimes I sit up nights wondering what it would be like to rub her ruby lips with my index finger. I want to paint her toenails and read her bad poetry. I want to do what people do when they’re in love. Real love, affection, wanting, kissing in the rain, holding her hand while she’s sick kind of love. I want to feel those emotions as I hear the door shut behind me and I sit buried in the corner of my apartment. I listen to the stillness and I hear the ringing silence. I wiggle my toes and smirk and wonder when I’ll be fired. Don’t they know down at the office that it is difficult for me to move? I’m dealing with paralysis; I’m distracted and tired. I rub my face and run my fingers through my hair just to feel touch.

At the same time in the bohemian section of town, a young blonde girl with dreadlocks and a nose ring sings on a bench for the passers by. People in suits ignore her, skateboarders nod their heads and old people coast toward death. She sings about political upheaval, mistrust of everything and the benefits of drug addiction. She seems pleased with herself and the earnings that lie in her straw hat at her feet. Her teeth need cleaning and her dress looks worn, but she’s putting every effort into her music. The guitar purrs a familiar chord and a tattooed fella in a ripped concert t-shirt stops to bounce and wrinkle his eyebrows. He’s taken by the words and her experiences become his. Without physical acknowledgement, a connection is made, a quarter is dropped and a relationship has begun. Kindred spirits who will one day very soon meet again and enjoy every solitary inch of each other. A child will come out of this exploration and the parents will choose between the names ‘Wind’ and ‘Rain’. Either one will suit the healthy baby just fine.

I can’t stop pacing, I’m going to lose my job. People out my window are faceless and they appear, disappear and reappear with stunning regularity. Have I become desensitized to the beauty inherent to each and every human being? I see brown hair and red hair and blonde hair get caught in the gentle breeze. I see people in expensive sunglasses, people sweating and people squinting against the rays. I sense the oppressive heat and it keeps me here, stuck in front of the glass, watching the dust particles float

aimlessly.

I used to be carefree and it has all come to an end. I can’t leave my home anymore. If I do I will turn to dust. I am scared and uncomfortable in my skin and my head is spinning, searching for something to smile about. Television commercials have convinced me that there is genuine happiness out there in the world. I just have to purchase certain products before I go in search of this elusive joy. I search the internet for naked women, shoes, colognes, leather jackets and wrist watches. I want to be enveloped in the material. I want self love to be for sale.

In a bookstore only twelve miles away, an older woman strikes up a conversation with a younger woman and they become fast friends. They’ve eaten at the same restaurants, the older woman has traveled and the younger one wants to. They both have auburn hair and good figures and expensive shoes. They share a class and satisfaction with one another. They talk about philanthropic causes and the misfortune of war. They watch the same television shows and comment on the general devolution of entertainment. The older woman looks at her sparkling silver watch and says she must go, but recommends a book to the younger woman first. They shake hands and their eyes sparkle and they are satisfied. Each one is married and both will comment to their respective husbands about this pleasant chance meeting.

Dark is setting in on my city. The action never stops. Walking, running, driving, riding, drifting, sleeping, working, talking on the phone. Consumption and tedium and responsibilities and man I wish I could have made it to work today. I see my desk in my nightmares. I hear the wheels on my desk chair squeak and I smell the aerosol scent of the office bathroom. I kneel on my living room carpet and I pray to God like he was a genie in a bottle. Please don’t make me work all my life, I plead. Please let me win the lottery or marry a disturbed, introverted, eccentric recluse. If the latter occurs, make her thin and attractive and quiet. Make her understand me without too much conversation. Make her love me without conditions. Make her never go away.

In Haiti, a Catholic missionary worker distributes candy to poor, orphan children. When he comes upon an especially cute, cherubic little girl with a tattered pink sundress and no shoes, he stops and takes two pieces of candy from his bag. She bends her head backward to take in the young man’s height and smiles with the purest innocence. When he kneels down in the dirt in his worn khaki pants and returns her smile widely, she places her dark, little hands on his face and studies his expression with complete gentleness and grace uncharacteristic of her age.

"Are you God?" she asks.