by & by

As I was walking, two people passed me. One to my left and one to my right. It’s a city we’re in. Cars buzz by and so do the people. The pace of life more staccato, forte, & allegro. Pretty words for the cacophony one pays a pretty penny to surround oneself with. Fire in the Badger Holes.

As a measuring stick, other people are quite good. Friends and Family are often too close, but your common plain everyday person is best. Sure, they’re unique in their own way but when you spin the colour wheel you get a pastiche green. You’re on a Vomitron. 

Being in big places makes things feel big. Actions, Feelings, Nouns & Verbs aggrandized my metropolises. It’s only when you’re using the yardstick of others that you can feel differences. And what’s more you than what you’re not?

It's oft to feel like you’re on a conveyor belt. The ones they have in airports that take you from white-walled corridors to more white-walled corridors. You are going somewhere, a desired destination but you don’t really feel any progress. You’re only prompted to spend money on various small boutique distractions. And of course, there’s a final destination of getting on a plane that all these small checkpoint destinations lead to but it’s in these subliminal spaces that you can think and feel. 

And I was passed by two people. Two people looked to be walking quickly, thinking of those destinations. Aggrandized & hurried. Aesop’s perpetual turtle in a sea of grasshoppers storing greedily for the winter and dead doves. Falling. A sea of them. Dove slippers that feel like Hermes on the side of a cereal box. Don’t forget your toy.

I was passed by two people as I was walking slowly. That’s the key, a languid slow molasses of one foot in front of the other. But for the love of asphalt don’t stop. For when you waft the acrid smell of plastic roses, it only takes a moment to stop and be hit by a 2018 Dodge Grand Caravan.