QUARANTINE GRATITUDE — DAY 6
There were plastic-wrapped sausages and pumpkin waffles. Someone danced in the living room, someone else traded cryptocurrency. Suddenly, I was heading east on California Ave, walking, walking, walking. In the financial district, a hawk snatched a pigeon, flew up to a traffic signal, and ripped its flesh. People took photos, people walked quietly by, people lay in the streets, people stood in line for food. I floated to the bay. At the pier, a middle-aged woman in gloves and a mask picked up other people’s trash. A middle-aged man jogged along the waterfront, blasting Missy Elliott. Miguel de Cervantes was giving beach tours. I had had enough: I wished I were comfortably back home, but first I had to scale a steep hillside dotted with thousands of simple white gravestones—a military cemetery. Who had won the war?
Somewhere between death eternal and the fleeting death of orgasm lies a middle-sized unconsciousness, hours of blackness buttressed by dreams, whose visions terrify us, inspire us, and prepare us for the surrealism of waking life.
Today I am thankful for sleep.