Mixed Moss

I fling an arm over the side of my mattress, reaching towards the small, angrily beeping black box that serves as both guardian of my time and disturber of my sleep, and switch it off. I step out of bed. The sole of one bare foot touches the grey carpeting that doubtless covers the sort of raw, unfinished wood used to construct attic floors a hundred and fifty years ago.

I step into the rushing water. The sole of one bare foot touches the sharp and shifting pebbles of the riverbed.

I stand on the curb, one of a small crowd that gathers religiously five mornings a week. Freshly showered, dressed for whatever work is the order of the day, clutching my cup of coffee like a life preserver. We stand like so many bowling pins, staring before us where the day’s to-do list floats ephemerally in space somewhere between us and the shop across the street. We never speak. We rarely make eye contact unless something out-of-the-ordinary occurs to makes us nervously glance at each other under our lids, to see how the others are taking it and whether we should, in fact, be concerned.

I flit, I float, I fleetly flee, I fly. The river tugs me gently along to a point where many other small rivers join it. 

We embark. Our paths will follow the same way for several brief minutes. We know nothing of each other but the style of shoes we each wear and the stop where each disembarks.

The current is stronger now. We rush and bob along it, sending up spray at turbulent points. A number of logs, we are lashed together to form a small raft. Who is this who rides upon us, who guides us? He pushes off, using a stick with a sharp hook at the end. Occasionally a log breaks free; he snags it with the sharp hook, and steers the raft to the bank, where he reattaches it. Sometimes he leaves a few logs there, or picks up a few more. It hurts, this rod and hook. But I am carried away on the river; I know not where my ultimate destination will be and can do nothing to stop or steer the raft. At last I am detached from the raft. It continues without me. But the rapids are yet to come.

The bus pulls away and I am left standing on a lonely corner, the cold, soft light of an early morning in winter falling about me. It is trash day. A rat scampers off a garbage can and scurries down a brick-lined ally as I approach. What must others think of a smartly-dressed young white woman getting off the bus at my particular stop? That I am there for drugs? That I am there to do the things women sometimes do for drugs? But then, it is almost easy for me to forget that I am white. I see dark faces about me eight hours a day; it almost a shock to go into the restroom, glance up in the mirror, and see my own face, startlingly white above my dark sweater. White as a geisha girl’s, it looks– and about as mysterious. A blank, betraying neither the emotions nor the thoughts within. Today I see the first forerunner of a wrinkle in my forehead, where it pulls together when I am tired and worried. I feel the approach of the inevitable. Today we ran out of food. There were more people than we expected. One of the other soup kitchens was inexplicably closed.

It is I who ride the raft; I who steer it. The dark clouds roll overhead; it is numbingly cold; rain pelts the water, where bodies float. Some bob back and forth, hopelessly resigned; others thrash about. They cry out for help. I extend my rod, safe-side out, to someone. They will not take it. We do not want your raft, they say; merely drain the river, then we can stay where we are yet not drown. I cannot do this. I can only invite them to join me on the raft and extend my pole. A few climb aboard; I give them blankets. Most drown about me; I feel the reproach of the inevitable. I reach for them but cannot help.

Exhausted, I wait for the bus again. It has been a long day in Over-the-Rhine. A tense undercurrent ran through the patrons at the food pantry. The unseasonably warm weather after two months of bitter cold brings out the crazies; today during a domestic fracas somebody was pushed out a third-story window, left open due to the warm afternoon weather. Last night a cop was shot in Clifton Heights, several blocks from my house. It’s shaken people up, gotten them edgy. No good has ever come from shooting a cop in Cincinnati.

The current carries me home and neatly pops me out upon the riverbank. I wrap a warm blanket about me and dry my hair with a towel. It is not precisely a safe haven; no place ever truly is. But for now, it is peaceful. Tomorrow, I will enter the river again.

Keep your eyes open. What adventure will today bring?

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 15th, 2006 at 3:27 pm and is filed under The Myth. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.