Slowly, I inched my way back down onto the ice cold bench. I noticed a low ringing coming from my wrist. I sat there silent, letting the ominous metallic sensation consume my consciousness.

“Where am I headed, again?” I tried reminding myself.

Nothing. It was a Piaget. Brushed titanium with a white-gold face. It was a gift. Beyond the confines of my own body, the damp concrete beneath my feet felt different this evening. The crisp humidity in the air was missing its usual stench of burning rubber. I was prepared to wait the 45 minutes for the bus just as I’d absently done evening after evening before.

“What next?” I begged.
To my left, an Arab gypsy cab driver honked at me for a ride. I paid no attention; getting home was the last thing on my mind. It was late, a crisp 22 degrees. I found myself spacing, slowly wiggling that eloquent time piece back and forth across my wrist. I had no directives.

#

I couldn’t tell you the last time I had nothing materialistic to crowd my usual thoughts. A small bulb grew in my throat. Every exhale followed another attempt at a hard gulp. It was an unusual feeling - strange at best. I decided to lean back against the brushed glass and close my crusted eyes for a few moments. It was my nightly ritual, a sort of porthole into the past.

“Maybe then you might regain some goddamn consciousness!” I thought.

Distant memories flew past my sealed eyelids. With each violent flutter, I simultaneously felt the time piece slipping just millimeters through my fingertips toward the concrete. I took a deep inhale and stopped, stuck on one:

“W..William… WILL MY BOY! I know you’re tired from the long flight but come on down here and tell your mother and sister about your latest success!  Don’t you know how proud we are?”

I can’t remember another Christmas like 1999. He had just returned from a photography expedition in Chad with placements already lined up for National Geographic and Britannica. My boy… It was different now. That tall, handsome figure, who emit so much light and love remained but a blur now. It was too much for me. Too much for the moment, too much at all.

#

I opened my eyes, the watch still in hand, and stared blankly momentarily into the darkness ahead. I noticed the frozen street lamp on the corner of the block. Stickers and markings lined the post, left behind by Mexican delivery boys and those few ambitious teenagers who still hope to this day that that David Geffen might pass by and realize the next insignia for his next hit wonder is engraved right there in front of his eyes.

“High five you guys. All of last week’s work spent diligently carving into homemade sticky tape and slapped onto that piece of steel finally paid off huh?” I chuckled, eyes still wide open.

I think about these kinds of things sometimes. It seemed to separate me from the rest of society. He found his way out of ordinary society too, in his own bright way; my William.

#

I looked down to check the hour and wiped the dew off the circle of glass with the corner of my jacket and looked up again. The orange glow from the corner did little to reveal whatever might have be lurking in the shadows across 7th Avenue. He’s there now, trapped among the savages who took their lives for reasons only God would know. But I keep searching, yet only from a distance. For that smile, the one filled with true joy and the slightly crooked canine he’d had since he was a baby, is somewhere laying fraile and dull across the street in the darkness. I stood up, taking a few short steps forward.

“It was all lost now. No more precious memories to be made, no warm body to embrace at the next birthday celebration…” I murmured, just feet off the sidewalk.

I fell to my knees.

“Goddamn it man!” I yelled. “YOU CAN’T JUST TAKE EVERYTHING AWAY FROM ME. I’VE DONE NOTHING WRONG! MY WHOLE LIFE I HAVE BEEN NOTHING BUT A GOOD MAN.”

I was terribly alone. Three long moans replaced the silence that surrounded me. I felt the watery-petrolium seeping into my khakis. Suddenly, a large bright light emerged a few feet in the distance and an overwhelming engine roar swept over me. Instantly, I looked up shielding my eyes slightly.

                                HONNNNNNKKKKKKKKKKKK.

END.