The statement pounding pavement has never hit me so deeply. Step after step after step I've walked, endlessly it has seemed, a long slow monotony. My feet ach. With each step my tired feet fall like stone, my head jolting from the impact when I'm too tired to hold it steady. In the deepest part of the day I came across a lemon aid stand. The nice young woman at the stand offers me a free drink which I accepted gratefully. Never has lemon aid tasted so good, sweat and tangy, clanking ice, ice I can rub over my forehead and crunch in my dry mouth. It wasn't until later that I wondered how she kept ice and lemon aid out in the middle of no where. If this was no where. I'm still quite confused on the point.
As dusk pulls its dark, hole riddled shroud over my head I see the familiar sulfuric glow of yellow street lights in the distance. I begin to hear the roar of engines for the first time since turning my own off a few days back. Or was it just yesterday? I soon find myself approaching what looks like a pile of houses, all up right and attached to each other at random spots rising up over the road to form a tunnel. It's as if they grew together like a fungal colony, or as if a carpenter went mad with a lust of house additions, stacking and adding at any elevation or angle his insane mind warranted. A concophany of horns, tires, and other traffic sounds flow out of the tunnel. About 10 yards from the opening a large yellow dot is painted on the road, followed by a series of yellow bars, like the lines dividing a road. I think of pac man when I see this. Inside the air is acrid and hard to breath, thick with noise and smells. The walls look like the outside of houses with cellar ceilings above. Light fixtures of every variety, from industrial to horrifically decorative hang from above or are attached to the walls, but all give off the same noxious yellow light. I've still seen no traffic and no people, but the sounds are getting louder.
I turn a corner and find myself approaching heavy traffic. I practically hug the wall as cars fly by. The faces inside the cars are mostly angry, the cars classy but dingy and all seem strangely small. The honking blares in my ears, yells, squeals, and I find my head pounding and my brain fogging, aching as the sounds seem to press into my skull, only to build pressure and push back out. The roads twist and turn through the house like walls which only occasionally display windows, and so far no doors. I begin to run, doing my best to avoid the angry drivers, finding myself becoming lost in their anger. I push the anger into my tired and weary feet and run through the sour yellow light. I can't stand it in here! My eyes are getting blurry, my feet hurt so much, pounding the pavement, cars barely avoiding me, my through burning from exhaust fumes. Ahhh! Yes, I think I yell. Before I realize it the traffic starts to thin and the wretched sounds begin growing distant. I find slowing to be almost as hard as continuing to run, but I do. And as I do, soreness begins screaming through my body. My stomach notes and burns itself, having nothing else to digest but itself.
Just as these pains are becoming too much, and my empty stomach seems it could hurt no more I ketch a scent through the thick poison atmosphere. A meaty smell with promises of fat and spice, a soup, chicken maybe. I find myself running again, but the sent is somehow filling me, loosening my stride and I find myself coming to a door. A pie sits on an open window sill, steaming, and the rich, soup broth smell wafts out above the sweetness of apple pie. A light female humming drifts out with it, accompanied occasional by the sharp ringing of pots striking each other. I stop at the door, painting. It suddenly swings open and a tall thin woman with dark brown hair pulled back in a tight bun exclaims angrily "IT'S ABOUT TIME YOU GOT HERE!" and pulls me in! I'm assaulted by the sent of the food, as thick as the exhaust outside and just as hard to breath, yet somehow filling and good in its own way. A table is set with a toddler swinging his feet about in a high chair. I hear a masculine voice beyond the table, too muffled by a large wooden door to be understood.
"WHAT!?" cries the woman.
A huge man bursts through the door. "I SAID IS HE HERE YET!" he bellows, just before catching sight of me.
"YES, HE'S HERE!"
"I CAN SEE THAT!"
And so on. Before I have a chance to ask what in the world is happening (and yes, I do finally abandon such questions) I find myself rushed to the table with the man, woman, toddler, and a young child in blue pj's who erupts from a small door to the left. With a resounding thud, they all clap hands together with heads bowed and feet firmly placed.
"THANKYOUAMEN." says the woman, and the family begins a frantic fight of food, aiding each other to dish out soup, break bread, and pour wine, but having no mercy on the bewildered food items. My dishes are full of food in a blink and anomalies eating sounds erupt all around me.
"IT WOULD HAVE BEEN QUICKER IF YOU JUST SAID 'THANKSAMEN!'" bellows the man through his food.
And strangely enough I found myself eating as they did, hunger welling up inside my mind and grabbing my brain in a tight all encompassing grip. I eat, slurped, and chew in a mad race. My stomach fills with the soup...chicken and dumplings I think it might have been. The filling is at first painfully, then coaxed into blissful fullness by the warm liquid, and finally pained again as my stomach fills beyond compacity and spicy hot bile creeps up my throwt. I find myself unable to stop, however, until the table is cleared of every last scrap and crumb, the bowls wiped clean with bits of bread and the crumbs swept into hands to be dumped down throats.
A chores of "AAAAHHH" erupts, as do the people out of their seats, yanking me up and tossing me into a third door. "YOU'LLSLEEPINTHERE!" is yelled in my ear seconds before the door slams. The sound of shoes and clothes being pulled off with frantic speed sounds like a dull rumble of tumbling boulders outside the dark room. The rumble ends and I can just make out the sound of quick panting for about 5 minutes, then a collective deep breath and silence. I stood there through it all, dazed, sore, painfully full, and utterly bewildered. Then, slinking forward carefully, I found a bed, undressed, and quickly became a brick.
metaphorically of course.
I think.
