He wakes up early in the morning to the shrill steam whistle. He sips on his Arabica coffee as he steps into the mineshaft elevator. The coal dust buildup in his beard looks like black streaks in the sun, like oxen grazing a field of corn.
The elevator gets shakier the further down you go, the glimmering sunlight illuminating green eyes slowly fading to black, like the Earth itself is tensing up, like you’re sticking a finger down Mother Nature’s throat. Like you’re unzipping her like a purse, scooping out her organs with a scooptram. He digs at the metal of the day and gives it to whoever’s paying. After the transaction it is disconnected, discrete. You are not responsible for the actions of others.
The truth is that he is the latest in a family of migratory parasites that suck the vitality of everywhere anywhere they go, a close circle of aristocratic money laundering frauds that flit from Paris to Madrid at the first crinkling of a chill, the first riot in the square, the first trill of an economic indicator. Optimize and extract. Go further than we could. You were trained to carry the torch.
Scams get more creative every year. He runs the family business, a laundromat. He wears suits to work every day. When he is arrested and dragged out in handcuffs in the night and the sirens illuminate the stones on the street red and blue the crowd watching will whisper, I used to do my laundry there, always knew there was something off with him, good riddance. You can’t run away from what made you. He sometimes wishes he could hop in one of the washing machines and come out a fixed person, like it could wash away the leeches that had been eating at his brain for years and heal the damage. Wishful thinking. We played our cards right, did everything right. Where did we go wrong? A thousand different places a thousand different times. He spent years trying to run away from himself and ended up right back where he started. He yelled until he lost his voice. Then it came back, and he couldn’t find in him the heart to yell anymore. He whispers in his ear,
I will find divinity in wrong decisions. I will pack my bags and my friends will drive me to the nearest beach, five hundred miles west overnight. I will find mentors in students writing dissertations in plastic chairs in warm cafes, in civilian soldiers with pearlescent measured words who speak with a lifelong through line. I will learn how to fight someone bigger than me from a burly woman outside a bar, how to sew a hole in a pair of pants from a little boy missing one of his front teeth, how to comfort someone who’s hurt, how to dance, how to crash land a plane. How to get my heart broken. I will throw up after riding a roller coaster three times in a row dizzy and go ride it again. I am so sad and angry and excited and terrified and I want everyone to know. I am going to shout it from the rooftops, going to hug every stranger I see on the street, going to do whatever I please. I am going to build a sandcastle and scratch at the sand until it’s under all my nails. I’m going to go for a nice long swim in the ocean. Leeches can’t survive in saltwater. No more telling me what I can or can’t do.