Heat

In the heat of the afternoon, a naked man walked down the street across from where I live. I couldn't believe I was seeing that. Right there on Fourteenth Street in New York City, a man with no clothes on was walking with a steady stride. I wouldn’t even walk barefoot on the streets of Manhattan with all the muck and bits of broken glass and whatnot. Where had he come from? What was his game? It was extremely hot outside, but still, walking naked in the street? I've never seen that before.
Nobody would go near him though many turned and stared. There was a wide circle of clearance.
I supposed a cop would come sooner or later to take him away and make him put something on. I turned to put a CD on the stereo to drown out the hum of the air conditioner. Suddenly, I heard a high pitched scream from outside and ran back to the window. The naked man was gone, but apparently someone had fallen from the building across the street. I couldn't see if it was a man or a woman because there was a crowd of about a dozen people gathered around the body, but I could see the victim was clothed.
There were still no police around; though a siren sounded close.
Some of the people were looking up at the building. The Fayva shoe store on the ground level was open for business, but the windows of the three stories above had been sealed for years.
I wondered where the naked man had got to and if he had been some sort of a prelude to this other person jumping or falling or having been pushed from the building. The heat makes people do strange things.

There's No Soap. Radio.

An old friend came to the other one and requested enlivening and (snap) like that there came a non-static response with all the features in place. I could stand on my head, spit the proverbial wooden nickels, and I would not get the time of day. It is precisely because I think and speak in clichés that that situation obtains, but I haven’t the wherewithal to chance beyond my preset borders. One day, and it’s coming soon; I can feel it, I will implode for the lack of gravity in my own heart. I do not mean to be parasitical, but having been born only the day before yesterday, it may take months, or years, before I can walk in the shoes purchased on spec. The greatest freedom I can endure at this time is the happiness resulting from wiggling the toes of my unshod feet, and then, only while they dangle behind the eyes of my own subconscious if such a thing exists.

Lodging

I have found lodging. A couple, Raymond and Denise, is already living in the apartment, but I manage to stay invisible when they are both at home. The other day, Raymond told me, “I can hardly see you.” Thank you, cloak of invisibility! Since I cannot afford to contribute anything to the food bill, I do not eat much, and I am growing thin as a rail. Shortly, I will no longer need the cloak.

An Early Start

Couple of sheets from a newspaper were blown across the grimy wet streets and were plastered to the gray wall between the main windows of the doughnut shop and the travel agency. Now they had found a home and the wind wasn’t strong enough to send them on a fresh journey. Chancing the extinguishing of my cigarette, I moved closer to make out one of the headlines because the word FRAUD had caught my eye, but it was the same old shit. Someone who thought he deserved more than he had earned had tried to correct his situation to his own point of view. I needed a place to stay, to get out of the cold rainy night, and any place would do if it fit within my budget. As I rechecked the number of smokes left in the crushed little packet, I asked myself again, “why couldn’t I have been born clever, and turned it into resourcefulness?”

As Safe As Yesterday

A shift places me in another realm. Here I can use nothing from my past. Here I am largely invisible. As I emerged from the unreal, many props were available for my choosing, but I was only allowed to select five. I guess I should have taken the sack of gold, but thought it was too heavy to lug around. The reason I, for the most part, cannot be seen is because I chose the cloak, which, itself, cannot be seen. Therefore, I must take care with it, lest I leave it somewhere and later am unable to find it. The other four items each have their uses. Seems I need the props as within myself I do not appear to have the resources to survive in any kind of luxurious manner.
And so my journey begins. I should not look back, but there are moments when I find reflection unavoidable.
So much family time, and myriad experiences blend in a haze of recollection. And the people. The people are as wisps of smoke. The expression “As safe as yesterday,” is cold comfort, when my yesterdays have become detached.

The Sound of a Tear

I was walking along a stone path and the sun was shining. I was walking but my feet were not touching the ground. I could hear someone speaking but I couldn’t understand what was being said and I moved in the direction of the sounds. I left the path and entered an opening in some shrubbery, and there, as if having a picnic, were Edward and Diana. She said something to him in Italian and he shook his head in denial. Then, he stood and walked away from her and she began to cry. I wanted to go to her to console her, but before I could move my double came toward her from the direction her husband had gone. This guy had a menacing look on his face as he came toward her with his hands outstretched. His shirt kept changing colors subtly through all shades of the spectrum. He put his hands around her throat and began strangling her, but rather than appearing alarmed, she was just smiling in that soft way of hers. I thought it very odd that I could hear the sound of a tear splashing on his hand, a tear which caught a glint of sunlight and appeared whiter than white.
As I started to run forward to prevent his killing her, I was awakened by the sound of rapping at my door.
It was Dario. “Hey, man,” he said, “What’s up? You’re sweating like a pig.”
“I fell asleep without the fan on,” I said, “And I had a bad dream.”
“Oh, man,” he said, “It’s hotter than hell in here. Open a window or something.” He walked to the other side of the room and started to do just that. “Do you mind?”
“No,” I said, “No, go ahead.” I went looking for a cigarette without success, and asked, “You got any smokes?”
“Man, those things will kill you,” he said, shaking his head. “Let’s go get something to eat. I feel like eating Italian.”

Incommunicado

It will come to me in bits and pieces, I know. I went away for a while. Stopped communicating.
I found my face on a sculpture, so realistically portrayed I knew I was looking at myself, and having absolutely no relationship with the artist, I came to believe I must have passed through one of his dreams.
Maybe my thoughts were running out of control and I was taking a series of coincidences way beyond their logical conclusions, but this is the kind of thing I do. I take odd circumstances and make fiction out of them. And what I believed I saw happening here was something that was making a fiction out of me.
Now, I’ve been here three months and I’m feeling more lost and helpless than ever.
Late last night I swam in a deserted pool trying to plan a course of action when it occurred to me that if someone who looks like me is moving into my life, he might be working at my job and spending time with my friends and I might not even be missed. Or if I am going mad, surely someone somewhere wonders where I am.
So, I thought I would write this to catalog what is happening, but truthfully, I’m not certain that I am prepared for any response concerning what has occurred during my absence.

Doppelganger

I don’t know why I’m writing this to you or if I will actually send it. I don’t even know what I hope to accomplish by writing this all down.
By now you may or may not have realized that I haven’t been in town for a few days, but now a sense of loneliness has crept up and taken hold of me and I guess I am trying to reach out and see if anyone remains who will help me, or even recognize my “problem.”
If, up to this point, you haven’t noticed my absence, then things are as I suspected they would become and my double has taken over my life in town.
I am in one of the hotels our group had traveled to in the past (I prefer not to say which one, and in any case, I don’t intend to stay here for very long.), but I am getting fidgety thinking that perhaps I was rash in running away from the situation.
When odd things started happening and I mentioned it to you, you seemed to take it very lightly. I tried to make a fiction of it because that’s what I do, but as I took notes, events became more serious, at least to me, and I could not figure out how to deal with them.
Rather than rehash my uncomfortable experience, I quote here something I found on the Internet in hopes that you may understand why I ran away.
“Responsibility assumption is a doctrine … holding that each individual has substantial or total responsibility for the events and circumstances that befall them in their life. …the doctrine of responsibility assumption posits that the individual's mental contribution to his or her own experience is substantially greater than is normally thought. "I must have wanted this" is the type of catchphrase used … when encountering situations, pleasant or unpleasant, to remind them that their own desires and choices led to the present outcome.”
I am not crazy, and I don’t want people thinking I brought this “condition” on myself. Someone is out there impersonating me, and I think I need help.

Oddball

In the early part of the morning, I attended to business in the office. I didn’t get to see any of the other English teachers. None of them had classes until ten o’clock, though one or two usually arrived before then to make copies or print work sheets.
At five to eleven, I went out to the front office where the copy machine was and saw Dario there. I said good morning, but he just nodded.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“Oh, you’re in a talking mood now?” he asked. “See when I offer to give you another lift.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You wouldn’t say anything last night.”
“At the party?”
“No, afterward, when I drove you home.”
“Drove me…what? But you left before I did.”
“Yes, but as I told you, the other party didn’t pan out. I was driving home when I saw you walking along the boulevard. You were so out of it, I guess you don’t remember.” Then he laughed. Being drunk was obviously more forgivable than being antisocial.
“What was I wearing?” I asked.
“The same clothes you had on at Angela’s. What are you talking about?”
“The same white shirt?”
“Yeah. Listen, I can’t talk now,” he said, “I got a class to teach. See you later.” He grabbed his copies and went toward the door. Suddenly he turned and said, “What do you think about Yolanda? I mean what do you think my chances are with her?”
“Chances?” I asked. “Well, first off, I think you’ll have to learn her language. You didn’t speak to her very much.”
“We did, a little. She’s not hard to speak with. She likes to keep things simple. In fact, she told me something doctors often use when making diagnoses. ‘When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras.’”
“I guess you two had more of a conversation than I was aware of,” I said.
“Sure. We spoke quite a bit. Where is your head these days?” He glanced at his watch. “Hey, I’d better get going,” he said, “ I’m going to be late. I’ll see you later when you take a cigarette break.”
I had a class also, but it didn’t go well. My mind was on other things. I knew the cue ball colliding with the eight ball causes the eight ball to roll into the pocket. I had always felt as if I were the cue ball, but suddenly I was feeling like the eight.

Uncertainty

I had had feelings on which I had not acted. Then, I had suspicions of some kind of science-fiction/fantasy plot moving in on me. I was thinking about crystals and tricks of light, and I couldn’t concentrate on my work. There were so many things I wanted to do and felt I should do to set things straight in my head, but in the end I didn’t do any of them.
My friend has let it be known I am an old friend or acquaintance from the neighborhood he left behind. I do not yet walk on solid ground. He has given me some of the pieces from his portfolio to use as my own. A blood transfusion with a mismatched type could prove fatal. Many parts seem to fit, but eventually, I will have to go forth on my own merit.
I’m not afraid, merely uncertain. I’m looking for my own voice, and never having had one, I do not know what it sounds like.
I need to find Diana, for though she does not want me, I know I could learn from her smooth functioning.
Why, oh why, did the network announce their plans to start charging? He drew her back, and claimed what was his to place elsewhere. If I prove myself, I am certain he will set her free again. Her hatred of me is only for verisimilitude, and not so deeply entrenched. We belong together.
If I repeat that to myself often enough, I will come to believe it.