Abalmination

      It is midday, but the day is barren. The sun spills its pale, harsh solar blood like dust onto the stripped quadrants of asphalt at the intersection. You shuffle around on the sidewalk, not committing to movement in any definite direction. The powdered concrete is marked up with angular, illegible ciphers: combinations of yellow spray-painted lines whose ends are occasionally adorned with circles reminiscent of pommels at the ends of sword handles. These signs are thickly arranged, mapped into skeins of paragraphs that fit into each respective concrete square. You can walk among them, looking down, and let your accidental thoughts fill them with meaning. But these signs were not here yesterday; they won't be here tomorrow; they aren't here today.

     In the mornings, this intersection thwarts you with its traffic. In the street, cars are packed densely in their lanes, with hardly a hair's breadth between the fenders. Steel shutters are repealed from storefront windows, with their leering blocks of Spanish text, honking soundlessly at you in primary red and yellow, offering refills of minutes for your mobile phone, discount flights to Oaxaca, and free consultations with empty-eyed, mustachioed 'abogados.' The sidewalks are not necessarily full at that time, but they may be said to be 'peopled.'

     Now, however, with the sun only just having rolled past its zenith, the thought of encountering, of walking past another cogent soul is inconceivable... almost hilarious, even. There will be a stray vehicle every now and again still, and the bus will continue its regular run, even though the intervals between its punctuated appearances  will have expanded considerably (what you realize as it drives away each time is that it has actually gone nowhere - that the idling bus remains parked, yet unseen, standing just before the bus shelter under the sagging traffic lights). 

     But under this sun, even that which you expect of this diurnal world is offended, for everything here is vanity and vexation of spirit.

     "And den dere go Latonya and she and dem be on the phone, talmbout some, 'Dey pickin' up his body for the abalmination...'"

     "..."

     "..."

     "And den dey cross the street!"