Under Sodium
The Trouble With Apartment One — Chapter 19
Big trouble in Apartment One!
A new chapter of urban delirium and solar catastrophe.
View from Battery Park — 2015 — B. F. Späth
UNDER SODIUM
Under the callous light of a sodium lamp, with the heartsick dread of a man about to betray his only close companion, I tell Marina I am leaving.
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The cars fled down Second Avenue and the sidewalks were festooned with stolen wares—as a Skeleton Moon was hoisted over the tenement like some dreadful decoration…
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The clang and rumble of a garbage truck cuts through the kitchen walls.
A clock somewhere complains—it’s 4:06 am.
I raise my arms as if in supplication to the ceiling—
And from above arrives a distant laughter—faint, yet unmistakable…
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All along the length of a Cataleptic Evening, as tremors rattle through the tenement, and rumors reach me through the walls, I sift through the abject ruins of Apartment Number One—searching for traces of Marina amid the dust and rubble.
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We had planned to find a place together somewhere—far away from Apartment One…But that’s all done with now, of course…
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A loathsome hollow ring pervades the building—
Marina’s absence inscribed itself more solemnly upon those rooms than all the years of habitation…
But I’m rid of all her spells at last! I said—
As the Saint George Festival ground itself to powder and blew away…
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And now the jackals up above me gloat—
The Unfaithful press their ears against the walls, the door, and ceiling—their knowledge of my affairs exceeds my own.
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A faint illumination slowly gathers in the alley, as if summoned by the bricks themselves—and with it a distant rumor of the sun.
A pallid ray of light steals through the dusty window pane—and inscribes a puzzling arc across the kitchen floor—then evaporates in the gloom of that disconcerting chamber.
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A growing agitation grips the apartment—the air itself seems charged with Intimations of the Sun—
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I emerge into a blinding wilderness of traffic, brick, and tar—
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But even in the furnace of that Incandescent Moment, the mechanics of the day’s demise are already set in motion…
As the afternoon slowly rotates away from the city, a gathering melancholy settles over the streets…
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And now the sky has ignited in the west, turning an apocalyptic orange, and I have the notion that a great event is unfolding beyond the rooftops.
A sense of unease troubles me, as if life is occurring elsewhere…
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As I hurry—in a silent panic—through the darkening streets towards the river, The Great Disk breaks through the buildings, and drenches my face in red and gold…