The Patient Wakes
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
Got out of work at midnight and walked the few miles down Broadway from the E. Village to Times Square. New Yorkers were actively seeking Whitmanic, eye-to-eye contact with me as walked down the street, and whooping when they made it. In Union Square, thousands of people were hopping in unison around a pickle-barrel drummer in a vast human vortex. I saw an African-American man in a humiliating, canary-yellow Pax deli chain uniform openly weeping behind his counter. In Times Square, thousands were out, weirdly capturing the moment on their blinking mobile devices, like hands mimicking the movement of wildflower spores in a heavy wind.
I feel as if the patient has swung her legs over the side of the hospital gurney after an eight-year illness full of sputum, bile and senile midnight chattering, and is tentatively working her feet onto the cold linoleum floor.
posted by Greg Purcell @ 10:47 AM,
