clomp

i was standing at some point. on two legs, with my arms out, maybe balancing, maybe not, but i was standing. my centre of gravity was above the wet cement, but now i'm up to my halfway in the road, gravel in my mouth and sludge in my ears. my left eye closed on reflex, and it twitches every time a piece of rock knocks on my eyelid. i'm worried the road juice is going to seep into my tear ducts and then i'll cry, and part of my body will be in the road and then i'll really never leave it. the sky is the ocean is the city is me and so i should not be afraid, but i don't want to cry into the road. that's too direct. then i am the culprit. it would be like carving up an animal with a knife instead of shooting it from afar; intimate, and all too ugly.

my blue waterbottle is likely done in for. so are my pants. and maybe a part of my hair. and maybe that means my head is done too. i list things i can sacrifice, as if i have a choice. things i am willing to sacrifice, offering, hoping the road doesn't eat at my most precious thing; my stomach. she's always hungry, she's always hungry and she guides me and if i had listened to her i wouldn't be face down in bayview avenue now. my stomach is my precious thing, and my keys, so that i have a place to sleep tonight. but i suppose by now the cement has caked on it. the keychain is attached to my jean loop and my jeans are even more submerged than my eye. even if i were to pull out the keys, and wipe off the cement to the best of my ability, even one grain could throw off the rotation. and then i won't be able to get in my bed and sleep.

my entire life would be a couple of meters over. and i would be outside, my phone on the brink of death and my keys useless, but i'd try to jimmy the lock for hours. i'd give up and get a slushie at 7/11. nd the door still wouldn't open. you can imagine if it does or if it won't. either way, the agony lies in the time where i am outside my house. i am knocking and no one is letting me in. the cook who is me, or the student who is me, or the cleaner who is me, or the landlord who is me, i am not letting myself in. i am just watching myself try to get into something that is apathetic if i will be near a bed or not. i will stand outside the door and i will peer into the window and i will knock and i will wait for someone, not to open the door, but for someone to pass by me and ask if they can help. and then me being locked outside my own house is not a sad story and one about the place that is supposed to be mine not caring the same way i do, the same way that one lover is always coiled closer to the hearth, but it will become something shared. and something shared it something worthy. of time, and of words, and of consequence. everything worth existing is because it is shared. and then maybe this stranger, or this couple, or this group of high school students or grandmas coming back from bingo or therapy group attendees will hear about my fall into the cement, which is now necessary in order to meet them, and one of them will be hungry and want a snack, so we will all go to the convenience store. and one of them knows a locksmith, and one of them knows a city guy, and one of them knows someone who had a similar situation and suddenly the weight of getting back to myself does not fall on me.

i return to the cement. i am not locked out of my house yet. i should be content with a quiet evening. i should appreciate the routine. i do. but, i admit, i have not outgrown the dreams a knight in the form of friendship. i have not outgrown anything like that in my whole life. i walk around in giant shoes and i clomp around like an adult, but if you were to many me run, i would fall flat on my face. i would be exposed as someone who is not tall, or big, or supposed to be wearing those shoes.

i think about moving my legs. i could try to gain leverage with one of them. i could try and pull one up to my knee. but i fear the rest of my body will tip further into the cement; like the deck of a ship, like all the boatswains and rowers i will end up in the ocean, i will be the fulcrum that does my lungs in.

i think about using an arm to lift my head. that should be my priority, i think. i can breathe out of my mouth, but i am sinking. i did not not forget i am sinking. i have just accepted that. and maybe that is why i have narratively ignored it until now. i have been sinking as i have told you about my maybe not-house and my not-shoes and now my maybe not-sinking. but i have always been sinking. it has been established, at least to me. innate in the scene since i am in wet cement. of course i am sinking. we are in a book, a novel, and i must sink. there must be stakes to falling in wet cement. simply falling in wet cement is not enough. i must continue the narration, i am held hostage, because an eloquent novel rarely offs it's protagonist, and if it does, not in such an unthematic way. it must be surrounded by pomp and circumstance. and so the sinking is the pomp and circumstance, if i am to die at the end of this scene. you must read on to find out.

i am sinking. but you knew that, because i knew that, and because the laws of narration said so. i am sinking, but slowly. there is enough time for all these thoughts and the ones that are not being translated to you. there are some just for me. or at least, that is what she will tell you. she knows me better than you, she'll say. so of course there is more than a dummy underneath. and i will not tell you otherwise.

i am sinking. we will try that again. i am sinking. i can feel the wet cement rising around my legs. it's closing in, holding my waist as if i need to be told not to move. i obey. it has risen over my right ankle, even though i tried to distribute my weight evenly. i must have fallen on my right ankle. i must have tried to break the fall with my right. funny how we sacrifice our dominate hands and feet. funny how we have dominate hands and feet. wouldn't it be easier to be capable with all limbs? evolution has favoured the right handed. or at least, the ones that came out of evolution. so did i. my right ankle is coated in wet cement. it is slowly filling my shoe. the weight makes my body tip, slowly, hard to starboard. it accelerates, like an old train engine, loud and not enough to carry the load.

i will lift my left arm, i decide. fuck evolution. i will lift my left arm and prop up my head. i suppose i could sacrifice the whole of my body. a decapitated head. i suppose that is the most idenfiying part of me. my family and friends would know. my mother and father, my two college friends and one colleague i eat lunch with on tuesdays. my neat circle. they would know. but i should leave them something better. at least a hand, those are double jointed and artistic; my circle would think it was fitting. i'd leave my parents my right and everyone else my left. they could splice up my pinky, let whoever take my thumb who wanted it. i think thumbs are the least aesthetic and most necessary part of hands. they are the moon of the orbit of fingers. they run the household. they are used for chopsticks, and cleaning, and all the small motor pinching movements.

i start to lift my left arm, and in exchange, my right ankle starts tipping even further. she reaches into the sludge. the weight wants me to stand in the bottom of this construction, a drowned one. breathing in cement would hurt, i think. breathing in rocks would turn me into an immortal very quickly, i think. the small pieces would fill out my lungs and indent into my bones and then when i died, and my meat withered away, the rock would be left. it slowly would melt into the road, as i did, and that would be when i would be the least guilty. i only died, and nature carved me out, and then i decayed, long after i could see the sun and must less think, and my existence would be so tilted towards nature it wouldn't be human. my self would have died. the only thing returning to the earth would be a hollow copy of me, but to the cemement and the sedimentary and the manga underneath,more of its cousins.

i prop my head up. my chin is covered in wet cement. i curl my fingers into a stand and rest my chin there. the cement is grimy, wet, like the insides of a gargoyle. i want to pull my hand out of the intestines of the road and patch it up. there will be such an ugly hole left behind. it won't even look like me. the shadow of humans doesn't look like humans. snow angels. belly flopping in pools. me in the cement. i don't want that. i don't want anyone to know i feel in the cement. something about the struggle to get out would be shameful, especially since i am lying here. i could fall asleep in the road, but people will think i scrabbled and clawed at the road to get out.

i can feel my hand starting to dry. now that my head is out, i have a better picture of the situation. the cement puddle is 10 metres by maybe 6, an entire swath of road. if i squint, i can see construction blockades. the road is closed. there have also not been any headlights. the signs may not be for anyone but the legality.

[i want to go attempt another piece so this will end here]