Contest entry, rejected
Imprisoned in ant-farm condos, the wild is walled away. Trees march between us in nice even rows. Aliens descend weekly to lop the heads off all our dandelions, speaking lovely liquid Português. We cannot have flowers or paint our doors red. I bet the aliens can.
Gates constrain us, curbing channels us, our parking spaces are assigned. Separated by common landings, we nod politely, never speaking. Nightly garbage walks are furtive lest, caught unawares, we meet.
Everyone hates that dog, poor thing, left alone all day. He’s lonely like we are but louder. Dogs don’t know.
There is a man we do not see. When he walks by we look away. But I am not we; I see him. He rifles through trash bins, steals recycling, sleeps under a tarp in the culvert behind Building 11. I hate him, for he is richer than me.
I ache to learn the violin. I bought it, strung it, tuned it, rosined the bow. Then I put it away because the neighbors will hear and complain. It stares accusingly from its case against the wall. I do not meet its gaze.
My boss tells me to commute again, daily braving deadly highways to face the deadlier office, racing coked-up lawyers and diplomats, congressmen and lobbyists, who slay each other by the hundreds, destroying priceless Bugattis and Teslas and Lambos in the process. I mourn the dead cars.
My life is cells and values, rows and columns, tables and tabs. On good days there are charts and graphs and diagrams, and serious people Zoom in to nod and mutter and fall asleep on Mute. I play Excel The Game. I am very good but never win.
My taxes buy art nobody understands on the parking garage façade. My rent could feed whole African villages for a year. My grocery bill is only exceeded by streaming services, which I need desperately to escape these prison walls I pay for. I sell my life by the pound, thinly sliced, to buy everything I despise.
One day I shall retire, too soon for savings, too late to live. I shall go to Florida where the money I don’t have is taxed less and the life I never lived walks by me on the beach, forever young and new and fresh as the spring; and I will curse it for being unruly. I will die soon after, bitter and alone, unvisited by those I left behind, the ones I was proud of and had such hopes for, who carry on after me. I pity them, and they me.
But today I must continue, hopeless, unseeing, forging link upon link of the endless chain that binds me to this eternal repeat of yesterdays and tomorrows. There is no escape, for where would I go? What would I do? How would I pay the bills?
I shall armor myself in ink and paper, build fortress walls with old books, drawbridge chains from laptop cords and café wi-fi. I shall write myself free.
And then…?
Photograph of art installation “Crossroads”, neon and aluminum, Craig Kraft (2007)
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