TOP DOG

It only lasted three months. They met every Monday at 53rd and Lexington, next to the hot-dog stand outside of the subway stop. As she walked out of the underground train and into the real world, she noticed the eloquent streets. They roared with clashing trumpets and traffic as the sidewalks carried waves of people everywhere. Wow, so this is what magic looks like, she spoke softly under her breath. As she hurried to ask the hot-dog man if he'd seen him, she found a curious hand pulling her shoulder back. It was him! They sat inside the Manhattan Public Space garden with their hot-dogs and smiles. How is your work going? They asked each other. And as conversations progressed they shared secrets and stories. Mondays turned into layers of collected days as weeks matured into consolidated abstract months. Every time they met she listened to him mention the shiny high buildings and she spoke about the piercing magic in every block, in all the traffic lights. One crisp cold Monday she waited almost forty minutes before he arrived. No I'm sorry miss I haven't seen him, the hot-dog guy told her. Disconcert, she still stood there, looking for him left and right. All the while she gazed at the power on the ground, as he eventually appeared. He told her that his eager eyes had found something in a far away building. All the buildings glistened and soared, overwhelmingly leaving the city with the same dim man-made shadows. She didn't understand the difference. He squinted his eyes in a difficult position, closed his glowing hands, and walked away, into the streams of people in the streets. Lost and embarrassed, she walked towards the garbage to spit out her last hot-dog pieces in such a bitter manner, and took the train downtown; back home.

what a waste of eyeliner.