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by Cooper Thomson It is now about four in the morning, and as I turn onto my street I dread the fact that it will surely be another hour before I find a parking spot. I donıt even dream of finding one remotely close to my apartment building. I just want to be in bed. I am at that familiar point in the night (or morning, as it were) when my body has become aware that there is nothing left on the eveningıs agenda, and it has nothing left to do but shut itself down and sleep. Parking signs seem to confound me even more than usual at this point in the night. "NO PARKING BETWEEN 7 A.M. AND 10 A.M. ON TUESDAYS, THURSDAYS AND SATURDAYS, AS WELL AS NO PARKING BETWEEN 11 A.M. AND 5 P.M. ON MONDAYS, WEDNESDAYS AND FRIDAYS, EXCLUDING HOLIDAYS, DURING WHICH TIME THERE WILL BE NO PARKING AT ANY TIME, MONDAY THROUGH FRIDAY, AND SOME PARKING SOMETIMES ON WEEK-ENDS, PROVIDED THE FACT THAT THERE IS NO CONSTRUCTION WORK BEING DONE, AT WHICH POINT PARKING WILL BE PROHIBITED ABSOLUTELY." Fuck, I just want to be in bed. After determining my limit regarding how far I would be willing to walk from the car to my apartment, and weighing that fact against the bleak reality that I shouldnıt hope to walk any less than six blocks, I set the radius of my search. Thirty minutes later I pull into a sweet spot, six blocks away. To punctuate the night appropriately I fall on a patch of black ice lying directly in front of the staircase leading into my apartment complex, grazing my knuckles in a manner made possible only by such a tumble. I just want to be in bed. As I slowly, and quite miraculously, lift myself up from the mercilessly cold pavement I open my eyes to see Iım standing in an empty parking spot. My knuckles are bleeding and so is my right knee, I suspect. I finally make it up the stairs and into the building. I just want to be in bed, but the lure of my mailbox, which I realize I forgot to check this morning, is, as usual, too strong for me to simply saunter by, unaffected. I jerk open the metallic door and peer into the black shaft. There are a few letters waiting to enter into the warmth of my apartment and the frigid reality of my life. I stick my hand into the gaping mouth of the mailbox and snatch the letters from the shadows therein. I never have the patience to wait until Iım inside my apartment to discover from whom the envelopes have been sent. I stand in the dim light of the lobby and read the return addresses. I notice that three of the letters are addressed to my roommate and quickly shuffle them to the bottom of the pile. The fourth is my monthly solicitous reminder from the folks at National Geographic reminding me that my subscription ran out three years ago. This letter is at once comforting and slightly distressing. God knows how they got my present address. I pitch it almost immediately into the wastebasket and unsuspectingly glance at the last envelope. Itıs from her. It has been an entire year since she moved to Greece and never looked back, and only a month that I havenıt cried daily. I feel a familiar sense of nausea wash over my body as I stare at the envelope, trying to ascertain its contents by interpreting the way she has written my name on the front. I notice a red stain under my zip code and realize my knuckles are still bleeding. I just want to be in bed. |
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