The times I would pass the old brick buildings, and sometimes I would stop and go into small shops upon the street. I lived in that giant town upon a bridge way completely drained. Each day it would take hours to go my way. The ocean of deplete that would run on those crowded walk ways. Storm drains were empty in that near, far city.
I move a lot when I was there. I moved into old buildings always. Their proximity just away from well traveled walk ways. So many vacationers spread across wide open pavement. They wondered the side streets, below my room’s window.
The time would come when I would leave the city’s edge and go into the country. I usually took the train. There were many stops of interest outside of the town, and gold and green fields colored overly brightly and shapes of hills not normally seen. I wouldn’t stay long. I would go back to that city crowded in its emptiness, with long passing lanes and maybe the occasional rush of water down a gutter where I was sitting.
In my days in silence, a step in a loft on a side street, I would rarely leave if I wanted. I did go out everyday, to work I’ve forgotten. I still do remember though the long commute through the tiresome main street. Waves of activity surrounding the archaic structures. Dryly lit feelings would rarely brush against me.
This old city and its cold saturated air. Saturated my lungs, my sense of isolation past the trodden sidewalk. Still, the town historical and wary. Long fields of streets grew in rows. I was lost in the maze. Metropolis looming for miles each way. And the saturated continental air, it left me gasping. But still, a slow stream, a slow current of happiness could evade the desiccant roads. A feeling of light heartedness could pass through along with me while navigating the complex.
Everyday for many years I traveled the same route, past shaded trees, green grass, the gridded streets, narrowly pressed shops and apartments, to the occasional circus, parading cars. I don’t remember what I did, how I spent most my days to live. I do remember being happy to be there. Old tombs, distant conversations among others. The suffocating pressure from cigarette smoke and holiday air. Life to me there was far, but the flooded streets spoke to me as something close.
Vacation days I would sit at my window, arms spread across the sill. That city now. Also I would go into shops. In a dimly lit one I would sit in a corner on the floor. That was the best the city had to offer. The contrast of a cave to the glistening fields. Night and day, inside and outside.
My time there was coming to a close. My last week there I would sit in cafes with my hands holding up my face. I would take all it had to offer. A glance to the east where the train would take me in the country, something by then I had almost forgotten. I would breath out the choking soap scented air and turn around. An ocean awaited me.