Actors and Astronauts

At five o'clock they come out. Streaming from the sewers and popping out of pavement cracks and hidden realms of the city. Young and ambitious they are, wearing crisp suits as black as their shoes. Their fragrance is subtly fresh and their hair is impeccable -- even this late in the day. Two eyeballs are dressed with glaze made from screens and papers. A drained hunch compliments their spruce appearance. What may give them away from the real thing, perhaps -- the ones who've made it -- is the trendy messenger bag hanging over their shoulder. It's a clue to what lurks behind their curtain.

They cram on the subway, hold the bar, and look wearily at the floor. Another day done.
A half-hour later they squeeze off and walk through a maze of crowds and streets -- without looking up. Their bodies are on the autopilot of instinct and repetition. Outside the apartment they may meet their significant other -- wives, husbands, boyfriends, and girlfriends -- who just came back from the same day.

Inside they make a quick dinner, for both are too tired for much cooking. As they wait for the water to boil or the toaster to warm, they sit on the couch and look at the cluttered apartment around them. There are coffee tables and stands covered with bills and mugs and magazines. The rubbery arms of a neglected plant sag over a pile of board games, as a last-ditch cry for life. Toe nail clippings and underwear lie on the floor. Today though, like yesterday, they're both too tired for cleaning.
The bright hope of tomorrow shines through at moments like this -- the day when they finally get that raise or position they've worked so hard for. Then there will be a two story house in a nice neighborhood, and perhaps a kid or two.
For now though, the apartment will do. It's cheap and it will help them get on their feet. They're still young.

Occasionally, one asks the other if they would like to go out for the night. Maybe Dante's, just down the road, or the movie theatre.
In this case the other responds: "Naw, not tonight babe. It's been a long day, and I'm just too tired."
So they snuggle on the couch and watch a movie instead. One of their favourites. Perhaps the feel-good Chocolat. The one were Johnny Depp -- an adventurous, french, riverboat pirate -- falls in love with the gypsy chocolate lady. During the movie, half the couple smiles and mumbles something when the cocoa-hating priest falls asleep in the chocolate display, and the other nods vacantly in return as he or she pokes at a cellphone.

The movie makes them warm. It takes them to the carefree and naive life of their past, when the next career move was being an actor, or an astronaut. But the city has a way of seeping into your home. It moves past the hum of the sound machine, and the drifting goldfish. It erodes through the stack of dusty records, which act as a sort of barricade, trying to hold the wall up from the things outside. All the books and GI Joe collections in the world can't stop the City.

So they croak out of bed the next morning, grab some toast, don their sharp attire, and drift out the door and into the cracks and crevices of the concrete. They scatter and dart over each other, like courageous black ants, and disappear into the ground.

Lúthien

Perhaps it was the protruding veins on her hands, or the unresistant fate of her predicament, but a quiet hatred stirred in her feebleness. It was a kind of stew that bubbled on the stove, unstirred, so the brittle meat and rotten peas were left unsuspected between straight lips and crossed ankles.
The wooden box rested on the shelf beside an ivory elephant and ancient teacups. Its factory wood glowed bright as plastic grass sat inside. Each strand was perfectly spaced, perfectly level, perfectly straight, perfectly green. The 8x5 grass patch had remained that way for years. Thankfully though, it grew blurrier and blurrier everyday -- at least from the chair where she sat.

The grass was more than her enemy, it was also her need.
Her lover from a wild night.
Her victory, as well as her death.
A final fling with passion, eclipsed with a smoking barrel roll.

Decay is foreign only to grass that is plastic.