Music of the Common Life

The morning comes like a strong draft, bursting through the curtains of an uptown hotel bedroom. Its luminosity demands the attention of the sleepy occupant inside. The man lying in the bed stares sharply at the ceiling, waiting for the anxious morning light to drag his reluctant body out into the world. The sound of bustling outside the window and through the door opposite him serves as a neurotic reminder of the day ahead.

He haggles himself out from under the warm sheets, promising his reluctance the day will hold something worthwhile. The light flickers on as he stares in the mirror, reflecting an unsettling expression. His hoarse face, brooding eyes, and scraggly hair shine back. The man does not move for a few moments, debating on his course of action. He switches the light off and walks back into the bedroom, looking out the window, again haunted by his reflection. This street below is bustling with figures, cloaked in pea coats and hoodies scrambling to their many destinations.

"What's the rush?" he asks, "they will only fall back into their beds again, they're all running only to go back to sleep." With this the fate of his day is decided. A paper is slid under the door, USA Today boasts urgent messages of economic trouble, job loss, murder, celebrities and scandal. He continues to stare out the window, looking across the way for signs of life in the gleaming widows. Another man rushes himself into his suit, a woman packs her children's bags and readies them for the buses. He stares coldly, longingly. There is nothing to do, nowhere to go. Nothing, that is, he will bother himself with.

On the desk beside the window sits a laptop, yesterday's newspaper, an automated coffee maker along with an assortment of half eaten snack bags and jewelry. He sits down and brings up the computer. The screen shines right through him as he scrolls through his emails.

"Why must they bother me? Why can't I be left alone for one day? Just one day of silence, damnit." His voice is harsh, tired with a hint of helplessness. The sun shines brightly into the room, illuminating all but his conscience. He breathes in, feels his back crack, and still remains blanketed by his neuroticism. The sirens begin, earlier today than the day before. He hears the woman shouting at her children as they are rushed off to the bus stop, echoing between the buildings.

Across the way a woman awakes and brushes the crust from her under slept eyes. She stares out the window from her bed, wishing away the morning. Her room smells of stale chips and vodka. Shattered martini glasses rest along the wall just below the stained wall paper from whence they shattered. She rolls over to check the time, anticipating disappointment regardless of what it reads. She hears the woman next door shouting at her children, rushing them down to the street below. Her head aches from the noise, among other things. Sitting up, she looks around the room at the disaster around. Its origin remains a mystery for a moment, which is met with horror until flashes of the night before rush back to her consciousness.

The man closes his computer, met with a deep sigh. He stretches and walks to the window, looking back out into the abyss of the city, searching for signs of life. His eyes scan the rows and rows of windows and balconies. Each window a screen into a distant world, existing as if in another reality. He feels the distance shrouding him, locking him away, making the room so much smaller and constricting. Objectivity takes over as he leaves his own body, observing his being from a far off perspective. It all seems so clear, yet distance. Flawed. Subjectivity returns, and with it a deep sense of nothingness released by a deeper sigh. The man decides to get ready for the day, yet still without a clue as to why.

The door slides open, and out steps the half asleep woman. The twenty degree temperature fails to wake her up as was hoped. As the city circles and breaths around her she stand peering out into it as if it were a barren field. A cacophony of sirens, voices, barking, and wind. Bustling and rushing forwards and backwards, around and around again. In between each sound, a silence. A silence rarely heard and never spoken of. It is the city reflecting upon itself, affirming its own existence. The man washes his face, places his hands on the shower wall and leans into it. Staring at the water roll down the drain he feels the water stream through his hair, down his cheeks and off his chin. He is for a moment free, calm, and with purpose. In the warm embryonic vacuum of his bathroom he attains peace. The woman looks down onto the street. She wonders how bothersome her blood on the pavement would be, and to whom, if it would be worth the city dollars.

She makes a choice.

The man dries off his body, wets his face and stares through the mirror. Searching. The sirens outside roar north, their volume getting louder and louder. He slowly dresses himself. A suit, fitting for the formality of the day ahead. He puts on his pants and buttons his shirt. The sirens grow louder. Ties his tie into place and tightens it around his neck. The echoes now ring through his window. He adjusts his suit coat, buttons it and admires himself in the mirror. The ambulance is now outside his apartment complex. He walks out the door, and locks it behind him.

The police rush into the building, up the stairs and towards the eighth floor. The men outside hold back the onlookers outside concerned with the commotion, some only annoyed by the obstruction. They reach the hallways and surround the apartment door, knocking violently. They call out a woman's name hoping for a response. Nothing. As they burst in the door the hung-over woman cracks her door to inspect what has occurred down the hall. The firemen rush an old woman out on a stretcher as her husband rushes behind. "She had no choice," the woman thinks to herself. The woman stares blankly as they rush past her. She stares off for a moment after they pass, soaking in the silence of the moment. The calm after the storm. She lets it breathe.

A crowd of distraught voices call out from the street. The woman strolls over to look out over her balcony. As she draws the curtain a black blur drops down from atop the building across the street. It makes a blunt noise as it hits the pavement almost exactly as the crowd of onlookers gasp in horror. The woman rushes to the edge of her balcony and looks down on the street below. A splatter of red paints the pavement. All that can be made of the one who left has left it is a black suit and shoes.

He made his choice.

The ambulance frantically tries to hold back the crowd, while they try to make sense of what had just happened. The woman on the balcony nods at the man's remains and utters to herself "I suppose he wanted to get his tax's worth." The city continues to revolve in circles. The wind blows, and another is lost to the music of the common life.