The Man Who Always Looks Different In Pictures

The man who always looks different in pictures. He is a good friend of mine. He is average height and has jet black curly hair. He is very handsome. I have looked at many of his pictures and in one or two, he looks like himself. In other pictures, he is smiling or straight-faced. Sometimes he is flushed from alcohol. In a profile shot, his features look soft and feminine, his expression passive and sweet. There are pictures where he is dancing and his head is thrown back; his mouth agape, trying to gulp at the music I cannot hear. There are pictures where he is surrounded by beautiful women and he simply glows. In other shots he looks bored and is tragic or ugly. But it is not merely a mood or expression that is captured. He defies self and appears so different that at times, there is no shadow of the man I know.

We have no pictures together. There is no evidence to say I am friends with this morphing man. When I look at him in reality I can see his various selves flash in his face and in short, I am afraid. Who is this person and why is he no one?

I have discovered that maybe he is me.

The Life of a Machine

Yesterday I stood in front of the huge windows of the bakery and watched the lines of loaves shoot out of the oven and onto a conveyor belt. The temperature in the oven must have been perfect because each loaf had the same swathe of brown across its top. The conveyor belt wound around and down toward the floor, where three figures in white hairnets eyed each loaf for imperfections. The yeasty, hot smell of fresh bread wafted out of the top of the building and I felt comforted. This was the first time I had passed this place. In the evening I went by again. The place was lit only by a strip light in the very center of the factory. I would describe the light as looking like steel or maybe tin. The oven near the window had a few flashing lights on it.

I went out of my way today to go back. This time there was no bread and I noticed another conveyor belt, just above my head. With all the loaves I had seen before, I had failed to notice it. There were random bits of bread on it and they weren't moving. Without the fresh perfect loaves shooting out of the oven, all I saw through the vast clean glass was a machine. A machine working poorly. A man in a white hairnet swept flour off the floor below and I waved to him, but he didn't see.

Light Pollution

It was late night and the water was indescribable. It glimmered; there was a blue light reflecting on the river's surface from another bridge further south. William was pushed up against the bridge's rail.

"If you think this is beautiful," he said, "you should definitely do shrooms."

"But I already think it's beautiful. Why do I need shrooms?"

"Those colors would just pop."

"They already are popping."

It was true. When I stared at it hard enough,it looked like the lights were flashing from below the surface of the water and swirling and bubbling upward.

Then William said, "Looking over bridges makes me want to jump."

"Yeah. I know what you mean. I would never have the balls to jump, though."

Neither of us looked at each other. We were both mesmerized by the water. The sides of the river were tinged orange from the streetlights and the highway. Whenever I think of light pollution, I think of these streetlights. They make everything look like a seedy seventies movie.

There was a long pause, I think William and I were trying to access the distance between us and the river.

Eventually I said, "I think you should jump."

He got up on the rail and jumped out, feet first. When he hit, the glimmering blue was interrupted for only a moment.

When he finally surfaced he yelled, "I'm Ok," and began to swim toward the seedy streetlights. I was really glad he was alright. It was a warm evening and by the time we got home he was completely dry. In the night, the whole thing began to trouble me. What bothered me most was how little he effected the surface of the water and how no matter how hard I try, describing the way the river looked is impossible.

No Change

Each morning, the perfect blue of the sky reminds me that there will be no change. It is a deep blue just overhead, but fades to a washed out, flat blue near the horizon. The time of day makes little difference to this and the sunset is unremarkable. It is like the atmosphere is thin and weak.

I sit on my porch and let the sun penetrate me, drinking a lukewarm cup of coffee from earlier. The men next door continue to rebuild that house; their tools drone away at the day, ceaseless until evening.

Last night I dreamt that the sky could change, but only if blacked out by moths. When I woke a moth beat itself across my room, hitting the wall repeatedly and rebounding, unable to change, unable to realize that the wall would always be there. It kept me awake for hours, eventually I opened my bedroom door and turned the light on in the hall. Soon the moth was swarming around that orb; I could see it hitting up against the bare bulb. I closed the door and went back to sleep. Towards dawn I woke in a sweat, the heat of the sun already penetrating me.

The First and Last Thing

The first thing that happened was a squirrel bit my ankle. My boyfriend, Herman didn't believe it. He said, "You are always hurting yourself. YOu probably just scraped yourself on your bike pedal again." Its true. I do that all the time. But I really was bitten. I was coming out of the cul-de-sac early and the little fella just sorta scampered out, reached me and bit. My first thought was to call poison control, or animal control or something, but the fact was, I didn't want to sound like an idiot. Bit by a squirrel. How many people a year are bit by squirrels? Not many, I would guess. And the ones that are- I bet they are embarrassed too. So I just kept walking down to the coffee shop like I do every morning. It is almost fall, as you know, and there was a spattering of leaves on the driveways that I passed. At the coffee shop I ordered a latte and asked for a band- aid. The cute dude with the mustache that works there, he gave me a band-aid and a cute smile. It made me feel better.

When the latte was fully consumed I made my way to water my friends plants. She is on vacation with this tool she has been dating for three years, they are in Hawaii, and I have been appointed flower hydrator. The thing is, I lost her keys a few days after she left. All of her plants reside on the balcony. For more than a week, I have been trying to water her plants by throwing bowls of water at the balcony. I have figured out that if I stand almost in the street, and sort of launch the entire bowl of water, some of it hits the basil plant in the right hand corner, and the lavender plant next to it gets a fair soaking. The other plants, however, aren't looking so hot. The tomato plant is weeping, it has floppy leaves I mean. I keep hoping it will rain, and I can be let off the hook.

The last thing that happened was that Herman broke up with me. "I can't take your dumb lies anymore. Bit by a squirrel? Get a hold of yourself."