Friday.10.15.04
pearl casualties [] - quoc viet - -@_.com @ 10:11pm
i am close to hugging the dirt streaked yellow wall along the side of this wet road, cold concrete below me in patterns of redundant wavy lines and dark grey grooves. rain has washed the dirt off the sidewalks and onto the streets, bringing the grime from one place to another. my vision is almost taken away by the alternating bright spots of florescent lit stores stands and the sucking blackness. a girl pushing another girl in a wheelchair creeps up to the metal table in front of me. the tables are so low and the stools so small that my knees stick up awkwardly, getting in the way of my long arms and making it hard for me to eat the Banh Cuon. a shadow runs across me, over my face and down my body to the ground, the old couple in front of me blocking part of the floresecent light coming from the stand. the stand is just two women with a small glass display, food stacked in big containers and pastel colored vietnamese words painted on the glass. the girl in the wheelchair is a beautiful girl of no more than ten. her skinny arms hold the tickets and her head holds a round hat. they push past and the girl stares at me for a moment, finding something odd about my face, and like that they’re gone. wheels creak silent.
the couple in front of me is a man and a woman. they crouch, ready scowls beneath their plain faces, hair mildly wild and free flowingly uncouth. off to the side sits a small skinny old man wrapped in a light windbreaker, cap pulled tight to the front. he is sitting calmly upon his motorbike seat and watching the people cast shadows off of themselves, the road, and everything else the florescence deems necessary to grace with its touch. i don’t know what i’m doing here, but neither did i know what i was doing back in America. just one place to the next, people passing by like my own life before my eyes in the darkest moments. dark, but never without the sub-bright glare from the stands and stores and occasional shopping complexes, reminding you that the human race will live beyond you in all its ugly self-preserving glory.
i am sick and desperately want to get better.
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