Being Aware

Somewhere between 16th and 17th Streets, a young man rides his bicycle at full speed with his headphones on. He listens to the song that has defined his existence the last three mornings; the exhausted, but not tired, themes of unrequited love, ambition, and confidence echo through his soul. Each rotation of the pedals is empowered by the ripples of emotions unresolved from years gone. He is determined, but distracted. Had he not been so enveloped in the song, had he grown tired of it just one hour sooner, he may have survived as we knew him. But, he was; and he did not. There was no way a man in this condition could see the bus coming as he drifted into his turn down 19th. Then it was over. He lay feet from the bent frame of his bicycle; fading, but clinging to life. A mysterious force, either god or demon, heard his whimpered prayers for life and mercy. The man cried out for more time, and more time was given; but not in the way he expected.

It was a cold November morning. Too cold frankly. Bart wondered where his blankets were as he tried to open his eyes. It is hard to imagine the slow realization of no longer having eyes to open. He went through all the possibilities. (1) He must have gone blind. (2) It was just really, very dark. (3) Someone is playing a practical joke. (4) He put on a sleeping mask on last night for the first time. As the neurons fired rapidly arriving at the fourth conclusion, he attempted to reach up and remove the fictional mask. If you thought losing eyes was bad, losing all sensation of movement and limbs was where Bart began to truly panic. Was he a vegetable? Was he in a coma? What was the last thing he remembered? THE BUS! As soon as he remembered, he began the slow process of rationalizing his situation. Over the next couple hours, he began to make peace. Then someone sat down.

He was blinded by the light of the sun he had already begun to forget. Where was he? He tried frantically to look around, but his neck did not respond. He looked straight ahead, where he had already been looking by no choice of his own, and the surroundings came into focus. There were trees, and sidewalks, and many people, and, in the background, skyscrapers as far as the eye could see.

“Anders better remember our anniversary.” It sounded like someone was talking directly to him, but, also, it sounded like the music in his headphones traveling directly to his soul. It shocked him, he wanted to touch his ears but he couldn’t. “He didn’t remember last year until I gave him four or five hints. Maybe I should just do that. He works so hard. He is a good man, even if he is forgetful.”

“Hello?” Bart willed a response back through the open channel he did not understand. The person shot up and, just like that, Bart was back in the darkness.

The dark lasted a while. Who knows how long. Eventually, one day, a man laid across the bench and looked up at the stars. There weren’t many left in the sky; the city lights obscured the view. But this man looked right up and enjoyed them all the same. It was really cold now. Bart had no sense of the month any longer. But the man was bundled up in layers upon layers and still shivered and rocked. He tried to get comfortable, and did about as well as anyone could. His positioning led Bart to believe he had practice. Bart didn’t want to scare this man, so he didn’t try to speak. The man had been through enough, Bart felt it. So, he let him sleep.

“Twenty-three steps on twenty bricks with two feet in two shoes. Two hands in two gloves on two arms on one body in one park in one city in one world. Five kids and two wives and three lives and twenty-five weekends and two weeks of summer vacation, gone. What does it mean?” Bart hardly knew, but he was happy to have company. “That damn judge didn’t understand. I want to protect them! From her, from them, from me, from her, from them!” Bart did not understand either. “I’m gonna show them. I’m gonna make her understand!” And with that last threat, Bart felt he had to intervene.

“What does she need to understand?”

“Huh? The—the thing! The thing she needs to understand! It’s me! And them! And it’s all going to happen!”

“What’s going to happen?”

“She’s going to understand! They are all going to understand!”

Bart did not think this man could be reasoned with. But this felt different than before. As he saw through his eyes, and heard his thoughts, he looked deeper. Then he began to feel it too. A man rejected by a world for reasons he could not comprehend. A torrent of wrongs inflicted on someone too young to believe it was not his fault. A man who grew to believe nothing was. A reaction to a reaction to a reaction to a family curse. “I want to understand.”

“Nobody understands! I—I can’t. They need to understand!” Then, the man took off running and the lights went off.

Bart woke to a woman sobbing softly. Her eyes were closed, but he felt the wind and heard the trees and knew the night. It was warm now. Her dress blew gently in the wind. He could not tell what was wrong, but he knew speaking to this woman would not help. So, silently, he projected his feelings of warmth and understanding. He pulled from the depths of his emotions: his mother’s hugs, his first kiss, a song that fills you with the joy of life. Then he went deeper, and he felt the memories of a man’s family, of children, of a beautiful night sky. He knew she felt it too. Slowly, the sniffling stopped.