The Presage (wherein nothing much occurs)
No one can predict what will happen a moment after… That is what was written on a whitewashed wall surrounding a massive hole carved in the heart of the troubled city. The once proud flatiron building had suffered the effects of the demolition ball, and in its place was a rat-infested construction site, destined to give birth to yet another soulless rise of hermetically sealed glass and steel.
I awoke distraught. When had I last been there? Why hadn’t I recently taken a route past it, to take one last shot, or at least to say farewell. It took several moments to disengage from my dream and convince myself that all was intact. There is an old postcard of the Flatiron in a metal frame on my bureau. I looked at it intently and noticed my hand was shaking. I felt like crying. Buck up, I told myself, it was only a dream and in any case, someday everything will be gone. One day we all will pass through the membrane of our present world and find ourselves in another.
I washed, fed the cat and inspected my camera. Four shots left from an expired Polaroid pack, enough for some semblance of an image. I stepped outside. The crisp air did me good. The café would open in fourteen minutes so I walked for a few blocks with the song Astronomy, a Star in my head. A strange song so early in the morning. A child’s rhyme followed, one that I couldn’t identify but seemed to know by heart, a woolgathering song, death conscious, yet proclaiming the potential joy of discovery. One day we shall all be dead/ but those who keep moving/ tracing and retracing steps/ they shall be called Rembrandt, Magellan.
Stopping to snap a shot of my street with its downtown view of the Freedom Tower and uptown view of the Empire State Building, I was caught within a concurrence of strange phenomena. A sudden intensely glowing fog enveloped my subject; the queen of architecture had vanished in the silvery mist, even as the buildings on either side remained distinct. At the same moment a Siberian husky, wrenching a leash, leapt and abruptly stopped before me. I nearly dropped my camera as a profound fluidity passed between us. In a matter of moments we mutually experienced a kind of rapture, before he was summarily pulled away by his bewildered master. Just like that he was gone, a husky with eyes like prismatic ice. The Empire State Building was yet masked in heavy mist stirring a disconcerting memory of the gone twin towers, reduced before all eyes to the dust of zero.
On the sidewalk was a flyer with a hand painted mug and the message The Astro is back! Back from where, I wondered. Sidestepping the café, I reflected that the morning seemed to be taking on a life of its own. Camera in my sack, I pocketed the flyer and kept on going. I regretted that I hadn’t the presence of mind to take a picture of the dog that had so bewitched me, leaving me with a sense of unrequited destiny, as if glimpsing an alluring stranger on a passing train.
I crossed over to Sixth Avenue then walked for several blocks toward the Astro Restaurant. Actually it was a long way off but I still felt compelled to go. I remember when it was a new place but that was forty years ago. It seemed out of time then and still hadn’t caught up, which felt oddly comforting. It was pretty empty so I sat in a booth and was brought coffee in a mug exactly like in the picture. I ordered rye toast and eggs over easy. The coffee mug was adorned with their logo, the name “Astro” in bottle green, encased in a comet’s tail, hitched to a burnt sienna star. Staring into the moody silence of my mug, the lyrics of Astronomy, a star slowly etched themselves in the dregs. Hey! Call me Desdemona, eternal light, these gravely digs of mine. will surely prove a sight, and don’t forget my dog, fixed and consequent.
As the waitress poured me more coffee I got to thinking of Sirius, the Dog Star, the brightest in the heavens. And don’t forget my dog, fixed and consequent. I wondered if my brief encounter with the husky was more than a haphazard act of chance. I reached in my pocket for a twenty and felt the unpeeled Polaroid there as well. It was not a great image but my heart leapt. There, entering the left hand of the frame, was a blur of fur and two distinct prismatic eyes sharply focused upon me, piercing the shimmering atmosphere.
That night I propped it up on my worktable, my silvery blur, my future muse.
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