The Quiet of Chatter.

The wind tears through clothing, biting raw skin, a rash of goose bumps breaking out across layers of wool, ice picks pricking swollen cheeks, nostrils stuck shut with frozen snot.

Waiting for the reprieve of winter takes on a whole new meaning when you’re unable to breath, your lungs suddenly solid with the vapors of ice.

On the bus, everyone is a rendition of a wild animal bearing its winter coat: the mink on the left, dark and slick, black eyes peering from behind layers of Lycra fur made by the poor indigenous people of a country that’s never experienced weather quite like this; the bear, his beard thick with frost, his paws pulling a worn wooly toque over sad, experienced eyes, feet dressed in boots too big save the three pairs of socks; the bird, always at least one, too proud to hide its feathers but obviously shivering in its poor choice of stylish jacket and delicate shoes.

I, smudging fog from the frames of my glasses, unzip the first layers of down, loosen the wool around my neck, pull one then two pairs of mittens from warm and wet hands and settle into my seat for the long ride into dark morning.

The snowflakes fall fat, slow – almost apologetic in the way they drift softly in an attempt to excuse themselves from the shoulders of passers-by. Pardon me, oops, excuse me, they’d say in swirling whispers.

The winter dampens the noise of the city, cushions the chaos of rude traffic, softens the belch of industry, hushes businessmen yelling into cellphones. Slowly, the city is padded with the Styrofoam crunch of packed snow under tires, underfoot. With no rush to be anywhere in particular, traffic crawls, creeping down side streets, the rumble of engines lost to white noise.

With every sound suddenly so dampened, the world moving so slowly, I can finally hear my own thoughts.

Sometimes I get these words stuck in my head – just one at a time. I repeat them over and over and over again and again not because I want to but because my brain gets stuck like a sports car high centered in a plow bank of snow – a constant loop of letters spinning without gain or change, the same song stuck on repeat.

Calculated. I am calculated. I calculate moves carefully, chess board strategy – sequencing a chain of reactions. Calculated gets stuck up there, I can touch the letters – round and soft, interjected with sharp swords – swift and strategic in their placement. The word talks in my mind, tries on different voices, speaks different languages: prémédité; kalkuliert; calculado; gerekende. The voices, they’re hurried sometimes – in a rush to spit out letters too bitter to keep in. But sometimes, sometimes the voices are slow, carefully forming each letter, slurring them into one another. Caall-kul-ltd.

The squirrel gets on board on Jasper and 116, its cheeks full of saved food, its coat shivering with the chill of winter wind, eyes glassy, nervous, darting back and forth from door to window to the bear’s face, who’s drowsy with hunger.

Loss. This word is hissed sometimes up there – serpent and slithering, a flicking tongue, four letters, a gentle start to a slick, slow end. Loss – a forgiveness of something once held dear, letting go, a loose kite string floating higher and higher, or a treasure sunk deep in high water, filtering below the surface lower and lower until nothingness – black, murky, the treasure of memory. Perte; verlust; perda; het verlies: lllossss…

This word, it sleeps in the corner of my mind, wound tight around other thoughts, slipping between full sentences, interrupting logic, a low, slinking ssss, a muted soundtrack of letters in my mind.

The chatter on the bus competes with the chatter in my mind, each loud, persistent, vying for attention via auditory hallucination. The bird, chirping: calculated dress is a consequence of the interactive genetic algorithm; design is of the origination of the Latin ‘designare,’ you know? It means to symbolize some plan, a calculated placement of feathers, the bird coos, puffing feathers, ruffling wings.

The bear wipes his mouth with a dark paw, growling under his breath: failure, destruction, privation, defect, misfortune, risk, not gaining, not winning. Bearing a loss.

The chatter is loud today.

Jasper and 124. End of the line: tightened scarf, zippered jacket, mittens pulled on.

Soft steps off the bus, plowing through quieted streets, the chatter – it stops.

xoxo

M.L. H’art