Mundane, and monotonous..two words I can use to describe the city. Everyone always wonders how exciting and riveting it must be to live here. They call it "the city that never sleeps." Something is always happening, always moving. But, that's just the thing. Something is ALWAYS happening. I think I would be more impressed and amazed if the city grew quiet for once. If somewhere, someone or something actually DID sleep. With men on their blackberries, and business women balancing files and coffee, monotony sets back in. So that is why I am here, every Tuesday afternoon. The cafe below my apartment serves coffee. Now, it's not the best coffee, but it is still coffee. I come here because no one else does. It is not one of those busy Starbucks, or Dunkin' Donuts. People don't yell out orders, or shove through the crowd to get to their double shot, mocha frappes. It is quiet, and quaint. Just the thing I need.

One rainy Tuesday, I sit below the awning and let the water drip before me. Protected under the fabric, I watched a miniature waterfall. Then, a damp and fragile figure stepped into my sight and the waterfall is disturbed. It shakes off the attacking droplets, and out from underneath a parachute sized raincoat, a man evolves. He is old, with long, white hair that is held neatly in a ponytail just below the crook of his neck. His skin is fair, and his eyes are a deep emerald green. His stance is fragile, but beneath his skin, and beneath his age lies something young..he glances towards me, and holds a stare. He looks at me as if he wasn't sure that I was really there.
"Can I help you?" I say.
He hesitates and blinks. "Oh, no. I'm sorry, it's just..tell me, what is your name?"
"My name is Wendy." I say.
"That's a very nice name, but if you don't mind. Could you tell me your full name?"
I was uneasy..he looked as if he were excited over something, as if he needed assurance.
"Wendy Ann Morris."
He smiled, almost holding joy.
"Thank you." He walks into the rain, forgetting why he stopped at the cafe' in the first place.
Thank you? That's it? I tried to go back to my coffee and my waterfall, but that old man was keeping me from moving on. Why did he have to know my full name? Who was this mysterious stranger that toppled my quiet Tuesday afternoon?

The Beginning of The End

The giant floor-to-ceiling windows drip with fresh rain. There, in the center of the glass, a handprint fades. It is mine, from the moments I took to observe the busy and shuffled streets below me. The weightless feeling as I looked 20 stories down, into the city that never sleeps, made me dizzy. I blink hard to ease the wavering and when I open them I am no longer at the window. Now, as I look down, is not a jumble of yellow taxis, or aromas of cased meats. There are no errands to be run, no brand name clothes, no comedy shows, and no disturbance. There is only the piano, my hand itching to touch its ivory keys. One finger falls, gently on to the cold white surface. This sensation sends a shiver down my spine. I need more.

 I add more fingers to the row of keys, all just as cold as the first. I am yearning for more, I grab at the structures as if they were food..as if they were nourishment. Suddenly, my fingers swell in a wave, and the most beautiful melody digs its way out from the depths of the piano. Colors begin to dance around the room and ricochet off the walls. I am surrounded by sound and it is warm, and it is welcoming. I feel my body begin to levitate off the bench. The frequencies slowly start to maneuver my willing limbs through the waves of colors and sounds. And just as I start to close my eyes, to become one with the beings that now filled the room-it all stops. I stop. 

 The room is silenced, the essence of the melody is still bouncing off the walls, like an echo, but I can't hear it. The room is alive, the world has stopped, and I am shaking. My hands poised above the keys, ready for more but I know my body can not take it. I blink, hard. I feel the last drops of colors drip from my eyelids as I squeeze them closed. When I open them I am in a different place..I am at the beginning.