Mystery Gas

by Ramin Gillett (United States of America)

I didn't expect to find USA

You love coming to The Big Apple. It’s an eclectic frenzy of personalities who find themselves stuck in a boiler room, unabashedly wading through endless traffic and completely intent on avoiding each other. And then you hear it. That deranged voice, angry at being slighted, and now mad at everyone and you. The giant green loogie he hurls your way sends you flying. And then, unexpectedly, you find yourself in the middle of Times Square, and it’s like an ocean current pulling you through. But you’re not so anonymous anymore, because Mickey gotta feed Minnie, and Batman got bills to pay. You escape the hustlers and candy-eyed tourists, and after walking another twenty and a half blocks, because you’re too lazy to figure out the subway system, you call an Uber. This Asian dude with a swank haircut and tatted arms pulls up in a shiny black Cadillac. He doesn’t speak much English, so you wonder if he has any ties to the mob. But then you kick yourself for making assumptions. Regardless, you muscle through- try to make small talk, get him to open up, find out who’s fronting the Cadillac. But Swank Haircut’s not having it. All he does is shake his head, and you resign yourself to the sad reality that you’re not going back to Gainesville with any interesting stories. New York, you talk a good game. Forty minutes and two miles later, he drops you off at your hotel and gently bows his head as if to say goodnight. You take the elevator to the 32nd floor and make your way to your room where everything has been neatly and anonymously folded and reorganized. You stare out into the blur of Manhattan’s high rises and twirling stacks of mystery gas that’s slowly killing us off, and you remember what quiet sounds like, and that place where the sky touches the earth. For a brief moment, you feel alive again.