It starts small and quiet, like a bean pounding in your chest. You’re walking through the aisles of the grocery store when you realize you’re squeezing a bag of shaved almonds so hard it might pop open. That would’ve been embarrassing, you think, but only in the way people are supposed to get embarrassed when something happens to you, not because of you. You put the almonds on the nearest shelf and head to the deli counter to buy a lobster. This is it. This is what people do when they’re in grocery stores. Yes, that one there, the handsome dark fella in the corner. You’ll take him. 

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You’re checking out now, and the cashier asks you if you found everything all right. Of course you did. Why would you have checked out if you hadn’t found what you came here for? Should you have just given up and gone home without your lobster? He was in a clear plastic bag now, swirling and unaware. You take your change and walk into the parking lot. 

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An amber sun sets behind the flat, grey concrete buildings all around you. They are piled high and placed near one another like bowling pins. There are cars humming around corners, exhaling rich black smoke and people walking in pairs in front of warmly lit windows where dresses hang on slender mannequins. This is how the city works, you think. It isn’t so much a location as it is the space between other spaces. You’ll have to remember that later.

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You walk down the sidewalk, which is quite uneven you might add, holding your bagged lobster and looking into the eyes of the people who shuffle past you. Their ears are covered in headphones, their lips slightly parted, mumbling into their chests. People aren’t looking for other people to talk to, at least not here. That makes sense, even if it’s a little sad. They’ve got their shoes on and their food and their reasons for being the way they are. You watch them come and go as you wait on the corner for the little light with the person in it to turn from red to green.

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Now there are little beams of light spilling out from the shop windows and from the cars waiting in lines as the sky turns navy blue. The evening air feels fresh and cool across your neck. You need to find a place to rest your legs and eat this lobster. You walk into a small restaurant tucked behind a church and sit down at a table beside a woman and her daughter. She’s very small and stares angrily at you like a dog through a chain-link fence. She is hunting you, you think. She can smell you. 

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You ask for a bowl from the waiter. Yes, a big, empty bowl, you say, and when he brings it to you, you open the lobster bag and pour the lobster and its water into the bowl. He is delicious, you think, moving slowly side to side and drowning in the open air. You place one hand on his left claw, preparing to taste him, but he clamps down hard on your finger and is unwilling to let go, even as you whip him out of the bowl and across the table. You kick your chair back. You are standing up now, your finger in complete and utter agony, turning a deep radish red and pulsating with trapped blood. This lobster does not wish to unpinch and release his grip, and now you are slamming its exoskeleton on the table, over and over again. Your finger begins to bleed, a line of crimson syrup snaking down your arm. You will surely die from this, you think, and you wish you had chosen a different lobster. 

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After repeated thrashings onto the table, the lobster is broken now and its impossible claw has relinquished your finger. You are standing in the corner of the restaurant. Everyone is watching, silent and wide eyed and covering their mouths. Your finger drips onto the floor and the patter is all you can hear except for the steam of the kitchen and the shuffling of chairs. The patrons watch you and look away when you turn to face them. The little girl at the table holds her gaze on you, smiling under hard eyebrows.

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You don’t say anything as you make your way to the door. It’s nearly black on the street now, and you can only see flashes of faces as you run down the sidewalk. You hold your blood-stained hand out under the pale streetlight to examine the extent of the bastard’s grip. His kind will not be remembered for their companionship nor their flavor. 

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You’ve still got time. You walk into a convenience store and use its bathroom to rinse off your hand. The pink gel soap burns as you slowly rub it across your wound. You decide to purchase something. You select a large bottle of Hawaiian Punch from behind a set of cold glass doors and wait in line. There is a large man in front of you with white paint stains all over his pants and shirt. He sways back and forth, a cigarette stuck behind his ear. He smells like eggs. You pay for the Hawaiian Punch, open the cap and pour the sweet, red liquid into your throat. A woman behind you calls you Sir and tilts her head to the side. She is angry. 

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You leave the parking lot and wander into a neighborhood. There are old houses painted blue and lilac, draped in darkness. There are freshly painted homes that glow white in the moonlight. You walk slowly, breathing in the sweet night air and touching the smooth green plants that hang over the fences. Warm, orange light breaks through the windows. Soft-winged creatures wheeze and croak from the trees and bushes. You are alone.

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You stand outside of a bar now, looking through the big frosted window into the dimly lit room. It’s full of brown-haired women in colorful dresses and hunched over men swirling and clinking their glasses in the candlelight. A dark man in a tan suit plays the piano on stage, dropping his wrists into the keys and leaning back in painful delight. You hear the rolling, dripping, clinking of the chords and the thick murmurs of conversation, the popping of laughter, and you wish it wasn’t like this. You wish you could stay, listen just a bit longer, but you can’t. You aren’t really here. You aren’t really this.

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It’s nearly dawn now. You trudge through a field along the highway. The sun is threatening to rise beyond the edge of the city. You see it coming, and you know it’s time, finally, to go. You take a deep breath and gaze once more at the skyline. The slender spires jutting against the purple hues of the morning. You see the twinkling lights and the cars and think of the people inside them, making their way into the next day, and you smile. 

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You walk along the yellow-striped pavement, face-to-face with the morning commuters. It ends quickly and loudly, with horns and lights and then nothing at all.

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