The construction continues across the road and I drink my coffee and watch. Yesterday's crane is NOT in the flyway for the IAH approach. Just saw a plane come in higher than the top of the crane. So. Good. There are at least two concrete sides up this morning...I can see the dirt ramp in the back of the site where they can drive closer to the upper edges of the concrete forms. Not sure what it's for. There are five trucks in the parking lot. The crane is still there. It looks like the building interior will stretch most of the way to the Popeye's next door. Nothing in my head this morning. I need to work on something.
Listening to what sounds like "Chelsea" repeated over an over to an ache, a heartbeat that hurts with every thump and chord and watching the dude outside in the fisherman's cap and the long-sleeve, chambray shirt with the neon green turn-up cuffs check the meters facing the ATMs. He checks the dials, makes notes in pen on a clipboard, looks closely. The song continues to pulse overhead.
When I entered the coffee shop this morning a single phrase, "Where are you?" echoed in my head. I guess I'm thinking of the floods, blob-slow, rising around the city where I grew up but it seemed the kind of question you ask as soon as bad news comes through. "Where are you?" Are you near the epicenter? He checks the dials again and moves on. A sprinkler comes on, he walks around the landscaping and makes a few more notes. Everything is in balance or there are minor correctives. The phrase lurks, a chorus I know will be coming up, soon.
Breathe. Think about the news. Candidates repeat the danger that breathes in the darkness of the future. It's already humming and we catch a few verses in the speeches. Utopia rotted somewhere in the bend of the creek and we are trying to survive the dystopia. If it's real, if the images correlate. The orange of the construction equipment, the neon of the workers' apparel. Here is much that is dangerous in the becoming and we are, currently, much safer when we are afraid. Per the regulations.
And he keeps checking. Opens the pipes, observes the landscaping. And we've shifted to Adele, to a deeply 70's grove that feels like the edge of disaster.
