Almost Beautiful (c1)

Marcus usually woke up to the sound of his father leaving the apartment in his tired Chevrolet, the muffler only barely subduing the car’s groans. By the time his father had forced the car out of reverse, Marcus would be rubbing his eyes with his right forefinger and thumb, cracking his lids open slowly in the face of the sunlight pouring through the edges of his curtains. It would be five minutes until he was fully out his bed, standing awkwardly as he stretched his arms and legs, rousing them from the night as if they too had not slept well. He would slide into the hallway bathroom , piss, wash his face and hands with cold water and return to his room. He would dress casual, relaxed, but always with some consciousness: faded jeans, a slim, vibrant red polo and white shoes with red and blue stripes. He would grab his messenger bag and head downstairs where he would fix himself breakfast and scan the day’s headlines. Thirty minutes after waking, he would be out the door.

But today Marcus awoke to silence. No slamming car doors, no engine groans or gears changing. Had he slept in? He didn’t think he had gone to bed that late, though he hadn’t slept well, but that was nothing new. He hadn’t slept well for two monthes, but his body was slowly getting used to it, adjusting to function with baggy eyelids and a clouded head. But he had already spent too much time thinking, it was time to get going. Marcus went on with the remainder of his morning ritual: washing his face and hands and dressing quickly yet carefully before heading downstairs.

The kitchen is strangely quiet, the kind of silence can only be found after a heavy snowfall. It takes Marcus a minute to realize why. He looks at the microwave only to the find the screen blank. He opens the refridgerator to find vegetables and cheese hiding in the shadows of its darkened interior. That’s what’s so strange, there is no electric whirring of machines creating the background noise that we associate with life.

Marcus’s eyebrows furrow as he searches the rest of the house. He flicks light switches, checks clocks and tries to power up his computer. Nothing. With a vague understanding of their purpose, Marcus hits all of the fuses in the closet and checks again. Still nothing.

“Shit.” He mutters to himself. With his thirty minute morning routine in tatters, Marcus grabs a Clif Bar out of the cabinet and jogs out the door.

It’s unusually sunny and cold, though the two oddities seem to cancel each other out. Marcus walks briskly down the front walkway of his apartment building and notices that his father’s Chevrolet is still sitting on the side of street. His father had not overslept as the room was empty when Marcus checked it in his frantic search for electricity. Perhaps his father had caught a ride into work. Marcus pulled his cell phone out from his pocket as he resumed walking down the street. His father rarely put his phone on, but with the power outage this morning, he’d probably be reachable. Marcus rounds the corner on his block and his father’s phone goes straight to the answering machine.

“Shit” Marcus mutters again. He starts to dial his father’s office when his left foot suddenly goes cold. In his frustration, Marcus had failed to avoid the wide stream that was running along the curb. Shaking his foot of the excess water he continues on his way, walking in the direction of the water’s origin. More city blocks roll by and the stream seems to widen. Marcus has seen no one on the streets, only lonely cars parked along the curb, their tires sitting in a few inches of water. As Marcus progresses, the water rises, making his travels increasingly frustrating as his pants legs quickly dampen. The water is moving at quite a speed and a distant roaring sound can be heard around the corner. Marcus judges that a water main has burst just around the corner and the short remained of his walk should be dry once he passes it. Avoiding the more turbid areas, Marcus finds himself in the middle of the street and facing a high wall of spray. The temperature has dropped and a high wind pushes droplets of water into Marcus’s eyes. The wind, swirling around the high rises moves the cloud of mist around in an eerily animated dance. Squinting through the spray, Marcus searches desperately for the water main, hoping that by remaining in the center of the road he will avoid walking straight into it.

He takes a few steps forward and stops, no longer thinking about how his wet socks are clinging to his toes. The water continues to rush around him but he does not feel it. Standing in the center of the wide avenue, Marcus’s gaze turns upwards as the wind pushes the spray aside for just a moment. But in that gap Marcus finds the broken water main. Two blocks away, forty stories in the sky, water if pouring out of Crane Tower and crashing onto the street below. The waterfall is perfect in every way: the water is a healthy blueish green, a thin rainbow crosses in front of it and it falls smoothly, without division. It was almost beautiful.