Lungflesh

by Scott Becker

The morning brought no epiphanies.

He awoke heavily his lungs raw from
hacking for most of the long night.
Like a perennial drunk coming off of
same the dismal day offered noter but
a fundamental embarrassment of still
being alive. The departure of his youth
left him wondering why he had not
long ago left along with it. Every limb
seemed beset by a default soreness.
as he rose unsteadily like a reverse
infant who toddled unsure that the
next step my provide a fall. The guilty
feeling of realizing that fallibility had
damned him along rest to one day
soon take a boat ride with Charon
across that dark river of oblivion.

The reception the night before had

been well attended though the winter
weather had been less than
cooperative with a temperature below
zero plus windchill cold snap. He had
labored equally hard, his recently
recovered woolen scarf close by his
mouth to defeat the searing pain of his
lungs filling with frigid air. He hobbled
forth down the side walk arms and
chest hurting. Attempting to address
those six long blocks that had in
previous eras presented him with little
challenge. Here and there a
recognizable structure still identifiable
enough to recall the daily activities o
twenty years past. Occasional
passersby shooting disparaging
glances at the amount of effort it took
him to propel himself forth in a slow
and heavy gait. Though he felt he was
late he moderated his pace so as to
reduce the struggle to a simple test of
his will against the unrelenting cold.

He arrived mercifully soon into the

airlock of the gallery's front foyer. It's
festive collection of brightly colored
paintings and intricately wrought
sculptures forming a solvable maze
leading to the back of the
establishment. He lingered fully
wrapped by the front desk, coat and
gloves undisturbed as he sought to
regain his vigor. In the course of going
through the motions of inspecting art
playing the fiction of just another face
fresh in from the street he was
greeted by one of the gallery's
attendants. Recovered enough from
his exertion , he proceeded towards
the back kitchen area where he was
instructed to dispose of his coat.

The contents of the gallery seemed

collectively as if reminiscent of a
bygone now departed era. Though
each respectively recommended itself
to the eye as worthy by virtue of clever
industry they all seemed lost within his
appreciation of the current time of
history. What were these sentimental
phrasings and lyrical exponents doing
in a world increasingly turning solely
to the staples of bread, bullets and
finding shelter? His own work hung
mute and equally uninteresting to him.
His attitude might have been likened
to that of a jilted lover whose faith in
humanity had been displaced by a
disastrous love affair. The excitement
promised by the evening ahead
summoned a deep seated desire for
attention that had as of recently
seemed so lacking in his life. Too self
aware to enact the role play of his
cocky former self he lope about the
warren of artworks springing from one
section to the next like a skittish
antelope.

The assembling crowd became

surprisingly dense as the night wore
on. Mostly half his age or more they
congealed in energetic little enclaves
drawing their circle tight at the
approach of mysterious interlopers.
How odd it seemed to him that the last
two generations routinely eyed his
own with such unanimous initial
hostility? Perhaps the jowls and
wrinkles and sagging flesh of his face
recalled a dour family member who
routinely meted out unwanted advice?
His rovings though their midst obeyed
this convention and for most of the
initial part of the evening he barely
uttered a word. Serious minded
women passed and one stopped to
speak, her defenses overwhelmed
with his tacit smile. She talked and
she talked and she talked as if making
up for the lack of attention that she no
doubt had become accustomed to in
the later portion of her existence.

Friends came and went buffeting

against the solitude that hid behind his
smile. He appeared metaphorically at
the tower window raining down
beneficence like some agnostic pope.
But any real involvement in the
moment of his portion of this temporal
triumph remained elusive. The visitors
of the night waxed and then eventually
waned. Taking a cue from some
others his conversations wound down
as he gathered his outer wear. He
stood on the other side of a
conversation-less gap by the door
meticulously adjusting both gloves
and hat and spring boarded back into
the cold with the determination of an
Olympic athlete. A small residue of
friends that had followed him outside
bid him good night and he set off
down the other direction in the
garishly lit street.

The analogy of an astronaut in a leaky

space suit being rapidly bled flooded
his imagination. Though his progress
was more energetic than that
displayed at his arrival he surmised
that it could easily degrade far sooner
before his destination would be
reached. Now walking upon the lane
opposite of the one before he took in
the thick exterior makeup of stores
and restaurant posed at ground level.
The same buildings that he had know
thirty years previous leaned heavily
against each other with the weight of
its encumbrance. Here and there store
fronts gave way to second, third and
sometimes fourth story tableaus of
strangely lit windows. He could only
imagined from the distorted colors
economically splashed in the cold and
deadly night that the residents behind
would have been characters from a
Hieronymous Bosch canvas.

The passing city blocks led him to a

small corporate way station where he
obtained a miserly cup of coffer was
poured into the emblematic cup with
little enthusiasm by the employee. Her
hand motion offering the change for
his fiver to him over the small raised
counter belied the desire to keep the
pittance. He allowed the few coins to
fall into his palm and then pushed
them into the plexiglass square that
held others. His glove tightly replaced
again he sipped the resident heat of
the beverage into his chest and stood
forth back out into the skeletal
remnants of his recollections
subtended by the bitter wind. A young
woman whose careful appearance
and fashion suggested a defiance for
the reality of the numbing effect of the
weather inquired as to where the bus
stop was. The exchange of words was
equally brief and cordial and he
wished her well as they split off in
respectively different directions as the
small skyscaper's corner knife edge.

The car was reached several blocks

past but its deceased heater offered
naught but the cold air necessary to
counteract his own breath at close
quarters upon the windscreen ahead
of him. The drive back was brief and
lacking in desperation. His latent
cough from before reappeared and he
labored across the slippery ice after
he parked his car in the mostly
abandoned lot next to the industrial
building that served to contain his own
tiny loft. The temperature of the hall
and entry seemed to offer little
welcome to his weary body drained of
heat. The door locked and a down
cover summoned and adjusted he fell
into a restless sleep that was
periodically interrupted by the staccato
of his hacking cough. Morning had
been subsumed by the hopelessness
of Stygian night as he eventually
stilled the imagery collected from the
day and sank into the bliss of empty
oblivion.