how lost tapes are born

    Strolling down the street. “Clara’s live karaoke” is written in beautiful calligraphy on a blackboard right outside a photography store. A green-haired girl wearing big, mint galoshes sat leisurely on a plastic chair, plays guitar and sings to a handful of alternative kids. Soft, country sounds appeared visible in the air, floating about beautifully like pastel-colored feathers, upon the visit of Zephyr to the backyard, where you’re plucking the chicken, delighted in the knowledge that tonight will be special. My heart peaceful and loving, my ears honored, but myself too shy to sit here and submit myself to the curiosity of passersby, like the rainbow-haired kids sat on the sidewalk around Clara, checking their phones.

   So, I pretend to check out the variety of rechargeable batteries for sale in the store, before stealthily walking out to hide in the corner. The further I get, however, the music never seems to quiet down, like playing from inside me, and I keep walking. On the next left, I turn, going up the neighboring street. In my heart, a strange feeling of belonging. Strange in the sense that I did not see myself fit to the standards of this place, although I knew this is where I’m supposed to be.

   Up the hill, no longer knowing why —or where I’d end up—, I pose a smile of proud relief, as can only the hard worker once the timekeeper rings six to welcome the evening. It is then that I notice the nombreux groups of redhead women coming opposite of me —, to visit Clara’s, I imagine, although her song had already dissipated. Three here, four there, ten in a military line up, and I wonder why there are so many of them. “Maybe because it’s Autumn,” the thought pops in my head.

   One of the parties passes by me as a distant bell resounds loudly, one, two, twelve times. One of the girls says, “it’s 06:30h”, and I silently contest, “How come? It’s still so bright outside.” But as I reached my destination, a purpureal mantle rapidly covered the sky as the lampposts all lit up, revealing a plethora of different overgrown vest-pocket parks, with each its own broken playground pieces and twisted, cement or wooden benches.

   The trees stood naked and rotten, reeking of old; themselves older than any soul circling around, of people ignorant to their own environment, blinded somehow. If not for tufts of resilient weeds reaching my hips in height, grass laid dead, some turned to dust on the dirt ground, here and there covered by a swarm of brittle sticks and leaves seemingly old as time.

   That which once upon a time was supposed to be revered as a valuable remnant of nature now stayed as open coffins, invisible to most though screaming a more than clear message. For what it’s worth, I doubt these parks have seen human presence in years, if not decades, despite all the people that, annoyed, dodged me like I was an obstacle, grunting and puffing and stomping hard in their shiny dress shoes — while I observed this timeworn tree that looked away, as if ashamedly avoiding my gaze.

   On the other side of the street is another of these parks, and I’m compelled to cross and reach, finally, my goal: a wooden bench missing the whole back part. To the left of the sit, a name and a date were carved. I smile. I sit down.

   MPB starts playing, resounding, just like a church bell. I look around and find it coming from an indoor gym of sorts, to which flock a number of people, welling up in heaps from the never-ending line of parked cars. It’s an interesting sight, and I draw it, in the same shabby notebook where I’m writing this story right now.