Moon over the Freeway

When I go to the edge of the parking garage, just out of the car and stiff from sitting still so long, and look out over the city, it seems like the world might not, even though from where I stand it looks infinite. The consciousness of so many people in that space weighs on me. If this world is only a figment of my imagination, or a figment of somebody else’s imagination that I’m facilitating by my existence, I am responsible for the existence of all those people! Think of it: I’m Einstein. I’m John Adams. I’m whoever I can think of, just by thinking of such.

The sunset over the city is beautiful—it always is—as one catches glimpses of the sun burning through the buildings, but as always it reminds one of the Simon & Garfunkel song and the apricot sphere becomes irascibly linked with a mushroom cloud, the doom, the very sunset of humanity. The first stars come out, and I have to disagree with the poets, the novelists, the naturalist essayists. The twilight is so much more beautiful in the city, where you have to appreciate the contrast between the sky and its brash surroundings, and that maybe this is where the sun will never come up again.