Morning Passages

It’s 3:59 and my eyelids jump open as the glass in my window rattles against its chipped wooden frame. I envision the fabled earthquake of which I had yet to experience (six months in – I’ve felt not a single tectonic rumble), though, once fully conscious, I note the shrill, painfully familiar thud of thick heels on the pine floor just five feet above my bed.

Through the layers of plaster, piping, and pine, I know that tonight will be as every other night; every step of her path is memorised, sharp and taut; never deviating; admirable, even, in its reliability:

Trot around the kitchen and drop a saucepan (or a copper mug or perhaps a ladle; any object which emits a metallic ping); stampede cumbersomely, (a ravenous jackal, she) around the living room looking for condoms or manuscripts, portfolios or lube, a briefcase or a bustier, muttering aloud all the while; return to the kitchen and drop a chair – a chair – and a set of keys with an uneven plonk and ting; tap staccato, clumsy steps towards the front door shrieking about a man named Ricky or Richie and the money he owes or the men he’s blown; exit briskly, slamming the unsuspecting door flush into its swollen jamb; run two stories down the black staircase, each heel meeting iron, amplifying in the dank, cavernous hall, acoustics sharply defined with a melodic click and a pitchy clack; burst through the alleyway door into the crepuscule night, weeding through the threshold of the dense onyx gate, bracelets bumping and echoing in the still LA air; grate her heels against the slick asphalt, shouting into the air until her voice cracks and a car whines three times in rapid succession.

Her night sounds continue until dawn, until the morning glows hazy through opaque layers of poison, until the jingling and the clacking finally dissipate and meld with the outside din – the senseless yammering and the feral yelps and the revving engines and the growling dogs – the relentless grumblings of another Angelic morning passage.