An Exhibition of Urban Miseries
Inspired by Mari Andrew & Pavithra K. Mehta
[A]
On a cold windy morning, you bundle up and head to the bus stop. The temperature is in single digits and the wind showers you in cold rain. It has been an uneasy night; you have an important exam in a few hours and your mood is on the edge. Your partner sends you an unnecessarily cheery good morning text and you respond begrudgingly, head bent, sitting on the bus stop bench, wiping away at the droplets on your screen. You look up and see the headlights of the bus through the gentle mist and in an almost dramatic scene, the driver breezes past you without slowing down. He doesn’t see you and you feel invisible, small, and anxiety balloons within as you realize the next bus is half an hour away and the universe just made a complete fool out of you — and suddenly, irrationally, your man/woman’s cheery text is equally complicit.
[B]
It’s Friday evening and you’re partying after years. You celebrate your recent achievements and the winter doesn’t seem too bad all of a sudden. It’s a night of flashing lights, laughter and music you don’t enjoy but you will dance to it anyway. You forget your sharp corners for one evening and allow yourself to laugh at the cute guy’s sexist jokes. Midnight reaches you, pushes you into a new day and you decide now, at 2 or 3 AM is as any a good time to head home. It is winter you remember as you unlock your bike. Your fingers already numb from the cold. You rummage for your gloves but you can find only one. The other has gone, vanished, perhaps crowd surfed away. Yet another winter and your gloves didn’t even survive the first month. Much like your teenage relationships.
[C]
It is a beautiful Saturday and the farmer’s market is in full bloom. The hawkers yelling, the sweet smell of food stalls, the colorful canopies, and the crowds — you eagerly take it all in for they remind you of things you took for granted back home. You spot avocados for dirt cheap and although you’ve made guacamole only about five times in your entire life, you choose to buy them anyway. During the following week, they sit on your shelf turning from raw to ripe to rotten under your neglect. You notice the shriveled blackness and wonder if you are capable of caring for anything.
[D]
The last post was in June 2016. You repeatedly refresh the website but nothing changes. Your favorite poet-blogger has been silent for three years (and counting) now. There is a wall that you find impossible to breach; you feel the cobwebs settling on the website’s backend scripts. What happened to her you wonder. Did she meet with an accident? Did she run out of poetry? Or did she just decide to keep her words to herself? Perhaps you should’ve messaged her and let her know how much her newsletters about the poetry of milk running out, deers eating her rose bushes and the grace of misunderstandings fueled your own creative journey. You don’t even have a picture or a proper name that you can use to search. The internet has no answers to this kind of ghosting.
[E]
Your music is on radio shuffle and suddenly there is a song that makes you pause your writing. It is other-worldly and you immediately know you will spend the entire weekend playing it on repeat until you get sick of it. It’s an obscure artist with a title that is not made of real words. A month after you’ve exhausted the song, you remember it and you are ready to listen to it again but it has seemingly vanished from your library. You cannot, for the life of you, remember the name or the artist. The ghost of its tune plays distantly in your mind and dissolves into smoke as you probe your memory further. The song, the artist have completely slipped out of purview. There is nobody you discussed this song with and suddenly you are faced with the prospect of never ever hearing it again.
[F]
It’s your friend’s birthday and you promised you would attend but the weather is gloomy and you know this negative degree weather wind will bite at your exposed ankles. You have to cycle five long kilometers and you already feel drowsy thinking about it. Your wooden floors and warm yellow hued room are inviting you to stay in. You watch the rain clouds gather from your window and close your eyes briefly. You know this is a social event you cannot miss, and you brave the weather — fingers, toes, and heart all numb.
[G]
You’re already in bed but lunchtime is knocking on your door. You’re suddenly out of food: leftovers, seconds, snacks and pizza money. You need to cook so you draw the pot with boiling water for your unceremonious quick-fix pasta. Then you decide you might as well make a decent meal and use your herbs, your garlic, your mother’s hand-written recipes and an hour later, your kitchen smells wonderful and you have a full plate but your hunger has bid its farewell. You tell yourself that adulthood is but a cruel joke.
[H]
Your friend has recently berated you on your wastefulness. Her perfect waste separation, glass Tupperware and vegan diet throw a shameful spotlight on your abysmal lack of concern for the environment. You decide to at least re-use the grocery bags. As you climb upstairs with your fresh groceries in the old plastic, the carrier splits cleanly in the middle and out tumble your pesto, laundry detergent, tomato sauce cans clanging down the hallway in perfect disharmony.
[I]
You completely forget about that one event at this other friend’s friend’s place where she told you she would introduce you to some of her cooler band musician acquaintances and you realize you don’t have time to wash your hair. You have grievously erred in timing your hair wash to sync with an event where you will have to make a good first impression. You do every hairstyle you know (you really mean the two — tied up and not tied up) and finally, do the unthinkable. You comb out your curls. Now, you look like you have been struck by lightning. It will definitely make a first impression, you think. Perhaps just not a good one…
[J]
Your sister is visiting and you excitedly outline your itinerary. You promise her the very best ice cream she has ever tasted and for the cheapest price in all of Europe. The winter sun is up in the sky and it is not yet warm but ice cream eating has no rules to it. You rush to the store which has the beautiful blue cloth shade and its name stitched to it in loopy writing. A notice hangs sadly from the door — they are closed for renovation for the next month.
There are some of the many urban miseries that fill mine or my loved ones’ otherwise delightful life. What is it to live without tripping anyway? Do send me your miseries, if you have any.
