SmokeLong Quarterly

He finally got a good night’s sleep, even though it was only three hours. When he awoke he felt as if God had opened him like an envelope and gently stuffed ten or twenty hours of billowy rest into him.

He took a shower, got dressed in clean clothes, and walked to the bus. He did not jog nervously to the stop like usual. On the bus, he spotted an empty space at the front and squeezed in to sit. He pulled a small book out of his pocket and started to read. More people got on the bus and he looked at their shoes, their sandles, their feet. He looked at all the different toes of the women and imagined what their face looked like. He kept himself from looking up, even though he wanted to.

He had to show discipline.

He realized he had not turned a page in his book for a good five minutes and he wondered if those around him realized he was faking it. He was a terrible actor pretending to be a reader on a bus. He was a pervert torturing himself.

He started to feel tired again. On the surface of his body he still felt fine. But somewhere between his skin and his deeper parts, he felt a dizzy sadness. Two by two, he watched the feet move away from him.