 |
| It was snowing again. Typical for New York in December. The flakes drifted, not making the same awful, monotonous noise as rain did when it hit the windows, brushing against them and gathering on the sills as it all filtered down. So much more beautiful to look at, too. The snow allowed a peaceful quiet as it turned the city white even for a few brief hours before that whiteness was overtaken by soot or shoved away in slush. Mark Cohen was watching that snow, his eyes trained on the window from the dark interior of the loft which he alone inhabited. Snowing again...quiet again...alone again...hadn't he done this already? |
|
| Yeah, too many times. Perhaps that was why he was used to it now. After Roger took off there had been nobody. Collins was God knows where, living it large...Mimi with Roger...Joanne and Maureen pursuing other projects in places they never bothered to tell him...Benny, good riddance, having been the first to leave. Now Mark was the only one left. Just him and his camera. But that was okay. Hadn't he known it would one day be like this? That those good old days when the gang was together and kicking couldn't last forever? Hadn't it always seemed like he was the only one around here who wasn't dying of something or other? Perhaps. |
|
| The building had been renovated last spring. Oh yeah, Benny still owned it, and as could be expected the alleged renovations hardly made any difference. Mark in his loft still had no heat. Electricity, maybe, but he wasn't using any now. He was sitting in the dark, with his scarf and the sweater Mom had sent him, holding his camera and staring out the window. Just like before... Only now he was alone. There was no out-of-tune guitar plucking in the background to pace his thoughts while he worked. No arguing between one or another couple down below on the street or in the next apartment. No sweet singing to ease away tensions and strains. Just quiet. A year ago he would have killed to get some quiet while he worked, with everything that had been going on. Now it was a monotonous force, days on end without a sound excepts the homeless beyond these bare and cracked walls, the hum of his camera... |
|
| The film he'd put together had brought a little money from those he showed it to, enough to pay his way for at least a few months, but he pulled back before it could land him any real jobs. It felt just plain wrong exploiting like that. The people that were depicted in those shots and angles so carefully looked over and worked through, what he knew about their lives and personalities, or about their deaths...it felt wrong to use that at all. Even look at it now. Or maybe it was hurt. Angel would have said differently, he knew. "Make me a star!" he would have urged, and Mark probably would have gone on with it, but Angel wasn't here. Nobody was. |
|
| So he started up a new project, probably one that would get him evicted before he was close to finishing, but started nonetheless. Something about life in the city...a starving artist just scraping by...it had been so long since he felt motivated by the idea he wasn't sure what it was about anymore. At the rate it was going, it wouldn't get him far anyway. Just a lot of shots and angles...nameless faces drifting by on silent film...they lacked the personalities, the flames of life that were in his first. To him, at least. Perhaps a potential employer would see different. |
|
| Mark looked down at the camera in his hands. A newer model than his last one. A little better quality but also set up with a lot of features he probably would never use. He'd really had to scrape to get that one off the streets...now he was wondering if it was worth it. |
|
| He and the group--that was: Roger, Mimi, Joanne, Maureen, Collins, and Angel--had once agreed among themselves to live for the day. No day but today, that was it, right? What happened, then, when every day became like the last? Nothing could be expected from the next because it would be the exact same? Like the snow that fell: quiet, steady, monotonous, without change, always down. Mark knew he shouldn't let himself get depressed over thoughts like that, and really he wasn't, but it didn't hurt to acknowledge the fact of what was happening. He figured he could always go back to Life Support, listen to the stories there and tell his own...maybe get an idea for a short film. But really he didn't want to. What would he find there? More people like those he knew...people like Mimi, or worse: Angel...a lot of people trying to find a last grasp of hope in their life which they knew was quickly ending, trying to convince themselves to live for the day. No regrets...yeah right. |
|
| Mark stood up, realizing only then how cold he was. His breath came in short puffs he could see, his arms tight around his chest with the cold metal of the camera tucked beneath one arm, his very bones shaking with that cold that penetrated. It was that cold he hated: the kind that was barely below freezing, yet bit at you most savagely. It could be much colder than this and he knew he would be fine if he moved around a bit, but not in this...this kind of cold bit and didn't let go. It was an uncontrollable shiver. |
|
| He couldn't film if he wanted to...his hands would shake. Slowly, stiffly, Mark slid down from his perch and crossed over the barely padded floor towards the one window. He could feel the cold seeping in through the glass, as though it had anywhere warmer to go in here. Live for the day, Mark thought with an ironic grin as he opened the window and leaned out of it., feeling the bite of the snow as it found its way below his collar and beneath his scarf. Looking down he scanned the alley below, already mostly white with piles and trash and clothes showing through. From here he could almost see that lot of the neighboring space, totally covered now. It was amazing how snow could make the worst things seem pretty. Maybe later he would go walk around in it, chuck a few packed snowballs up at his own resident building. Couldn't hurt. |
|
| Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes, eh? How much of that had he used already? He used to tell the others not to be afraid of emotion. What emotion? he wanted to yell out. What could possibly be found in this God forsaken place? When every day was like the last and the next, what was there to feel except the snow? Falling, silent, monotonous. Turning his face Mark leaned his head back so that he could look up at the clouds, feel the bite of the snow on his own face...those tiny sensations that would let him know he was still alive, after all. It was in doing so that he lost his grip on the smooth metal of the camera and it plunged down into the alley, shattering into a million useless pieces on the ground. |
|
| Roger had been right about him. |
|
|
|