One second.

In one second, a lot of things can happen. I can hear it all. I can see it all. I can feel it all. The slight rotation of the Earth underneath me. The movement of tectonic plates just before an earthquake. The swish of magma far, far away under the surface of the Earth.

I can hear the cry of a 22-year old woman who just looked at her pregnancy test result. I can hear the last breath of an old man let out in a hospital not far from here, his grandkids asleep in the waiting room, waiting for good news. I can hear a kid bawling because his single mother wouldn’t let him get an ice cream. He doesn’t know that she is struggling to pay the bill for their cheap apartment so that they would have a place to live in.

All around me there is movement. Three boys are fighting around the corner of the street, two toddlers are playing with their dolls and figurines on the ground of the nearby square, a gang of teens are smoking joints underneath the awning of the abandoned flower shop.

I can see the lonely man sitting on the bench texting his husband “I won’t come to dinner tonight” because he still has lipstick marks on his neck and hands and cheeks and simply cannot face his beautiful, loving, perfect husband. I can see the 14-year-old girl facing her parents in the kitchen, taking a sharp breath in for courage before her coming-out. The paintings and religious books in the bookshelf behind her. The poster “Family is sacred. Let our children have parents.” shining in the spotlight, the same one lighting her anxious gulp and the fear in her eyes. I can see the car speeding in the street, trying to pass before the light turns red. The little boy and his big sister about to cross the street, not looking left and right because they are late for school. The boy’s smile. The dimple on his cheek. The freckles on his nose. The glint in his eyes. The unknowing step on the road which will cause the accident. He doesn’t know this is his last second to live. She doesn’t know this is the last time she’ll see her brother. Noone ever knows when it’s the last time.

I can hear a thousand voices in my head. “–marry me?” His deep voice. Her loud gasp. “–want different things.” Her awkward high-pitched voice, his stunned realization that he’s getting dumped. “–be a father.” Her grin as she announces their baby, his wet eyes and broad smile. “No! No!” The boss yelling at her assistant through the phone, because he got himself drunk the day before instead of doing paperwork. “-love you.” The soft words murmured into his girlfriend’s ear, the way his heart is racing and hers is about to leap. They love each other so much, they are the only ones existing in their world right now.

I wish their voices were the only ones I could hear. “Please ! No– !” The scream the half-naked woman let out before he grabbed her wrist and held her against the wall, tore through the happy laughs and carefree smiles. “I won’t.” His voice broke and he leaned forward. The cry of his fiancée as she kissed him for one last time, wishing and begging and hoping his cancer would just disappear and let him live happily and marry her and have children with her and die alongside her when he was old. “I can’t.” Her voice as she announces she will never love him the way she should and that the only solution is divorce. “I’m not.” His ragged breath as he leans forward and grabs the plastic bag with the white powder in it, ignoring his best friend’s protests that he is better than this.

There are also a million sounds erupting around me. The chuckle of an actor as he messes up a joke. The loud thump of a president falling on the ground after getting shot. The splash of water as a saleswoman drowns into the Thames. The loud applause in the Scala in Milan. The chirps of blue tit chicks as their mother searches for worms to feed them. The bark of a stray dog in the streets of Baghdad. The smack of a fist on a chin in Philadelphia. The sneer of an instructor in Shanghai. The smirk of a sister in New York City. The roar of a plane taking off in Amsterdam. The music ringing in a composer’s ear in Hamburg. The chant of an angry crowd in Paris.

A bouquet of smells, fragrances and perfumes tint the air. An expensive perfume which the man she is trying to impress will never notice. A hint of cologne bought twenty minutes earlier in a street shop urgently. An ounce of warm sweet bakery smell sticking to a woman’s clothes. They all mix together, forming a web of different tastes, adding yet another facet to everyone’s personality. I take it all in.

This balding man on my left hasn’t showered in a week. I can see the scrapes of dirt, leaves and soot on his coat, scarf and skin. The glamorous woman on my right smells like her chiwawa’s fur and like caviar. The guy uncomfortably leaning against the wall in front of me smells like cigarette smoke, like overused perfume to mask the smell and like hot dogs.

I have so, so much information on everything and everyone around here. I can tell you what this person ate for lunch, where this kid is running to. I can tell you what she is saying, what he is understanding. I can tell you why she is crying, and why he isn’t comforting her.

I can tell you she ate a cucumber sandwich and that the kid is running late for tennis practice. I can tell you she is telling him about what her dream man is like, and he doesn’t understand that she’s talking about him. I can tell you she just announced she is pregnant, he isn’t comforting her because he’s the father.

I can feel all the emotions. I can feel the hidden meanings. I can feel the shame.

I can feel a meteor colliding with a dwarf planet twenty-eight light-minutes from here. I can feel a star that stopped shining a long, long time ago, slowly fading in the dark. I can feel the Moon rising on the other side of the Earth.

I can feel it all.

And I don’t like it.

Castille VM.

Jan 2023