Open the door, turn, lock, check once, check twice, down the stairs.
As I get closer the same familiar rumble grows, always so threatening. I throw open the front door and a torrent of sound assaults my ears. I blink in the sunlight for a moment, it has been days since any color but grey shone down during the day. Soon shapes form in front of me again.
The city bus is stopped at the end of the block, the driver loitering on the sidewalk enjoying his morning cigarette while passengers lean out the window, yelling at him; it just adds to the racket. Exhaust from the bus burns my nose, but I cough it out, make a quick left and head down the sidewalk, away from the offending airborne poison.
I unravel my familiar ear-buds, push them into my ears, and press play on my iPod. Some familiar rock song drowns out most of the symphony of human activity around me, wrapping me in a protective sheath of rhythm; order to combat the chaos.
Even this early the heat is stifling. The sun must barely be up and I can already feel sweat beginning to stick to the back of my shirt, and the scent of garbage gives me the sneaking feeling that if I actually looked I would see that I'm sweating some kind of black, putrid grime. The walk to work was never pleasant, but there is never enough money in my pocket to justify dealing with the tobacco and who-knows-what-else addicted bus driver.
A homeless man sits at the next corner with a dog, always asks for spare change, even when he knows I don't have any. The crosswalk halts me at his corner, and he and I share an uncomfortable silence, if you could call it that here. We catch eyes, and our stare holds only a moment.
No one says anything. His gaze drifts lazily up, to something above me. I follow it up, into the blue sky coating the spaces between the old high rises, swallowing up and dispelling swathes of black exhaust. The waxing moon sits dead center over the thoroughfare, and I realize suddenly that I can't remember the last time I ever saw anything in that sky but clouds.
I feel transfixed by it's beauty, a reminder that something exists outside of this place. It makes me so woefully aware of my surroundings.
I feel other people building up at the corner with me, encroaching on my body, compressing me. I feel the smoke welling up over my head, trying hard to stake its claim in the remaining space around me, suffocating me. I feel the noise pushing on my temples, every metallic pulsation threatening to crush my bones and come flooding into my skull without my ears to filter it, killing me.
I feel a sudden surge of rage building in my chest, bottled up for so long, longing to reach for the sky, for something beautiful. I feel myself drawing a breath, wanting to yell, scream at the top of my lungs for someone to reach down and pull me out of this place.
But the smoke jams in my vocal chords, and all I can do is cough, almost to my knees before I can find a breathable span of atmosphere. The other people have already crossed the street, but I feel a person next to me.
"This'll help."
The voice shoves a plastic bottle under my lips and I take a long drink. The liquid burns, and I cough again, falling back to sit right there on the corner. A hint of vodka joins the airborne cacophony around me. I look up again to meet the homeless man's stare, his expression blunt.
"I thought you said this would help!" I exclaim, my voice raspy from the strain.
He sits back down at the corner, and gazes back to the sky, the sun accentuating the dirt filling the valleys in his tired face made deep from age and drink, his expression with a hint of longing that I suddenly recognize.
"It's the only thing that does," he says.
I look back to the sky.
Before I know it, I've taken another swig from the bottle.
