I wake up late. It is a Saturday, close to noon. Looking out my window, I expect to see a bright happy view, waiting to call me out of doors. Even in sleep I feel the gentle touch of sunlight on my face. I can tell, today is one of those stay outside all day. I open my eyes slowly. I know what I will see, but still I hope for trees and clouds.
I strain to see the ground. This is not a problem I encountered growing up in Brooklyn. Giving up on amusing myself with an interesting view of the street, I try a different view.
I look up. This is a bad decision. I see none of the natural, expected colors. The area in front of me is dominated by beige and gray, concrete and glass. Sunlight glares off the windows three or four floors above me. By this I know there is life out there somewhere, looking straight ahead, it would be hard to tell. The light prevents me from looking in the windows of the building across the street. In the giant glass windows I see a reflection of my window, and all the other windows in my building. The beautifully organized suicide proof windows, distorted by the windowpanes opposite.
I am no longer determined to move out of doors. Instead I stay inside, watching TV, reading, daydreaming. Then I get hungry. The kitchen is disgusting, that’s what happens when 50 teenagers use the same facilities. I use it anyway, what else can I do? While I wait for the water to boil, I read the sign. “BEWARE THE MUTANT ROACHES! AHHH!” I laugh, until I see them.
Cockroaches have never fazed me, but I can’t help being disgusted. I start to understand the urge to eat out. Eating out has so many advantages. There are no dishes, counters, or stoves to clean. No time taken to prepare, food is simply a phone call away. Its so simple I sometimes think I’m crazy for enjoying dealing with the problems and the dirt that cooking in New York City presents.
By the time I finally leave the dorms, it is dark. I meet my friends at the train station. This is always my favorite meeting spot. In a city full of places to go, there are too many nondescript places and large chains. I have spent too many hours waiting for a friend in the “Starbucks on Astor Place,” while they were waiting across the street in the “Starbucks on Astor Place.” Somehow the train station is more prominent. It also provides me with a great spot for people watching. Today there are mostly young people exiting the station, walking quicker, and with more of a purpose than suits usually do during the evening rush hour.
Walking down the street, I notice the cities free newspaper receptacles. They are empty. I start analyzing my life. Why have these particular bins caught my attention? What is so significant about them? Why are they empty? I don’t want to think about what this means. They shouldn’t mean anything to me. I keep walking, and I don’t look back.
In stark contrast to the empty newspaper bins, I next notice the full trashcan, leaking all over the sidewalk. This is just one trashcan, but I know that on every other corner there is another full trashcan. How do other cities stay clean? Even with the amount of litter in New York, we still manage to fill up the trashcans. There are even towns and cities with no trashcans. I am in awe of the clean cities of the world.
We are almost home when we pass the tank. It so out of place. Its massive weight sits demurely by the sidewalk. A taxi has pulled up right behind it, the passengers get out, pay the cabbie, and walk off. No one notices. Maybe the camouflage coloring really works, but I don’t believe that.
And finally, I found a phone booth. These things are fairly hard to come by now a days. Everyone has a cell phone, so the city has let the booths fall into disrepair. More money is put into the advertisements on the sides than into actual calls. Communication has evolved. Its not stationary anymore, I can take everything with me as I walk. There is no reason to make a call from a booth when we can have a conversation in the 10 minuets it takes to walk from the train station. New inventions are always made in the interest of saving time. New Yorkers always need more time. They always rush, they can never slow down.