Polyphonic Rhythm

Polyphonic Rhythm

Rebel of the month on a south-bound subway train speeding through the dark underbelly of his city, the city he calls mother and the city he calls home. His dark fingernails scratch at the guitar on his lap lazily, massaging it, making it comfortable before he invades it. The grimy hands move gently and methodically over the neck, the strings, the frets, the body, pausing a little to pluck g, letting the note linger on the air and then releasing it to float far away from him, never to be seen again. Moisture clings on the window like perspiration in the throbbing heat of the night waiting for someone to receive it before it dies, lying in the gutter. Single flashes of light pulsate outside in the darkness, coming from an unknown source like eyes opening and closing, batting their lashes at him almost mockingly. Moving his fingers, he finds the string and lifts it forward, breaking into an expanding song that fills the drab interior of the subway car and the even drabber interior of his own mind that has been bleak with thought for the past two, sleepless nights. The image of her is burned on his cornea like a tattoo even while he sleeps, while he walks, while he tries his best to think of something else. The woman he has never met but knows he must meet someday in the future haunted his dreams and would not leave him alone. He hoped that she had been as tormented as he because sharing the torment of never knowing the truth of that other existence was erotic, exotic and tempting to him. It was a rare fruit that somehow had managed to fall directly into his lap. Her name echoed through his mind and shook his nervous system and even stranger, occasionally he swore he could see a harsh desert stretching before him for miles, and somewhere on the other side, a woman wandered calling out a single name.