Day 249: This Is His Day

This is his day. His Reeboks are crisp. Maybe they’re too crisp. They could be blindingly crisp. Some passing pedestrian could be temporarily distracted by them and run into a hot dog vendor. That vendor could spill boiling water everywhere and it could contaminate the water supply. Then all of Manhattan could have hot dog water coming out of their taps for months, maybe longer. All because his Reeboks are too crisp.

His hair is messy, but just messy enough. He’s got that look of someone who just woke up or spent all night working. But some people might think that he spent all night working on something unsavory, if you catch his drift. Rumors could spread like wildfire. Suddenly, he’s getting a call from a wife that he didn’t know he had. He really should have paid more attention to his hair, so that he wouldn’t get accused of infidelities that never happened and never could have happened. He is single, after all. And today is his day.

The W train is running faster than usual. This bodes well for him, but perhaps it’s moving too fast. What if the train trips on an acorn or something? What if it trips on an acorn and crashes through a wall, revealing a secret subway station that nobody was supposed to know about? The media would be all over the scandal. The cover would be blown off of illegally-constructed stations for the elite. The whole order of the city could crumble. Lawsuits could close the subway down for good. All because the train wanted to run faster for this man, who was convinced that it was his day.

He’s listening to the best song ever. It pumps him up and also relaxes him at the same time. It’s like a perfect drug, but not the perfect drug that Trent Reznor sang about on the Lost Highway soundtrack. He doesn’t even know who Trent Reznor is. And this song is not by Trent Reznor, he thinks. But what if the song is too perfect? What if no other song after it would do? What if his whole life gets ruined by this song? He could no longer be satisfied by any activity other than listening to the song. Weeks pass and he fails to eat, sleep, hydrate or fuck his imaginary wife that he’s allegedly cheating on. Just like Infinite Jest. He doesn’t know what that is. Who keeps inserting thoughts into his head?!?

He gets off the train at 28th street. His mini Casio keyboard almost falls out of his book bag, but gravity rescues it. There’s a spring in his step. He can only look forward. Things may go terribly wrong, but for now, it is his day and his day alone. And he’s going to do everything in his power to keep it that way. Hot dog water be damned.

– TeeCoZee