ETP VI - Gary

Night

The air conditioning units are on the roof of the building. Their hum-rattle stretches over the lawn and up the sides of a sixteen story apartment building. The sound thinly bounces off each bump of the roughly painted façade, mirroring the gravel rooftop (where the AC units sit) in texture. It’s like a jittery old finger curling around the scene, surrounding, gripping.

Static, some palm trees are sitting in the noise.

Some cacophonous thump echoes over the sound of the AC units. Something large, hallow, and plastic dropping on the sidewalk.

Cars on the road past the roof with the AC units go by, but usually their motors don’t pierce the heavy sound of the hum and the rattle. Now a motorcycle gears up and rips across the space. It’s a laceration from the road that tears all the way past the trees and grass and into the balconies of the apartments. There is a hospital nearby.

Hmmm, there is a low hum as the AC units work, working.
HmmmmrtHmmrt
Walking across the concrete path
HmmmmrtHmmrt
No wind
HmmmmrtHmmrt
Leaning on rough paint with forearms
HmmmmrtHmmrt
Cold
HmmmmrtHmmrt
Badump, the large plastic
HmmmmrtHmmrt
container being dragged across the concrete
HmmmmrtHmmrt
its scratching like thin hairs
HmmmmrtHmmrt
HmmmmrtHmmrt
Hmmmmrtmmrtmmrrrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnn
Rrrrriiiiiiineeeeee
An ambulace:
Like a point, precise;
A pin entering the skin, striking the one nerve;
Just this thin metal rod flying in from the street, through the bubble of the hum-rattle, into the middle of the forehead.

The little stretch of road is short and the ambulance leaves. There’s no change in the rhythm of the AC units, Hm.