Vitrine of Consciousness

Aetheria frustrated Erin to loop around the block, and I frown passing the corner post, “11th. Avenue.” Erin steering often with a wishful sigh, as I’m touring. “Greenwich village — SOHO...” She muttered, hinting. ‘_That’s where we’re going for the evening._’ She sees a gap in a train of parked cars. Stops, shifts gears and with heavy trucker’s arms wrenching the wheel back and forth, stalling the car. ‘_Erin!_’ I groaned. ‘_Why do you insist on driving by car into Manhattan?_’ As a ripped notebook page from her purse. “Take this,” she mutters, me to glance at the cryptic note. Hesitant, but her eagerness to help me is too commendable. I appreciate Erin’s gesture, snagging the sliver of paper, scan catching an agency in the surname, underlining the scrawled phone number, before the engine sputters to a silence. She pulls the handbrake, as my pinky hooks to release the door latch. Both our doors swing open. Clearing my long legs, I kick my feet from the footwell, stud the asphalt - smac...

  In my seat, squeezed among strangers in the wide-body cabin, I resorted to fixing the porthole. Jan Smuts International Airport terminal rotate in the distance, pressed in my seat, soar from the ground flattening, lock onto a highway, but I failed orient myself on these roadways I drove mapping in my mind construction sites, toying splashed and enmeshed suburbs, with far-scattered yellow mine dumps. Reminiscent of the Mercedes’ rear doors fling open. Before I caught up with Lionel and Gavin, they onslaught the mine dump, returning to the car, the sun reflecting gold, glittering the pores of their palms. Leaving my little boys, growing in stages, saddened for leaving them behind. ’_I’ll be back?_’ clutched my open-ended globetrotter return ticket, a silent vow that despite the miles and divorce, tethering at heart. After a night flight North across the African continent. On my last leg, in contrast, flying west Helios in suspense, shading the porthole frame. With a brief concern g...