YD6~36 Black Monday's Shadow: Aetheria's Dance, Yael's Sorrow, and the Echoes of a Financial Crisis

 The taxi driver steered beneath brushwood canopies, after the see-through suburban forest along the highway. The roads narrowed as we delved into the suburb. Trees lined up the sidewalks, still patchy remnants of snow. Pulling up to a halt, I handed a twenty-dollar bill over his shoulder, stepped out, and took in the familiar sight of the single-story house. Meet the driver lifting the trunk, heave my overstuffed suitcase into the mid-morning daylight. I grabbed the handle and headed for the snow-melted path to the doorstep.

Homecoming to Yael’s door, shaking off the jet lag to the chill at finding a job evoked that apprentice teenager — the sweat! Fresh, starting off, feet spin a steady cadence, pedaling my road bike from Kyalami, the asphalt ribbon across the golden morning sun. Undulated hills of the veldt skip shaded ridges before me, to reach Pretoria’s outskirts and cross the city. I used to lean my bike against the only acacia trunk on the scraped, barren terrain along a stream. I stepped away into sunlight toward excavated ruins, along with the likes of debris, heaps of bricks. Laying brick-by-brick rising from the ground, an apartment complex. At noon, I retrieve from the scorching sun, sitting in the acacia’s shade, to eat a honey sandwich brought from home tucked in my shirt. The scorching afternoons stretched on until five. Under a swanneck’s spout of water in cupped hands, unable to quench my thirst. I saddled up for the ride, reaching home at sunset, collapsing on my bed, only to saddle my bike at first light the next morning again. 

As I pace the mental sweat, suscitates within me sprout a visceral echo of the training and racing afresh a job-hunting path. I pick the lock, turn the key, press the door, stepping into the hallway - clack - the door closes behind me to an eerie emptiness, sensing Yael’s spirit volatilized, the walls silent. I bypass the dining table to the corridor opening. Trudging with my suitcase to the master bedroom at the rear of the house, setting down the weight of globetrotting in a corner of. Looping back at a flicker of invigorating set course challenging The Riese Organization - clack - the door closed behind me, to emerge into the street, veer for the subway. 

After walking the long stretch, I arrived at the subway station. Stand by the leading rail tracks until heralded by a blast of air, followed by the F train. Coaches’ cinematographic windows into the bright interior’s seated and standing commuters. Halted, figures step out of the opening doors. I step in, the doors close. To the tune of trundling along dark tunnels, flashed station stops, my mind not accepting the course my career took to ruminate over last year — entering the little office of the Greek contractor, I’m offered a guest chair next to his wife’s flickering eyes. In the corner of my eye, a model figure draped in the chair, as I greeted the thirtyish sturdy Greek across his desk. He lashes out. “We have a problem completing a construction site!” 

I’m shocked, still adjusting to the Greek contractor’s mercurial demeanor. Punctuated by a muttered ‘_Hormones!_’ and the sight of his low, prehistoric forehead hairs, in a few months after meeting the bald man. “Of course!” I respond, rising from my chair. The lanky cousin sidesteps from behind the Greek, ushering me toward the exit door. I glance back, to my dismay, meeting the woman’s teasing eyes, flickering amusement. I descend the stairs, emerging from the building to the suburban bare-hardcore streets.

The Greek cousin leads me to the rustic wooden stake truck tailgate. We part ways, moving alongside the 1.5-ton bed, to the uncanny resemblance to 1940s Chevrolet Master cabin, mudguards, pointed muzzle, a childhood toy in awe. I crank the door lever and pull open the door, revealing a spartan interior of pressed metal, bare-bones. Climb aboard, meeting the unfazed cousin vaulting and plunking onto the bench, his hands gripping the wheel. Clang, clang - the doors shut, reverberating the encapsulating metallic pressed sheets. 

Doors stripped-down, the cabin headliners gone, spaghetti tangled wires dangle beneath the pressed metal dashboard, a cluster converging to the steering column. The cousin’s nimble fingers twist a few wires and kick the engine to a roar. He grapples with the gear lever, as a wobbly light reflects the ball joint through the hole in the floor. 

He lurched, merging into a glittery flow of traffic, marveling at the apocalyptic survivor. Wondering about the truck’s improbable road worthiness, with the panoramic windshield framing the city’s looming skyline. Over the East River, dwarfed by the growing concrete jungle. Into the shaded depths of Manhattan. Short of a stone edifice looms a dead-end street, the cousin veers to park. 

We step away from the truck’s doors, clanging shut behind us. The sunlight beckoned us through the Roman triumphal arch portal. The Greek cousin leads me on a whirlwind tour of the railway terminal, through the construction site, firing explanations, back out on the street, and parting ways. 

Later in the day, I descend into the yawning chasm to the subway. I waited for the F train’s arrival. Offering cinematic windows preview of the bright interior, with commuters bracing for the evening rush. The train halts, figures disembark, and I step in, clutching the grip of my purchased Compaq’s computer. ‘I ought to be able to carry the portable computer with ease.’ I think. The doors close and at the tune of rumbling along the tunnel, the station stops tugged my arm, to a burden, until I step out of the coach onto the street. 

With an undercurrent of unease, as I saunter along the familiar avenue, my Compaq Portal, heavy in my hand, tugs at my pace. Calling to mind my childhood in the Belgian Congo. The tribal men hauling the family goods through a machete-bushwhacked trail in the rainforest by night, trudging through the darkness to reach the plantation’s bamboo house.

Waves of self-awareness suscitated in me, from the eyes of civilization I might encounter in the street — in desperation, I heave the Compaq to my shoulder. After another stretch along the way, grimacing, I shifted the crate to the other shoulder, but the strain radiating through my muscles to my collarbones. I pressed on my strides through the familiar streets towards Yael’s house.

I entered. Yael’s eyes fixing the ‘Thing?’ her silent question hung in her eyes, as I’m placing the Compaq on the dining table. Then, I pull down the bottom fascia, revealing the keyboard juxtaposed to the screen. A quick tug of the cord, a plug in the socket, and I flicked the ‘On’ switch.

By the following Friday, I emerged from the subway into Central Station’s flurry of commuters. As if I owned the place, regal strides through the terminal, imbued in a cathedral’s filtering sunlight. Retracing the Greek cousin’s earlier steps, I tracked down the retail fit-out site. Descending the lobby’s ramp, onto weaving through a two-way stream of humanity.

On the lower level, I’m branching off in front of a Kentucky Fried Chicken stall, shrouded in a film of sawdust. The challenge, ahead fizzing me with the aftermath of a champagne-cork pop — The gift of a problem, and I’m soaring. I skirt the colorful display of “Grandmother’s biscuits,” their dust-wrapped stacks perched on pallets. Then, the soft drinks stall’s counter is on hold, for a wipe-down before serving customers a kaleidoscopic brilliance of cans. The flanks of blurry stalls, in waiting for the fan fare through a hallway echoing ‘_Reise,_’ at the amplitude, hinting at a vast organization. As I breeze onto the soft yellow-pinkish, Dunkin’ Donuts beckons.

I spring with surprise as the octogenarian emerged from the shadows of stacked accordion doors. To flash in his path a helper’s shadow looms over a crouching tiler, who troweled broad, striated streaks of adhesive across the floor. Along a grid of joints, the morning’s embedded path gleaming freshly embedded gray ceramic tiles from the servery counter, bisecting Dunkin’ Donuts’ customer area. Irving Murray’s gaze, at eye level, believing a red carpet lies unfurled in front of him for the grand opening. Oblivious to his strides, squishing the soft paste from the joints.

The tiler’s helper focused, mixing water with adhesive powder in the bucket, passing stacks of tiles to be embedded. I watched, a fiery surge of anger rising within me. ‘_Why don’t they speak up to the man in the expensive suit? Save me!_’ I thought, The CEO’s black toes of his shoes, pauses in the tiler’s face, yet unfazed, embedding a tile.

Irwin, Murray, with oversight, gazing on distant phantoms’ throng of customers herding from train platforms into the storefront’s open corner toward the counter behind him. A blatant disregard for the ongoing work, within me knots wrath, I’m attempting to suppress. “Can you leave the site!” I blurted out.

Irwin Murray's eyes spring wide open in shock. ‘_Who are you, telling me to leave?_’

“This is my construction site,” I persisted. “You are interfering with the progress of the work!” 

I watch the octogenarian, shaken, circle his way out of the stall, vanishing in the hallway. Free, my mind exerting duty. Lifting the films of dust seeking in the kaleidoscopic sketched stalls, dark fragments of a puzzle obscuring the nickel shine to greet a grand opening. 

While I’m on a call to the office of the Greek contractor, scheduling the remaining finishing touches. With the Greek cousin, tradesmen, and material suppliers, for the Central Station project. The Greek threw me another challenge. “Will you go to time square, and see what’s needed there?” Giving me the address to the entrance door on 42nd. Street.  

By evening, the subway spits me out onto the stretches of familiar streets, the day’s hustle and bustle of crisscrossing downtown Manhattan behind me. The unfinished project lingers in my mind as I walk the last stretch. Opening the door, I’m greeted by Yael’s radiant smile, and a warm peck on the lips —  queen of human relations. She blossoms with the anticipation of a weekend free from teaching.

Aetheria, from her celestial perch, harnesses the radiant sunlight, playing the sun's rays like strings on her celestial harp. The vibrant fusillade of iridescent colors. Reminiscent of Tibetan prayer flags fluttering in the wind. Refracts through the scattered clouds’ zoological gardens -- mirrored below a spectacle in Yael’s sphere, flames of hope and wicks of despair, as Aetheria’s silent symphony destined, ballet culminating toward her birthing.

Returning from the horizon of intuition, at every option, Yael finds me nestled behind my Compaq, fingers clumsy dancing across the keyboard. Immersed in the Multimate page’s glow, as an ant’s trail of words scrolls across the screen. I'm soothing my restless mind —  a psychoanalysis, believing I’ll master my undiagnosed dyslexia. I type, conjure the spectral echo of Daniella’s consciousness. She materialized in a white dress, the efflorescent embodiment of the angelic young woman who sat at the wheel of her Japanese car — the car that burned through the stop street, and collided with my Audi Coupe. 

Wrecked cars, an orchestrated incident. front fenders, crumpled into a macabre kiss, the marked collision of two of the symbolic hearts — our engine. The primary amplitude of moral reckonings. piercing fright screams of Lionel and Gavin, echoed the shuttering of trust and splintering of our family, the lingering terror etched on my sons’ faces, a tangible expression of the intangible wounds inflicted.

I grew aware of Yael’s restlessness. Her gaze lingering over my shoulder, eager to uncover the ‘Alibaba treasures’ hidden within my machine that at length alienated her.

Jean had moved out of the house, when I received a paramedic’s call. “There’s been an accident!” Strange, though, Jean had left home for the procedure of divorce. On the scene, an elderly man turning off for the highway ramp, clipped Jean’s oncoming Toyota, swung Jean’s Toyota careering into the unforgiving curb, flipped the car, buckling the lamppost, before gravity mercifully righted it. 

Amidst the twisted metal and flashing lights In the old man’s error. A shadow cast over a change of heart — Jean’s father’s moral language exposed an incident. Cascading into an emotional trauma, with our boys’ injuries, both their arms cast in plaster.

I leave my Compaq behind as Yael’s affectionate warmth radiates through her hand, pulling me toward the bedroom. We slip under the covers; she rolls sprawling over me. I surrender to the gentle draw into Morpheus’s arms, into oblivion. The realm of dream at first light, the Hydra of my mind’s outreach tendril with a sniper’s-eyes. Permeated the ceiling, viewing a fog shrouded boardroom in session. Observe, eavesdropping on whispering conversations.

My mind conjured the Greek contractor. His hands gripping the backrest of a vacant chair, his voice echoing. “The Central Station construction manager couldn’t get the job done,” he insisted. “He delivered!” Merging from the fog, a trio listening at the opposite of the conference table. The elderly brothers, founders of The Reise Organization, flanked by Indian’s slender, mute project manager. 

The eightyish Murray brothers, faces etched with experience, sat facing each other across the corner of the table. Irvin’s sharp objecting voice cut into the tense silence. The Greek contractor advocated on my behalf. “You’re having a man who cuts a six-month project to two, the opening of the Broadway Pizza Hut Express!” 

Irvin shifted, swayed by his brother’s persistent plea. The boardroom scene dissolved into a distant fog, as my mind whittled a conscious sharpening to awake. My mind racing from the dream’s radiating warmth. I jumped out of bed, finding Yael dressing, in the glow of Monday’s dawn.

I leave Yael’s overwhelming embrace too early for her to head off to Somers High School. I pull the door latch shut behind me, eager to reach Manhattan. Brisk in my strides toward the subway station, my mind at ease, the foreshadowed dream, distant as the contrail of a jetliner etching the sky, dissipating like my return from globetrotting. Back to the grind of landing myself a job, propelling myself toward Manhattan. 

I’m seated among widespread people in work clothes, the rumble of the subway echoing through the dark tunnels, fluorescent-lit stations flash by, each stopping a quiet pause, as I’m at a loss beneath the city. Emerging disorientated into daylight to swirl eyesight, finding myself on 34th Street, speculating about my luck. The Reise Organization, my sole prospect, I’d envisaged gleaming marble, glittering brass, opening a grand crystal lobby at 164. But next door, I pressed the door to my surprise. 

I push past the thick, wooden-framed glass door, with startled mice’s spring hinges squeaks. Clearing a grand Art Deco lobby before me, wide enough a stairway for crowds yet eerily empty. I ascended the terrazzo staircase. The landing opens to a dusty reception area of the ages slumber in a horseshoe. The counter sits abandoned. Stuffed folders spill from the shelves bulging the lining walls, with folder spines staves of a weathered barrel.

Shifting eyes, seeking a way forward, over my shoulder, I spot a crack up the wall, revealing a narrow shadowy staircase. I ascend the steps, to a dogleg, I'm coming up against a wall, shading corridors. Stepping to the landing, I branch into the wing, leading deeper into the building. Until an open door revealed a jittery Indian man hunched over his desk. He looks up, startled by my presence. I offer a brief greeting. “Where is the Greek contractor?” I blurted, laced with a hint of impatience.

“He fled to Greece!” the slender Indian man sneered.

The Greek contractor flashes through my mind. With his wife, and his cousin – ploof, ploof, ploof — vanished in a cloud of smoke. ‘_Skipped the United States!_’ 

I wasn’t deterred. My mind’s eye conjured visions of derelict storefronts transformed into gleaming, inviting spaces. “Do you have any contracts for me?” I asked, my need for autonomy surfacing.

“You have to be incorporated!” the project manager snapped. “Then we can help you.”

“Thanks,” I greet the Indian man. Stepping away from the guest chair, my feet dancing a Foxtrot, a retreat to the corridor and back into the bustling street, fueling my determination, enlisting an accountant, to Hilton Rogoff’s ghost from my past, but the Indian left me skeptic.

As I wander the labyrinth of streets and avenues, a cosmic harp plays to my mind the familiar tune: ‘_These little town blues are melting away. . . I’ll make a brand-new start of it. . . In old New York. If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere. It’s up to you. . .’ 

I awake to schedule, heading for the subway, the train rumble dissipating the rhythm  ‘_. . . New York, New York!_’ as I ride outbound.

Entering the door, I’m greeted by the melancholic strains of Jacques Brel, his heart-wrenching chansons filling the air. Edith Piaf’s voice will follow soon. A reminder devoid of heritage. An ironic twist, introduction to my birth country, Belgium, and its neighbor, France’s singer. 

Yael’s lion mane, vibrant approaches, greets with a peck. Yet, beneath her cheerful demeanor, a spark extinguished. She spoke of school with passion about the historic Jewish woman, for whom her high school is named after — a bittersweet irony, given De-M’ma’s maiden name, Somers. Yet, Yael’s passion for teaching French, relegated to teaching soulless mathematics.

Yael’s warmth and hospitality were legendary. “I met a couple of tourists from Bruges,” she greets me, at random on a Friday, a hint of excitement in her voice. The following mid-morning, Yael’s secret unfolded, ushering me into the lobby of the Hilton hotel on Broadway. “The couple we were meeting,” she explained. “They’re the owners of a store in the medieval town of Brugge.” Yael, ever the social butterfly, let me understand I wasn’t the wiser. Apart from childhood memories, when on translucent paper etching with a colored pencil, Belgium borders of a page from an Atlas and circling towns. 

Brugge unbeknownst to me, an open-air museum, held a vista culminating a false cul-de-sac to a swooping junction flash a storefront fascia perched “Broes.” 

As Yael draws the Belgian couple into her humble abode, her genuine curiosity, to unravel my Jewishness. The Brugge’s couple unravels ownership of the store. The slink figure seated at the dining table, while the women bustle in the kitchen. I, ever the skeptic, the man talked himself in retreat, to a mere acquaintance with the store owner, to convey a mere knowledge of Bruges gift and household store. 

From the Brugge couple’s farewell, Yael seemed touched. Her desire uncovered a distant paternal branch of the family. ‘Ask me!’ suffice, ‘_If you want to know who I am? — knotting the strings of my life._’

With those fleeting weekends, and returns crossing Times Square, bringing back the specter of October 19, 1987 — “Black Monday.” Though years had passed, I left my footprint out-fitting the Pizza Hut Express. The winter skeleton trees painted a pointillist blooming landscape. I find myself dwarfed and vulnerable in the tsunami backwash streets. The boarded-up storefronts resonate the lingering chill of the Wall Street stock market crash. 

Didier’s voice on the phone, in fluent French. “Je viens à New York. On peut se voir?” (I’m coming to New York. Can we meet?) surprised me.  

“Oui!” I blurted, as he seemed to have pressed the doorbell to meet him at the doorstep.

After hanging up, the implications of his visit dawned on me. Didier, my “French” sister Ingrid’s eldest son, was interning in Canada and likely had limited funds. And ‘_I’m living with Yael. . ._’ 

Yet, as always, Yael’s generosity shone through. She readily agreed to accommodate Didier, my nephew, despite a growing tension simmering between us. Ever the gracious host, she welcomed him into her father’s house. Even as a shadow of unease clouded her eyes. 

Aetheria, the sentient consciousness observing from afar, exploiting the discord with Yael’s secretive unwillingness to bear children. Intensified her choreographic puppeteering of the elements, heightening the atmospheric friction between Yael and me.

The three of us set sail on the ferry, the Statue of Liberty looming ever larger as we approached. Yet, despite the breathtaking scenery, a mental fog descended upon me. Worries swirled in my mind, a gathering storm, Didier’s visit and Yael’s infectious cheerfulness felt grated on my being.

As we returned to Battery Park, the Twin Towers gleam metallic-silver from the midst of a forest of towers, triggering a haunting vision upon my arrival in New York: halfway up the left Twin Towers, I stopped climbing the stairs and walk to the edge my place on the panoramic view, the significance of this vision remained elusive. 

We continued our tour, a whirlwind of sightseeing. Chinatown’s bustling streets, Times Square’s dazing lights blurred together. Cowering the stalled Nathan restaurant behind the boarded-up storefronts wrapping the corner of Broadway and 42nd Street, sit like homeless occupying the sidewalk, in Times Square’s dancing neon lights. Skirting the project, I was tasked with salvaging. Mingled with the abrupt departure of the Greek contractor. The Greek had band-aid wounds I’d inflicted on Irvin Murray. The hurt caused by my curtness, when tasked at handing over the out-fitted franchises at Central Station. 

Every return skirting Times Square flares to mind, a flurry of people, the absurd, reminiscing, stepping into the Nathan restaurant’s dusty furnished dining hall of volatilized workmen. To my dismay, a piece of the puzzle above the joinery dusty bar counter, relative to missing the cove shields to the recessed ceiling’s concealed lighting. At the thought that The Reise Organization abandoned a four-million dollars, the cost I was told invested in equipping and outfitting a kitchen.

Yael’s Leo moon, fierce and playful in the year of the Cat, roamed the rooms at home, as I found solace immersed in the bright screen of my Compaq through scattered mornings, evenings, and weekends. With a mounting restlessness through the passage behind my chair. Her eyes rambling over my shoulders, spurring chills down my back. Yet, I couldn’t bring myself to share my writing — although, unlike my childhood teachers, turning a classroom of judgmental eyes crushed my spirit. As I stumbled, reading a passage from a book, teachers equated my shortcomings with stupidity. 

A quirk of fate, failing fifth-grade upon the Belgian Congo’s independence at the end of the school year. With a repatriation to Belgium, I was bumped up to the sixth grade. Grappling with French grammar. I attempted to decipher comics, balancing images with text to unlock the code. 

We left the house - clack - the door closes, turned onto the sidewalk, Our footsteps echoed on the quiet suburban sidewalk, to arrive at a commercial intersection. Around the corner, Yael enters a 24-hour supermarket. Disappearing from the fluorescent glow. She emerges from the shadows with an elderly man in tow. Guiding his hand, in the aisles, helping him locate the shelves, canned goods and packaged snacks. 

I followed Yael and the elderly man snaking through aisles, observing the elderly man up to the woman at the cash register. He fumbled through his wallet, to check out. The cashier twists, and leans out her chair, picking a twenty-dollar bill, uncoils in her seat, opens the cash drawer, and returns the change to his palm. Yael turned to me. “Sometimes they’re not honest,” She remarked. “They’ll take more than is due.” Walking out and parting ways, “I’m trying to help this solitary Jewish man, mute, deaf, and blind, manage his existence.”

Her words resonated with me, highlighting the vulnerability and isolation that can accompany disability. Determined to appease Yael’s anxiety, in passing, I copied the file to a diskette, and pocketed the Stiffy. On the next occasion, I stopped by a printing store, and handed in the Stiffy. Waited. I received ten printed pages from the printing store attendant. Upon crossing Yael, I offered her a draft of the short memoir. ‘_After all, _’ I reasoned, ‘_It’s an innocent story!_’

I sat behind compaq engross in my writing, under Yael reading. Her silence a tense prelude to the storm brewing within her. Too late, she’s containing her raw jealousy. she erupts, her words dripping with accusations. “That woman, the woman. . .” I rise, rotating away from her, I circle my chair’s backrest facing up to Yael. I defend my portrayal of Daniella. 

an eerie silence descended. Yael’s eyes narrowed with intensity on my Compaq Portable — the repository of my creative ‘treasures.’ She paces up, lunges at the table, her hands seizing my luggable computer. raising the box high above her head, facing the bare floor to the wall framed modeling photo. 

In slow motion, the computer’s trajectory etched in the air, an arc of impending destruction. I’m indifferent imagining the crash on the floor, I’m holding for her dare. A flicker of doubt crossed Yael’s face. She flinches a squint, and again sensing my reaction, not forthcoming. Her grip on the computer loosens, her anger replaces a self-awareness. She returns my Compaq Portable to the table and turns away from the box with a lingering look. ‘Yaely, You’re getting too dangerous for me.’ I dare not say, but triggered to plan my escape.

A few days later, after a phone call that ended. “I’ll take it. But conditional on me checking it out!” A taxi pulls up to Yael’s doorstep. I step out with a haunting realization. ‘_Yaely! I can’t play house and dolls. Boredom kills me._’ My life’s recurring pattern.

The taxi driver heaved my bulging suitcase and my Compaq portable into the trunk. I duck through the door, calling out. “106, 63rd — Forest Hills.” Slip into the back seat, pull away from the little house nestling behind the sidewalk trees, mounting a farewell sadness. But my spirit lifts a ground zephyr, ducking into the wood. To a wind dancing and whispering, stroking the trees, emerging in a clearing, to the roots of my childhood. ‘_This is who you are!_’ a voice echoes. 

I remembered De-M’ma’s cool kindness until the fear of losing me — my three-month-old brother relevant. With the occasional smothering me. Pressure-cooker on the heat, I steamed off, rebellious—my foul behavior, my harsh words to break free. Raised De-P’pa’s stern face looming before me. I remain unfazed by his swift and severe punishments. A pattern, imprinted in my childhood, that echoed throughout my life, when I dwarf before difficulties, and now with Yael, driving me to escape.

Gazing through the taxi’s window, my thoughts haunt me as the cityscape slips past. A flurry of figures along the sidewalks. The taxi weaves from the Brooklyn march blurred the border, to ride the familiar widespread Queens Boulevard, multiple lanes teeming with traffic. Across similar deserted streets, we left in Yael’s suburb. The driver leaning toward the flank windows coasting alongside a strip of brick houses retrieved from the sidewalk to stop. 

I step out, hailing back at the driver. “Will you wait?” Crossing the sidewalk, climb a metal staircase bridging a leafy planter to a balcony. I press the doorbell.

A babushka-clad woman expected me, appearing through the crack of the door, to exchange greetings. She pulls the door close, ushering me back downstairs, echoing the reverberating metal, to the sidewalk to circumvent the verdant planter, descending the concrete ramp. Underneath the cantilever balcony, I’m doodling in mind the original architecture of a double garage block up door. Her keys jingle as she unlatches a flank door. 

The landlady leads me through a gallery kitchen, emerging to a panoramic window to sun-drenched backyards. In the somber room, a double bed neatly made up, inviting a restful night’s sleep, to a peaceful retrieve. “I’ll take it!” I blurted out and - Houff - I sighed to mind.

I settled the month’s rent with the landlady, counting crisp bills from the ATM to $750.00 a quarter of my earnings. She escorted me, handing me the keys, back to the waiting taxi, with an eye on the man jumping out. Settling for my ride. Hoisting my suitcase and Compaq out of the trunk. The babushka is at ease. Parting ways, I retrace my steps to the studio apartment. 

My eyes sweeping the interior, as I set my suitcase aside. Heading toward the bathing backyard in sunlight. I lean over a kitchen wooden chair’s backrest, place the Compaq on the small student table. Then turn away to sit on the foot of the double bed. I ponder where I landed. ‘_And now?_’ I muse to myself, ‘_Coffee. . . Utensils and food?_’