anyday's child michael overa TUESDAY: The man in the wheel chair sits beneath the overhang, watching the damned depressing rain pound the streets. One leg taken by cancer or carelessness. White hair at the edge of his baseball hat, he smokes, watches the passing cars and waits for the bus. A dark blue blanket spread over his legs. He does not look around. He smokes and stares at the rain. Eight hours later the sun breaks and the streets are dry. The man in the wheel chair has disappeared. He has caught a bus to another part of town, home or a hospital. Patches of sidewalk now carpeted in pink petals that may be cherry blossoms. THURSDAY: I finished her cigarette, and when she returned to the table her hair was in her eyes. She mopped up the coffee spilled over the side of her cup. The café is loud, like an asylum or an audience. This is the café of my childhood. A place this young girl now works. Something sad in the way she carries herself these days. Wanting to touch her face, but knowing I can do nothing. Someone once said people change and forget to tell each other. Sometimes, maybe we forget to tell ourselves. WEDNESDAY: It’s almost impossible to walk through this city at night without passing someone else. The vacant streets. The watery alleys. Smell of piss and garbage, rotting food. A sleeping silhouette beneath an old blanket. Cars spray water onto the sidewalk. Two old women beneath a brown metal bus stop drink beer from tall aluminum cans in black plastic bags. Laughter from balconies and cigarettes burning on apartment steps, floating in those hollowed out shadows. SATURDAY: The light through the window is warm, hot almost to the point of uncomfortable. Fingers resting on the scratched table-top. The blurred, non-specific background noise of any coffee shop. A book open beside a hot cup of coffee. The door swings open and a girl walks in. Then a tall skinny man with ratted hair. A few minutes later a beer bellied man with a leather briefcase and running shoes. Music behind the conversations and clatter of plates, cups and saucers. Mid afternoon and the streets are dry. Still, beneath the trees the grass is damp. FRIDAY: Beside the bus, in a dark green sedan is a couple. She is wearing a black pant suit with a white shirt. Hair brushed back into shining brown gloss. He is wearing jeans and a brown leather jacket. The car sits there, at the stoplight, and from behind the scratched, fogged window you can look down into their car. You can’t hear their conversation. Ex-lovers meeting for dinner. She, having promised to take him to the airport. The light turns and the side of the bus passes the sedan. Out of the corner of her eye she sees only the dirty white of the bus, the dull glow of that greenish light through the windows. And a child’s face disappearing ahead of her. MONDAY: She tells you: “I am not your lover.” She tells you that you are only a compass. A way to find your lover. A map she says. Bu she is your only lover now, no matter how detached she may seem, sitting on the edge of the bed in her underwear smoking your cigarettes. She will never be exactly what you want her to be. I am your cliché. A story that you will retell to yourself, over and over. Slowly changing the meaning and the moral, wondering if you invented her. SUNDAY: Sunday the weather is manic. Morning rain, followed by a few hours of golden sun, then again, rain and thunder and lightening. Folded up inside a pocket, next to your cigarettes and work schedule is the phone number of a girl you will never call. A girl that could be anyone. You asked her what day of they week she was born and she didn’t know. You teased her that it must have been a Sunday. Or maybe a Thursday, you said. She laughed, uncertain.