My name's Chris. When I was once asked to pick three words to describe myself,
I wrote need more words, which got me into a great deal of trouble.
inexplicable adj. \ˌi-nik-ˈspli-kə-bəl\
A man stands at the edge of the parking garage and looks down at the city. It is a warm summer day and the sun is nearly done with it. It's a little past five. The office workers are returning back to their cars and the shop owners are pulling the metal barriers down over their storefronts. He is dressed in painter's clothes, plain white overalls and a baseball cap flecked with mild insitutional tones of paint. There are no cars in the spaces beside him, no sign of how he arrived here. He doesn't shuffle his feet the way I do when I'm waiting for someone, and he doesn't turn around when I pass him in my car. He leans over the edge. I never see his face.
A young woman, less than twenty-one but more than eighteen, holds a silent baby in a plastic carrier. She wears a simple t-shirt and shorts, and has her reddish-blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail. A man maybe fifteen years older than her, blonde hair and a beard, is talking to her. Their words are inaudible. They stand on a sidewalk in front of an apartment building and the connection between them is unreadable. There is no energy in the gestures they use when they speak. It's as though they're acting out a pantomime they borrowed from someone else, a narrative they no longer believe in.
The man takes the baby from her and walks to a large blue truck with an enclosed bed. If they say goodbye, they do it too quickly to be noticed. He places the baby carrier in the passenger seat. He seems to know his way with it, that he's done this many times before. He climbs into the truck and starts the engine. The girls turns and walks not into the building, but around it, and then behind it, like she is hiding from someone.
At a bus stop, two deaf women are arguing with each other. The signs they throw in each other's direction are like spells carved in mid-air. And then the argument rises another octave and they start to moan at each other. Their voices are like babies' cries, no meaning but anger and frustration. The other people waiting at the stop watch them dispassionately. This won't be the last argument they see today.
Twenty feet away, another deaf man is signing slowly at a brick wall.
A young woman, less than twenty-one but more than eighteen, holds a silent baby in a plastic carrier. She wears a simple t-shirt and shorts, and has her reddish-blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail. A man maybe fifteen years older than her, blonde hair and a beard, is talking to her. Their words are inaudible. They stand on a sidewalk in front of an apartment building and the connection between them is unreadable. There is no energy in the gestures they use when they speak. It's as though they're acting out a pantomime they borrowed from someone else, a narrative they no longer believe in.
The man takes the baby from her and walks to a large blue truck with an enclosed bed. If they say goodbye, they do it too quickly to be noticed. He places the baby carrier in the passenger seat. He seems to know his way with it, that he's done this many times before. He climbs into the truck and starts the engine. The girls turns and walks not into the building, but around it, and then behind it, like she is hiding from someone.
At a bus stop, two deaf women are arguing with each other. The signs they throw in each other's direction are like spells carved in mid-air. And then the argument rises another octave and they start to moan at each other. Their voices are like babies' cries, no meaning but anger and frustration. The other people waiting at the stop watch them dispassionately. This won't be the last argument they see today.
Twenty feet away, another deaf man is signing slowly at a brick wall.
