Copyright © 2003 LeeAnn Heringer
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Copyright © 2003 LeeAnn Heringer
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shutting down the machines for the nighthere in Silicon Valley halfway between midnight & dawn, you can hear the steady, slowing tick of office lights being turned off in concrete tiltup industrial parks, like the cooling of a great engine. each of us standing for a moment with our hand on a light switch in dark offices inside dark buildings surrounded by a moat of dark parking lots, listening for the hum of computers we’ve turned off. gathering up all the things we’ve left undone into a large black bridal train of hand embroidered to-do lists & the seed pearls of unreturned phone messages. I feel the weight of it dragging behind me over the hardwood floors, across concrete sidewalks, the train tracks even the hookers have abandoned at this late hour. the parking garage security guard & I exchange the wary nod which passes between lighthouse & ship, between priest & groom. the numbness makes me unbreakable & careless. I will drive too fast to get home, disobeying speed limits, running red lights & stop signs. no one is watching me. no one is watching over me. the tires too close to concrete construction barriers. the job. the road. the night. the scattered engineers—each one believing they are alone. caught up in the long creation moment between start & the unseen end. |
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