Perfect

The morning was cold and grey as frosted glass, yet the sun ascended through the smog with curious optimism, turning suspended clouds of poison into gold. Eric hovered and shivered at the street corner, waiting for green, drawing what wonder he could from the scene. Cars flowed before him like river rapids turned to steel, rolling insular worlds moving without pause, leaving dreamy plumes in their wake. Eric dreamt of better things, conjured mirages for his life. He was a long way from the country, where the dawn mist was not so foul, and the air not so sour. At least, that was what he’d read about the lands beyond concrete rivers and glass mountains. He’d never ventured beyond the city. He’d always been afraid to, in case it turned out to be less than what he’d expected. It was better to live it out in his head, supplemented by picture books and travel magazines, where all things could be exactly what he wanted.

He peered down at the gutter, where rain had pooled overnight, forming brown glass. He caught a vague impression of his own face in the oily water. It was a narrow face, ebony skinned, hard and angular. Some would have considered it a handsome face, but Eric would not have agreed. He saw only the distortion behind the flesh, the distortion the water perceived that the human eye could not. He saw a man without vision, one who merely existed in the world, drifting aimlessly from moment to moment like a dark cloud, detached from human experience, reserving all his deepest passions for the untried illusions whirling in his head.

It was his hunger to feel something close to human that had led him to the package he bore. It was large, flat rectangular thing, wrapped carefully in brown paper and tucked awkwardly under his right arm. It had been a costly purchase. More than he could justify, given his limited means. But he had to have it, especially since the rodent faced clerk at the shop he’d found it in seemed so reluctant to part with it, charging him more than it was worth to discourage him from it. But Eric had not given in. His credit card had won the battle for him in the end, though he would skirmish with the payments for some time to come.

He made his way back to his apartment through a mire of nameless faces, lives without stories, at least no stories that would interest Eric, anyway. Now and then a visage might intrigue, and he would try to study it discreetly before it edged out of his line of vision. It was mostly women who intrigued him, perhaps because he had no woman of his own, and longed for one, at least in body. He wasn’t certain he wanted to become too intimate with anyone, as all that seemed to bring was an endless tide of the other’s demands. Like the country, women were easier dreamt of than experienced.

Eric’s apartment was tucked in the back corner of a rundown complex in the squalid palm of the city. It commanded a second floor view of the space the landlord had reserved for tenant parking, which was really no space at all. Most people took their chances on the curb of the main street. Eric really didn’t care: he didn’t own a car. A grit covered key gave access to the place, a one bedroom suite, not really shabby, but quietly uncared for. It was a space Eric occupied. He didn’t live in it. He didn’t live anywhere.