Day 23

The sun that had reigned through the sky for the past twelve hours is now peeking from beyond the horizon. No longer visible to the line of sight, its presence is still felt as the life around me glows in color, which means there is light, because without light there is no color, or at least no perception of color.

And the color that rivets me next is the lush pinkish purple of the withering blossom of that single special tree in front of the Roslin Gallery, at the corner of Broadway and Jackson. Once a year in the spring that tree falls in love and gives flowers, kissing the glances of every bystander and passerby with the curves of its glorious bell-like petals. I am sure it misses its identical lover halfway across the globe, rooted at the corner of Mashtots Avenue and Isahakyan Street in Yerevan, which also falls in love every spring and dresses itself in soul-embracing color. And it was exactly one spring ago that I myself fell in love with this special tree, in search for a new home for my law firm.

Roslin Gallery is closed and so is Abril Bookstore next to it; the insides of both are alit, however, and I make out the sticker on the entrance door of the bookstore: “Our children are sacred.” I ponder how for our people, it is not only our living offspring that are our children, but also the prophetic letters of the alphabet and the red brushstrokes on the miniature parchments and the lone storks soaring in the notes of our hearts and also the strikes of the chisel against the rock of the cross-stone, that these all are our children, and these all are sacred. It’s April 24 in two days.

Continuing on Broadway, my urge to check my email is curtailed by blinking red-white signals. Engines idling, two fire trucks – a long one and a short one – are parked one after the other in front of the Police Department. I remember seeing them just now as they ripped across Brand Boulevard on Broadway while I waited my turn to cross the street at the intersection in front of BJ’s. The long truck had come first, sirens blaring, horn blowing, lights flashing, and the driver switching his eyes left to right from above his mask; he slowed down right before entering the intersection, yielding to a young lady in her mid-twenties who frantically swerved her wheel to clear the path. Next came the short truck, sirens blaring, horn blowing, lights flashing and the driver again peeking up from under his mask, slowing down and then speeding up as he, too, made his way through the intersection. The two trucks, now tamed and docile, seem to be taking a break now, although their swirling lights suggest otherwise.

In front of me, on the other side of Glendale Avenue, is Highlight Coffee. Not only is it empty and closed, but it is also dark. “Highlight is dark” I catch me humoring myself at the oxymoron. It never was; each time we passed it on our way home from Ralph’s or Whole Foods, its muted yet alluring white glow shone from deep behind the counter through its massive storefront windows. This is where I had my first date with Aida, an innocent, no-commitments morning coffee at 8:32am which I showed up to in a three-piece suit with pink-navy striped socks and greeted a girl in a Led Zeppelin shirt and jeans. Its neighbors – Thai Hut and Creamy Spoon – have their blinders lowered as if hibernating unwillingly, making me curious, if momentarily, how they are going to make rent that month.

Before I turned left onto Harvard to head back home, I would stop for several minutes in front of Jewel City Bowl to read the notice they had posted on their two front doors. The notice’s message is evident even without having read it, but I read it anyway. As I do, my eyes alternate between the tiny letters on the paper to the shining foxes that appear on the TV screens hanging above the bowling lanes and then back to the letters. I throw one final glance to the Ghostbusters pinball machine, lights aroused but otherwise dormant, sitting in the corner, and… I’ve been here. Stood in this spot several years ago, a whole life ago, as a child, in school, I’ve put on oversized bowling shoes and hurled 7-pound balls down this alley or the one next to it. I wonder if there are any other unanticipated benefits to the coronavirus and continue down Glendale Avenue and onto Harvard.

I sense fatigue set in just as I am about to dial my unit number into the building intercom to grant myself access. A familiar sense of tiredness that comes from nothing particular other than being massaged by the sun for too long. I cannot afford letting go now, tomorrow is still an important day. And I wonder if tomorrow too will be a hot day, and only hope the winds will once again blow from the north, from just beyond the mountains.