Shifting synchronicity of traffic lights marks the vague change between these days. Whoa, that one is red this morning. I now recognize that yesterday has become today. Also, I think I’m wearing different pants. Speaking of today, it’s Office Olympics Day, an awkward afternoon-long opportunity to observe one’s colleagues caper with impunity in the insipid name of morale-building. Well, no amount of frisking about can rouse this drone’s morale. Even worse, OO is scheduled to start at the beginning of the usual lunch hour. Whose idea was that, I demand. Tell me, you fools. But it’s like shouting down a dry well of indifference.

This song triggers memories of driving back roads with my sister on the way to buy bootleg cassettes at the Sunday flea market. Poring over the endless rows of tapes by obscure bands, the excitement of finding strange new music coursing through me as the summer sun shines down. That’s really where it started, after all, this mystical journey down a jagged, thorny path leading from the dusty crossroads of early adolescence, a place where little acceptance was to be found. Of course it’s farcical to think anything was easier then. But as I gathered the tools of defense against a harsh world, enforcing my armor with sounds to yield lifelong comfort, the process prickled with the electricity of discovery. And these shocks, so intense in youth, temper as the years wrap gauze around us. I fear it’s the daily doing that does us in.

After the Olympics, which my team did not even medal in despite winning multiple events (team competitions are notoriously rigged at my place of employment), I leave early and walk out into a storm. Louder than bombs thunder strikes overhead. I duck under an awning hoping to wait it out before hopping on the bike to ride home. An Indian man stands next to me chain-smoking. More Indian men stream by, cigarettes in hand. Seems to be a gathering of sorts. Afternoon traffic builds like layers of crusted pus on an angry sore. People run from the rain. Building to parking garage. Building to parking garage. I grow impatient and take my chances. The rain falls on even as the sun violates the clouds. A sudden humidity clashes with cold rain on my hot skin. Drop, sizzle. Drop, sizzle. Red light, green light. Go.