You walk

8’o clock, and you walk into the bee-hive of Brisbane CBD. Your ten minute stroll to office is a full length feature film. A kaleidoscope.

You sidestep a broken tile, almost bump into the coffee cup of the man in front. School kids cross you like a herd of sheep, jostling, screaming, joyful. A lone smoker puffing away at the corner of the Marriott, watching an animated couple arguing in Spanish. You pass him fast, your lungs still suck in a hint of blue nicotine.

The signal turns red, twenty more seconds. You close your eyes to bring in the smell of fresh coffee from the cafe called Morning Ritual. You open your eyes to the climbers and creepers up the stone-walled 19th century church, up to the many colours of Brisbane sky, coloured by its river, textured by its people. People you don’t know, you don’t know yet. New colleagues, new customers, new neighbours, new fellow-pedestrians.

New cafe baristas too. You made a new friend earlier today. Karpin, the cafe owner, the sole barista who opens his shop each day at 6am, even on a Sunday. He told you he never took a break, never took a single day off in all ten years. Did you believe him? The man looked calm, and his flat-white stirred you up. You liked talking to him, talk about your grandfather, how he ran a restaurant, back in the day, not so successfully. You didn’t tell that part.

You soak it all in. The signal is still red. What’s wrong? Ah, did time stop for you to breathe-in this glorious new city?

You see the old lady with wild hair, storming across the pavement, deranged, rambling, in pain, almost blocking you. You sense she is hurt, lost, lonely, and never in a million years going to be a threat, yet you try ignoring her, avoid her trajectory, leaping towards the signal, and hope it turns green, oh God!, rush and jump into the pedestrian crossing, all the while astonished by your flight, your fright, and your sudden descent from that self-congratulatory, priestly state of altruism into a hollow pit of apathy, worse, disgust.

You walk.