I exited the Wall Street station at exactly three pm. The sound of church bells (it’s a Saturday, not a Sunday). The bottom tip of Manhattan is an interesting place because the buildings seem to envour you a word I wish existed that is both and neither envelop or devour. You feel both inside and outside at the same time, you feel so small, or everything feels so big, same difference (maybe).
It’s the curving streets I think, the fact that you can’t see very far in any direction, as opposed to the majority of Manhattan, which is a grid, which means that despite its density there is a direction, at least one direction, where you can look upon a distance, where you can look and see a horizon rather than a wall. Not here.
But you see, horizons and walls are both ends. Horizons just give the illusion of infinity, but they end the same way, really. If you’re in midtown and you’re staring down an avenue, straight down an avenue, it may look like the strip of nothing lasts forever, but walk down for a while, and you know where you find yourself? Wall Street.
So here I am, in the spiral of finity, on the way to my eye doctor appointment (of course I have a reason to be down here, you didn’t think I was in FiDi for shits and giggles, did you?). Maybe that’s why the abrupt ends are settling to me right now: because I can’t see all that far. Infinities (illusionary or otherwise) are horrifying when your vision is compromised.
You know what would be incredible? If humans decided to make a ring of infinity around the globe, a strip, even the thinnest strip, where all the way around there is Nothing, not a single thing, not a single building, a single tree, not even a flower. Gosh, I’d pick it so fast if it grew. What would it feel like to stare down an infinity, to know that, in a way, you’re staring at the back of your own head? The thought makes me feel a little bit sick, actually. I changed my mind.
An ending brought me here today, actually, well, it sent me to the eye doctor today. I left my contacts in my lover’s bathroom thinking I’d return that night but I never did. I held out hope so I haven’t been able to see anything very clearly, which feels like a metaphor I’m to lazy to make, or maybe it feels too obvious to make, you can do it yourself, it’s quite simple.
I’m sitting on a park bench now wearing a fresh pair of contacts after my eye exam—it turns out my vision improved, actually. Another metaphor My old contacts are of no use to me, and I need a new pair of glasses, too. I’m looking out on the water—an illusion of infinity. But I know that if I set sail I would run into an end eventually. And I find that quite comforting.