You jump onto the bus, a backpack in your left hand, hood up, and scan your transportation card in a fluid motion, quickly moving past the driver and to the back of the bus. You sit at the very back, where just one long seat lines the whole wall, the nosebleed seats of the bus. You slide into the corner and wedge your foot against the seat in front of you, securing yourself for the undoubtedly uneasy ride about to ensue. You swing the bag, tan with patches in odd spots, up from the floor and onto the space between your legs. You rifle through the backpack methodically, always largest to smallest pocket, and watch the story of the person whom you had snuck up behind, slid the bag off, and sprinted away from unfold before you. You crack open the small leather-backed Moleskine that you keep in your breast pocket. With your left hand you list the items, in messy script, that you find with your right. 

– Large pocket; three notebooks (black, blue, purple), a laptop, five pens, three packs of gum (watermelon, two sealed, one not), seven gum wrappers, a 

Shameless sticker (crumpled beyond belief). 

– Middle pocket; a soft pencil case covered in stickers and doodles and full of crinkled bags of weed and rolling papers (plus two lighters, yellow and orange), chapstick, eye drops, deodorant (all in all, quite like what I predicted the girl with the dyed red hair, small shoulders, and foggy gaze would have) 

– Smallest pocket; Tylenol, switchblade with a black handle (see above note about girl), a piece of paper with the acronym i.d.w.t.g.t.b.t. and remember!!! scrawled on it. 

You look out the window, breath glazing lightly over the glass. Blue and gray cars crawl by. You like the bus. No one ever takes it, and it moves surprisingly swiftly along the cold rainy streets, quickly bypassing the stalled lines of yellow taxis with yellow headlights that illuminate pounding raindrops. Ten minutes of passing lemon taxis and wet pedestrians later, the bus slows to a halt, the doors pull open and the few people that sat on the ripped seats with you file out slowly, awkwardly jogging towards safety from the rain. A man with a powder blue shirt with a white collar, black overcoat, shiny shoes that click against the pavement, and a grimace that only too busy businessmen have, dodges raindrops down the block. 

You make a big step off of the bus, bridging over the swift river running parallel to the curb, and move forward, walking normally, but not too normal. Nothing in New York is too normal. Street lamps and storefronts paint the wet sidewalk with reflections, and you step over puddles quickly as you move down the walkway. A store advertising “traceless phones” brands the night sky with a neon sign, orange, hung next to a dripping Juul Pod advertisement plastered onto a smudged window. Down the street a barred jewelry store with crystal-covered watches aplenty lining glass display cases shines out. Next to the radiant watches lay three tents, blue, brown, and black. A portable stove rests on the ground, surely ruined by the rain. A bowl sits on top, more full with dirty water than the change it was begging for. In the adjacent alley, underneath a blue bubble-lettered slur scrawled onto rough brick, a man holds his tucked knees close to his chest underneath a sheet of dark green corrugated metal. His piercing gray eyes lock with yours, which are green, seeming to accuse you. Whether it is for your lack of contribution to the water-filled bowl or for what you have done you don’t know. You walk faster as you pass him. Raindrops bead on your black jacket, and your socks squish wetly with each step. 

You stop in front of a convenience store, advertising a deal on soda in one window and “Bongs For Sale!” in the other. A mechanical chime accompanies the swinging door and bright LEDs shine down. Your head is down as you walk along a familiar route to the back of the store. You unclip a keyring from your belt loop and unlock a door with “no public access” scrawled across a pink paper taped onto it. Inside the door you climb and climb and climb a set of stairs, moving farther and farther above the city and its grime. On the seventh flight you stop, opening a heavy gray door into a carpeted hallway. This is a stark contrast to the concrete of the stairwell and the pavement of the city. A wet trail is left by your soggy shoes as you pad down the hallway, stopping in front of a tan door marked with a gold plate reading “777”. You grab your keyring once again, quickly spying the correct gold one from the three that live on the ring. You slide the key into the lock effortlessly and swing the door open. 

You set the tan bag that you slipped off of the girl’s smooth shoulders down against the sage wall next to the door and hang the keys on the hook on the wall. Below that is a light switch, which you flick on with your elbow. A hanging spherical light in the center of the living room flickers on, as well as a curved decorative lamp surrounded by greenery. The raindrops pinging against the roof above you seem much more comforting as you walk past the leather couch and ivy sprawling out of its pot. You switch on a record player that rests on top of a spruce cabinet, flipping the disk to its B side and setting the needle before the familiar voice of Billie Holiday begins to belt out of twin speakers flanking the turntable. As the soft guitar and rain fill your mind the girl from that dark street appears before you once again. She couldn’t have been older than seventeen, with eyes rimmed as red as her hair and largely concealed by sagging eyelids and long lashes. Those eyes, a staggering step, and a lasting dazed look had made her a clear mark. You stare at that tan bag with odd patches and watch the puddle forming around it slowly grow, spreading out across the hardwood floors. Those dead eyes remain in your view, floating freely, both staring at you and seeing nothing. You murmur the lyrics to “Blue Moon,” walking back past the sage-painted entranceway, and into your kitchen, covered in orange tiles separated by clean white grout. Flipping a burner on releases a spurt of gas. As you fill a clay kettle, a rich chime distinct from the melodious jazz rings out. So, with a twirl on beat with the trumpets, you go back to the door, stepping over the now fully formed puddle around the khaki backpack. You turn the knob to reveal Wes Paul, thirty-eight, apartment 771. Crows’ feet on either eye crinkle as he smiles at you. 

“Hey, do you still got that book you were talking about?” 

“Yes, Wes.” A smile of your own breaking out. “Yes, I do.” You grab The Devil in the

White City from the table next to the sinking couch, sliding it free from underneath another novel and a wax-dripping candle. Returning to Wes, you reach down, unzipping once again the large pocket of the knapsack. You hand Wes the book with two packets resting atop it. “The gum that Rachel likes.” 

With a nod of approval, Wes retreats down the hall. Shutting the door, you grab the patched tan bag. You walk past the orange-tiled kitchen and the expansive window in the hallway, stopping deeper into the apartment, inside a room with no door and six gray-steel file cabinets. You empty the bag on the floor, sitting in the middle of the scattered ring of items. And once again you flip open the leather notebook that lives in your breast pocket, and begin to sort the effects into their distinct drawers, noting their placements in dark ink. 

– First Cabinet, First Drawer: laptop 

– First Cabinet, Third Drawer: Tylenol, eyedrops, deodorant, chapstick – Second Cabinet, Third Drawer: three notebooks, five pens, pencil case (covered in doodles and stickers) 

– Fourth Cabinet, First Drawer: two crumpled bags of weed 

– Fourth Cabinet, Second Drawer: black switchblade 

Done, you shut each cabinet with a metallic thunk, turn the lights out, and leave the room. The tea kettle screams.