novembre ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- jumpy i am in san francisco in the attic of the building where i intern, copy-editing a draft of an anthology of short stories by an 11th grade english class. i am learning how to navigate quark, how to obliterate wanton spaces and hanging quotes, when i look out the open door that leads onto a small rotting porch build onto the roof of the building. the walls are shaking slightly, but the sound is what reverberates in my head; it sounds as if a gigantic jet fighter is patrolling the mission district in low flying circles. the sound has been constant for over ten minutes now. when it veers closer it takes over all thought in my head and i almost hold my breath waiting for impact. when it quiets to a dull throb my shoulders relax a bit, and then it is back again. i walk onto the rotting porch. i can't see whatever must be making the noise over the buildings surrounding the porch's wake; we are sandwiched in by taller buildings. it's coming back again, growing louder, drowning out the wail of sirens down the block. sounds like it is tearing the roof out of the sky; sounds like an exceptionally bad headache, a migraine; sounds like pain. like an air show i went to with my grandfather when i was nine or ten. i remember how the engines ripped through all of my senses with their sound, my proud grandfather smiling and pointing, trying to lead my eyes up to the colorful plumes of smoke tailing each jet. so patriotic, that red, gray and blue smoke. and now in a circle. his ears were used to the sound. i remember thinking that he must've gotten used to such all-encompassing noise pretty fast when he was a navigator in the air force -- in war. but these are sounds i associate with terrible things. sounds that fill up every nook and cranny, and those that mimmick them: gun shots, cars backfiring, tires squealing, sirens, car alarms, sirens, the crunch of metal on metal, fireworks, rapid fireworks, automatic weapons, rickety piles falling altogether out and onto the floor, glass breaking, the blue angels in the mission district. 2:47 pm - 10.07.05 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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