This is a magic hour in a magic town, where extraordinary events arise like words rolling off a fevered tongue. The playground is filled to capacity, the sun is framed by skyscrapers, and laughter mixes with jet engines in a chorus everyone can sing along with. This is a casual hour in a casual town. What seemed a mistake at first was soon revealed to be exactly right. When a weight is removed from a chest, restricted breaths can at last return to normal, like a car speeding down a deserted highway, air returns. This is a radiant hour in a radiant town. You could drive down a street for hours and lose yourself in neon lights, or walk along the curb for weeks and never encounter another person. If the soul could be manifested in brightness and hollowness, this place would be a garden overflowing with spirit. Instead it is an alluring isle, alive but cavernous. This is a joyous hour in a joyous town. Smiles on bumper stickers, clothing and billboards are infectious and immune to vaccinations. One cannot help but join in with the crowd, enlist in the grinning army, and outfit oneself with rays of sunshine. Apply it to your lips, taste it on all of those you kiss. Either one or twenty lovers, nothing consumed bears the hint of a unique flavor. We are one and the same in this happy-go-lucky prison yard. This is a mournful hour in a mournful town. The repetition has become predictable, in fact I’m pretty sure these last three days were identical in every conceivable way. The clocks all read the same time, and acquaintances all spoke the same lines. Although inescapable, I’d rather experience it here than in any other place. This is a quiet hour in a quiet town. The populace has abandoned buildings, schools and offices to catch some rest, they seek comfort in the tingling arms of sleepy spouses sharing marital beds. Limbs are deadened like water-logged lumber, so they’re flung over one another as if left out to dry. We are baking in the evening, we will began again come morning. Indeed this is a magic hour now.
