Sometimes taxis don’t come frequently enough.

Ladies and gentlemen who have filed out of the symphony hall a block away wait in the rain with brand new shoes biting their feet and cold water making their ankles itch.
Horns are honking and rain is rattling but there isn’t any music.
None of them could remember any of the music they just listened to for three hours if they tried. 
They don’t try.

Others hear the music
A woman carrying a violin in a hard black case has it all in her head.  She’s in a hurry and the notes pound at her brain while the raindrops pound off the plastic that’s keeping her instrument safe and dry. 

Like a math problem.

1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and.

She passes a man.

Their eyes never meet.

He has music too.

12345678  12345678 12345678.

He feels the music differently than the woman, but he has it all the same. 
He feels it in every puddle he sidesteps, rain bouncing from his tired shoulders, never missing a beat.

While one man gracefully avoids puddles another drives straight through them. 
The water tossed from the road soaks the hems of pants and darkens velvet shoes.  Nobody notices.  They’re all thinking fondly of warm, dry, clothes at home. 

A woman standing on the very edge of the sidewalk has her hand in the air waiting to catch a cab driver’s eye.  She is safe and warm wrapped in a man’s wool coat while the coat’s owner says goodbye to some friends behind her. 
Across the street, rushing along through the crowd, is another woman.
She is not safe and warm.
She’s wiping tears from her face.  She could have left them.  Everybody’s cheeks are wet and red today. 
It doesn’t matter anyway. 
There are no familiar faces on this street.

Somebody else has the music.
He doesn’t know it yet. 
A little boy is holding tightly to his father’s hand.  His music is only beginning like a brand new heartbeat.  It’s only a hum amongst the sheets of rain slamming themselves against the sidewalks and the tops of cars and the windows of tall tall buildings. 
But right now his brand new rain boots are shining and his music is lifting the rainclouds.

Under an overhang a  man is selling roses from a cart.
Everybody walks past without looking up.
Their earphones are blindingly white against their dark coats.
Nobody buys a flower.
They aren’t thinking of the way smiles change the faces of their loved ones.  They’re thinking of getting to bed.

And so everybody goes on their way. 
Some with music and some without.  People scurrying along with steaming cups of coffee in their hands and tomorrow’s schedule on their minds.
They don’t look at each other.
Not everybody get’s to be dry and warm.
There aren’t enough taxis in the world to take everyone away. 

1.
~
His eyes are glazed over and his hair is matted down against his forehead.
Rain is dripping down from the tip of his nose and his eyes are searching for any color that isn’t grey.
The Taxis aren’t yellow enough.
The white lines along the street aren’t bright enough.
The coat wrapped around the woman on his arm is a deep green.
It isn’t green enough.
He hasn’t seen the sun for days.
The show was long.
His suit was expensive.
It doesn’t feel right against his body.  Too short in the arms.  Too tight at the waist.
The only thing worth his money is a ride home.
His ears are full.
His eyes are tired.
He silently prays for the girl inside of the green coat to take another cab.
It isn’t polite.
He was taught better.
But it’s been too many days in the rain.
He needs to go home.
He needs to go home alone.
~

2.
~
Click
    Click
         Click
              Click
The metronome in her head matches the clicking of her heels against the pavement.
Time doesn’t stop for anyone.  Time certainly hasn’t stopped for her.
She’s planning it all out. 
Five minutes to get coffee in a little styrofoam cup.
Six minutes to get back to her chair in the great semicircle surrounded by a cold, too bright, symphony hall.
Ten seconds to breathe.
Ten minutes to warm up her instrument.
Thirty minutes until the next show.
Without any error that leaves a minute or two to call the man she hasn’t talked to since she left his sleeping body in the still dark AM.
Will a minute fix anything?
No.
Will it keep his alarm clock illuminated face in her bed another morning?
Yes. 
~

3.
~
His feet are sore.
His arms are sore.
His legs are burning.
His lungs are getting their first taste of air all day.
His eyelids are weights.
The rain steams and sticks against his feverish skin.
He hasn’t brought an umbrella with him.
He doesn’t care, he wants to feel everything.  The water slapping his bare arms and the wind stinging his eyes.
He can hear music in his head and it fills up his empty stomach brimming over to his chest.
Every movement comes without thought.  Movements that have been hungry to claw their way out all day.
A pivot to avoid running into a woman with an instrument case and a frown rushing past.  The smallest little hop over a puddle, as if he were a child.
A slow roll of the neck to look towards the sky so he can’t see the city move around him.
These movements belong to him.  He isn’t paid to sidestep water on a dirty sidewalk.
A fateful look at his watch.  Fifteen minutes until places.
And so he leaves his world to dance in someone else’s music box.
~

4.
~
He knows this street like the back of his hand.
He knows these people like the back of his hand.
They’re all the same.
They think they’re paying him to drive them home after a long day at work.
He’s getting paid to hear all the best stories in the world.
These are stories you don’t find in the best sellers that people who don’t know you give you for Christmas, or the newspapers in metal racks that nobody picks up.
He hears what they think nobody hears.
He knows where to take the next right.
He also knows that the man adjusting his coat on the women’s shoulders to keep her warm is not her husband.  He’s somebody else’s.
He knows how many stop signs are on this block.
He also knows why the boy in the expensive suit rode to the city with a companion and is riding home alone.
He knows why they’re laughing.
He knows why they’re shaking.
He knows why some of them don’t say a word.
He soaks in every tale. And when he goes home, he tries to remember them.
But he can’t recall.
So he’s left alone.
No Laughing.
No Crying.
No stories.
Just a heater humming in an empty apartment.
~

5.
~
She tries not to watch.
She tries to peel her eyes from the man and woman getting into the cab on the other side of the street.
Not the man.
Not the woman.
The coat.
She knows that coat inside out.
The darkest grey wool.
The warmest pockets for thawing your hands in the snow.
For holding crumpled up letters.
For holding missed calls.
For holding secrets.
She can still feel the weight of that coat against her shoulders.
She can smell the coffee and soap and smoke that made their home deep in the fabric.
How can someone take all their love away from one person and re-gift it to another?
How can they wrap it in a new paper, put a shiny new bow on it, and just hand it to somebody else?
She never should have seen that coat again.
That coat isn't going to keep her warm with the wind bouncing off buildings and the rain sticking itself to her face.
The air stuck in her lungs is heavy and the day can’t end fast enough.
~

6.
~
The satisfying squeek of his new rain boots fill his ears, and the taste of hot chocolate lingers in his mouth.
Holding on to his father’s hand, he is the axis the city rotates on.
The streets fill with rain and all the taxi cabs float down their streams out into the ocean.
The little boy doesn’t have to know where he’s going.  His father knows the way.
When he looks up and rain drops splatter the little lenses of his glasses, the black clouds wrap the city in their arms. 
He can’t see beyond the skyscrapers.
He is safe inside his snowglobe city.
The little boy doesn’t see the expressions plastered on the faces of the people who rush past him.
He doesn’t meet their eye level.
He doesn’t see the woman crying or the man checking his watch.
He doesn’t feel the water hit him when a taxi drives by.
He doesn’t know that one of those faces will be his some day.
He’ll learn soon.
~

7.
~
The man has been standing under his overhang all day.
Nobody makes eye contact.
He isn’t shouting or trying to attract customers.  He doesn’t even have a sign.  He just stands and listens to the rain roaring and the horns honking.
He pulls his hands up into his sweater sleeves and shoves them into the pockets of his jacket.
He’s waiting for someone to talk to.
A young boy drags his father over to his cart with great determination.
He wants to buy a flower for a girl in his class.
The man’s eyes light up as he reaches into his cart to find the nicest flower he has.  This boy isn’t broken yet.  He still knows what a smile can do to a little girl’s face.
His father instructs the boy not to waste his money.
The boy is hurried away.
The flower it put back in it’s place.
Honking horns fill the man’s ears again.
The world hurries on.
~

And so the stormclouds roll without an end in sight, blanketing the city in grey and kissing it goodnight.
Thunder can’t crack forever, eventually these people will breathe again.
The intensity with which they set their eyes forward and rushed through the crowds along the sidewalk, will become the calmness with which they climb into bed and let their muscles melt into their mattresses. 
Rain water and tears will wash off in hot showers.
The world will weigh just as much tomorrow.
But tonight they will rest.
The music will come back.
In those few hours of sleep, the storm that tore them apart will be a soothing melody against their windows.
Until their alarm clocks remind them, they all forget.