Agora

I walked today under a sea of stars. The street was cold and dark, empty of all thought, of all inkling of thought. It comforted me to know that each car I passed was cold too, like it had always been off and would never turn on again. There were sounds, sure, but they were polite ones. They did not bang or crash or boom or screech. Instead, they flickered and chirped, like the crickets and the street lights were getting the band back together. 
	I walked today under a sea of stars. Fine – it was four minutes at about 2:00 AM when even the trees slept. But, still, I walked today. 
	Years ago, under a tree in a banyan grove, my fear took the stage with a flourish. It did not creep up like a frost that still gave off every possibility of melting. It burst onto the scene in a flash mob, covered in bright lights and neon colors. 
	“It was a music festival – what did you expect?” The first words said to me when I came out of intensive therapy formed a question for which I still have no answer. 
	I fell in love with the bottom-half of a person once. From my garden-level apartment window, that was all I could see. They were a rustle of cotton or denim pants. The bottom part of a bag. The soft padding steps of leather shoes. They walked by at exactly quarter-past eight every morning, walking seventeen steps past my building before disappearing from view. Today, when I walked under a sea of stars, I counted my steps in multiples of seventeen. 
	“You can’t stay in there forever!” Bang, bang, bang! They slammed their fists on my door as I braced it with my back. 
“Come out, crazy!” Crash! A glass bottle shattered against the wall of my building. 
“Happy Independence Day!” Boom, Boom, Boom! Each blast rattled the table under which I sat with my hands over my ears, shaking dust onto my arms. 
“Bus #51 – last stop!” Screech! Cars screamed at each other, hot and turbulent, like waves crashing into the shore, if the waves were made of lava and the shore was made of me.
Long ago,