Scofflaw Monologue

It's dark
There were gotcha questions
She smiled as she walked along
the aisle of an undeniably cold bus
She asked (of no one in particular)
"Why can't all motion be agreeable?"
It was dark
It isn't that he clung to hope
Whatever the external pressures for hope
his own relationship to that construct had long since become
a matter of comfort and ease
It was dark
Yet he did not cling to hope so much as
there's a chair at the kitchen table where hope had been sitting so long
he just didn't see any need now to displace it
There would be gotcha rhythms
Some motions kept him awake
some motions lulled him into rest
It wasn't necessarily an easy matter
distinguishing between the two classes of motion
She smiled as she sat down beside him on the bus
Her smile reminded him of hope at his kitchen table
a little
Why did the bus need to be so noisy?
He didn't know her
The smile was neighborly
He himself did not understand why unconsciously he thought
her name might be Hope
Not for the first time
he mistook the bus's motion
The rhythm is gonna getcha, she suggested
Not all rhythms are the same
he found it easy to elude most
he did not think it any talent
he supposed that most anyone could
Really it's always dark
he remembered some idiot remarking
While light grew in the east
The rhythm is gonna getcha, she teased
(And if you think it's a comfortable experience
being teased on a bus by someone you've not met before
you might think again.)
Gotcha rhythms
He sprang to the left
to a land of squares
Postage stamps
not all of them cancelled
Tea bag packets
Disjointed 64ths of some unfortunate chessboard
some black
some white
Possibly the least imaginative of crackers
The east grew lighter yet
He didn't know her
The rhythm is gonna getcha, she warned
He sprang up to a land of cream
Heavy
Shaving
Iced
Boston
Really it's always dark
You should probably never trust the one who benefits
from sparking the fears of another
He was in all respects a master of rhythm
Still
In the world all around him
fresh and beguiling rhythms
are being created
constantly
Rhythm and complacency don't mix
The rhythm is gonna getcha, she promised
He got off the bus
Entering a world
somehow neither dark nor light