Anomie Can Be Defined As . . .

At that late hour, the streets were deserted. I wandered the dirty sidewalks in a kind of amnesic daze. Somehow I had gotten lost in a part of town I thought I knew well. Familiar landmarks had simply disappeared. I didn’t recognize the faces of buildings or the signs on storefronts. My own footfalls sounded weirdly detached from me. After only twenty minutes of this, I felt as though I had been running, falling, flying, floating, crawling half the night. I sat down on the curb exhausted. Clouds shaped like vague suspicions of vast conspiracies were just starting to pinken.

From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie's latest poetry book is The Horses Were Beautiful, available from Grey Book Press.

Reduction

He sat alone.

He watched her scrape the painted letters from the window; watched FINE ARTS CAFE become FINE ART, then FINE and finally FIN.

She took a break.

He couldn’t bear to watch anymore anyway, imagined Painting becoming mere Paint, then Pain; Lessons, Less.

Having finished his coffee, he talked to the café owner about her plans now that she’d finally served up her last cup.

He knew he’d go soon too.

He mentally counted out the other empty storefronts, some of the buildings invisible from where he sat, their windows staring out at a rapidly fading Main Street.

From Guest Contributor Ron. Lavalette