Danville, Virginia

On the first days of summer, I continued in my search for humanity. I woke up before noon (on most days), bred arrogance by checking myself out in the mirror, showered, pranced nakedly through my friends' single bedroom, found an outfit worthy of political advancement, watched an episode of the O.C., liked it, and proceeded to exit an econo-inn turned econo-partment building. Humanity, I found this time, in Danville, Virginia. Or maybe I lost it. Canvassing with three friends who were politically similar (and absolutely liberal) and humanly (humanly?!) obscure. When we weren't drinking cheap wine in cheaper plastic wine glasses (our classiness did not exceed our environment), we would register people to vote, ask them to rate health care reform on a scale from one to five (who?) and discuss most important issues ranging from loneliness (from a grandmother rocking on her porch) to cats on leashes (from a grandmother rocking on her feet). A recent neighborhood rendezvous-officiale declared untied felines to be locally unconstitutional. I waded through the humidity, inhaling the condition of the sleepy town. I looked through broken windows decorated with declarations of condemnation, and looked into cataract-filled eyes - the pale blue glaze contrasting the darker complexion of their surroundings. Their field of vision seemed to be too full of stray cats, paper bags, and gallon jugs reminiscent of sweet tea to show any sign of a different future. Despite the tax-exemptions that are granted for businesses that plant themselves into the Southern Virginia soil, despite the babies that are born and that grow up and are maintained within the dissonance of the town (which sounds sort of like Punk Rock with a Southern accent), despite the friendly smiles bruising the faces of strangers who open the door for you or the cigarette ashes that you see falling from shaking fingers before the door is slammed, their life has been exhausted. The textile mill stands empty, rotting - rotting not from experience, but from neglect. The whole town, it is full of that sort of neglect. The whole town is being covered in a thin blue film, preventing people from being able to see any way out, and from others, from seeing any way in. It's harder to find humanity in a state of blindness. It is harder to keep trying to look in, to maintain eye contact, to find some narrative whose syntax is strung together with even meager possibility.

And after eight hours we would come back to the apartment, bicker about the incongruencies of our personalities, cook dinner, and eat with plastic utensils.