Christiane Gannon


At the Bottom

There is the diner where she was served hot chocolate topped with so much whipped cream a disappointing illusion was created - she thought there would be milky cocoa beneath the creamy cap, but after the foam had gone it was nothing but chocolate water really. It was warm in the diner, and they sat in the small booth at the very back that smelled of wilted lettuce and ketchup and the bodies of all the people who had sat there before them. The booths were upholstered in orange leather so that the whole room took on a neon glow and the lambent faces of the few customers and waitresses were orange from the reflection of the booths. In the center of the room was a fish tank with water rendered neon blue from the lights surrounding the tank. Several large refulgent goldfish, the same color as the seats of the booths, were listlessly suspended halfway between the graveled bottom and the surface.

When they went outside, it smelled of snow, even though looking up between the buildings there were no clouds, and she could even see a single star. Broadway was a dark stretch of ghostly shops, though it was only ten thirty. They walked uptown, arms around each other, passing the furniture stores with their uninhabited show rooms, interspersed by dimly lit cafes where Villagers huddled sunk into purple couches, their fingers curled around mugs of coffee.

Just before 21st Street, they stopped in front of the show window of a darkened antique furniture store with a pink striped baroque-backed couch flanked by matching chairs, and he was kissing her.

There were people passing, she could hear them, their scraps of conversation, but she couldn't make out what they said - they rushed by, caught in the flow of the cars and the taxis hastening uptown, the sounds of the city at night like a furious whirlpool that rushed above her. And she was at the bottom, where there was a peaceful palladium, like the sandy bottom of the ocean. She remembered that time when she wore the snorkeling mask and dived to the bottom of the cove and lay on her back on the sandy bottom, looking through the shifting lens of the water at the world she had dropped out of. There she could feel just the fingers of the gently moving currents as they pushed at her body, and in the quiet only hear the rushing of the waves above her as they beat upon the beach amid the splashing and screaming children as if they were very far away. At the bottom, nothing else existed outside of this moment - there was no before and there would be no after. For the first time she let go of the uncertainty that was life above, and felt how comfortable was the embracing cocoon of now.