In the Kitchen, the floor was covered in mud. Tiny brown pawprints, one on top of the other on top of the other, like a herd of cats had been disassembling my kitchen in perfectly decided upon chaos. Footprints on the counter. On the chairs. And earthworms, five of them, on the floor in front of the fridge. Stretched and vulnerable, without the strength of soil into which to recede to roil and boil in their hungry, patient way, there was something obscene about them. Spots of them hardening, sometimes entire sides exposed to the mean heat of my apartment crusted over, burnt. Burnt offerings to the great dark god which gives the milk, which rains downs tins of sweet kitten ambrosia. On this great day, the day which was to be the end of all things, my cats held sacrificed great gifts to Saint Frigidaire. They dressed themselves in soil-brown heathen warpaint and left for me a map of their wild early morning dance.

I picked up all the earthworms, wet them in the sink, and tossed them over the porch railing, back to the soil. We'll have none of that here.

The world won't be ending today.

On the bus today, after a midmorning crisis of faith in my own ability to get my shit together and see the beauty all around me, after an quiet outcry from the fevertangled sheets of my bed for something, anything to shake loose this funk which has made me oh so very tired, and oh so tired of myself, the universe answered. A man at the front with a band-aid on this chin announced his own insanity in the cruel, blunt, and searingly unfunny way of those in greatest need. "Just came from the psych doctor. Still crazy, but heavily medicated." followed by guffaws from his fellow passengers like blows from a blunt object.

He kept going, needing acknowledgement.  "Haven't killed anyone in at least six months," And I almost smiled. Here was this hooded, tired, ugly man, who had the nerve to get what he needed. To take from the world what he most craved. An exhibitionist is a survivalist genius without tact, he is tearing open his own wounds in public, hoping one of these witnesses to his infection will happen to have the cure. In return, he was hawking the opportunity to indict his own vulnerability. To laugh at the crazy fellow. It was a hell of a bargain.

The Bus driver said back, "And before that it wadn't your fault, right?"  The man next to me, in a long orange coat, a brown faux fur cap saw my discomfort and began to hum an exotic tune. Just loud enough for the two of us.

And in the front of the bus, a woman: "Hey man, what's your name."  "Today's Mick, depends on which personality is drivin the boat though," said the man with the band aid, and from the bus driver, "But not who's driving the bus." And louder next to me, the exotic hum became a song. Each word flowed into the next. The words water, tripping over one another, upon collision breaking the tension between the two, molecules colliding, becoming one body, dripping down and pooling into the next and each pool became bigger than the last, louder. and each sound became simultaneously more foreign and familiar.

The laughter and the boasts from the front of the bus became raucous. Each question to the man bleeding out bad humors. The music on the stereo, the refugee man singing next to me, the cars outside, and the too hard beating of my own tremulous heart under my own quiet laughter. They all collided, became waves crashing against one another. The deep rhythmic rush of the African song the great undertow, pulling everything out and down. Drowning the disjointed disharmony of separate need. And then, I recognized a single word in the song. Nakupenda. It is the nearest direct translation of the phrase "I love you," in the swahili tongue. And then a phone rang. The man singing in Swahili answered it. The greater song froze, fell, crashed, and shattered again into noise. Into the smaller shards of lonely it receded.

The front of the bus lost interest, the band-aided man tried to bring them back, "Ain't had to kill any exes, they're tryin' to take care of that on their own," but lost out in the end to the great exodus at the transit station. Each person filing out through the doors with his or her belongings, not noticing what had been left behind in the silence of the bus.

When I stepped out on to the sidewalk, I couldn't remember where I was going. I just kept looking around, feeling disoriented by the buildings and the traffic until a driver asked me if I was lost. Was I waiting for a particular transfer? They busses were leaving. Was I okay?

I thanked him and said I'd have to let him know