Every Corner Crossed

Steven feels the world he lives in is a pop up book. Around ever corner, the leaves and branches sway and the cars bounce in his vision like a new page turned and the scenery still settles as he walks home from the train. Though the cars and people may differ from day to day, they do not make an impact on him. The world could be crash test dummies in wigs to Steven, but he would walk home without a second thought just the same.


As he crosses another intersection, another page turns and a breeze seems to blow the swings in the schoolyard to push the ghosts of children past. The birds rebuild their tattered nests and the empty beer cans roll in the street. Season bring different flowers and colors to the trees that are blocked out by the blinders over his eyes. To him, everything repeats everyday.

He wakes up and sees the same reflection in his mirror. He brushes his teeth with the same toothbrush and locks the door at he same time each morning. He boards the same train with the same people whom he does not know. He sits in his moderately cushioned office chair for 8 hours of work with a half hour break where he gets the same lunch from his favorite local fast food restaurant.

He does not notice the new apartment buildings being built around him each day. The jackhammers are always on the sidewalks he doesn't take. The trains advertise cola products, local hospitals, schools, employments opportunities, but he stares ahead in a daze focusing through in his own world. He does not see the red head that has begun to ride the train at the same time as him over the past three weeks. He does not notice that she began getting off at his stop two weeks ago and does not see her pretending to dig for her keys at different buildings each time she walks behind him down the street.

It is a Thursday afternoon when he is forced to see her in her newly dyed black hair as she pretends to be living in the same building he does. She asks him to hold the door for her as she rushes up behind him before it closes. He does not make an effort for the door or even seem to hear her as she asks him what floor he's on when she enters the elevator with him. He will not remember what floor she pressed for herself, but, when she enters his apartment with him, he begins to wonder if he's been living in somebody else's pop up book.