Friday, August 26, 2011

hurricane irene: friday night.

Jesus is coming.

This is the refrain as I walk up Broadway, towing a rolly-suitcase which I cannot lift up or down the subway stairs, on my way to Washington Heights to weather the weather. The storm won't come for hours yet, days even, and yet the natives rip the batteries right off the rack, and buy the groceries out of bottled water and loaves of bread.

The atmosphere is manic, the sky an eerie, cloudless blue. The food lines are halfway to the meat counters.

Three girls and I stock up on peanut butter and Oreos. We buy two gallons of water and six bottles of wine. We order enough sushi to satisfy a football team. And here we sit, in the apex of our youth, at our devices, soaking up the screen time before the power and the wireless quit.

This is the moment, between Categories, between evacuation zones, where we miss our boyfriends and are not yet afraid.

2 comments:

Kathleen said...

No, no... it's Irene, not Jesus.

And after all, aren't we all on the lookout for an excuse to huddle indoors for a day?

Bathwater said...

Would a football team really eat that much sushi? Doesn't sound very manly to me!