My Cold City

This is my city. I don’t own it, I don’t run it, but this city belongs to me. All the cold in the air, all the warmth in the hearts. All the stars in the sky and the moon that watches with them. Every flickering street lamp, every cracked window, every lost soul. It’s all mine. And I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

As I walk these streets I find a million people with a million lives, and a billion stories to live through. There’s plenty to see. Like a man lost in his thoughts and his liquor. Or another, younger man just trying to find his way back home. Of course there are the occasional lost pair of people trying to find love, or just the way back to each other. Don’t look at me like that. Sure, I may have interfered a bit with one of those, but wouldn’t you?

I look around. It’s late now. There’s hardly a body on the sidewalk and rarely a car on the street. Everyone who can manage it is someplace warm, and everyone else is asleep. Not me though. I’m still here because I love the cold. Not so much the temperature, but the honesty of it. Cold is truth. It brings out who people really are, and what they can be. It holds down things like logic, and common sense, and forces people to feel their heart. To see their own souls.

I breathe out, but there's no miniature cloud of mist dancing before him. No fog of crystallized water droplets escaping my mouth and nose. I glance across the street to see a homeless man stumbling down the sidewalk, and odd determination to his every step. I envy him.

Seems like a good time for a cigarette. I pull one from my pocket and light it. The tobacco smell carries brilliantly through the still, chilled air. I inhale, but don’t feel anything. It’s just a show. These things can kill, but not me. They can’t even touch me. The smoke flies right into my lungs, and hover there a moment before being completely evacuated by my exhale. The smoke can’t hurt me. I’m not even really here. Because I’m a figment of my own imagination, right?

I can’t always help as much as I’d like to. Limited influence. I do what I can of course; I just can’t do a whole lot. Sometimes people are just too far away, physically or otherwise. Like a cop in her first (and as always, hopefully last) shootout in some distant gas station, or a ghost trapped in the remains of his own ravaged mind and spirit. Damn, doesn’t that sound familiar…?

However, when I can help, I try to make it count. What I can do isn’t always obvious. Usually, my help is mental. It can be as subtle as implanting an idea, or manipulating the surprisingly permeable to a drunken man’s mind. It can even be as direct and physical as telling a young man that “she will have green eyes”. And it’s always nice to see results.

Ultimately, what would I be if I didn’t tend to the inhabitants of my humble city? Nothing good, I can tell you that. The temperature drops a bit, or at least it seems to. Every window I see is frosted over. Cold on the outside, but still warm on the other. I take another puff of the cigarette. It still doesn’t do anything for me, but the smoke looks pretty damned cool, doesn’t it? Oh, yes, and don’t smoke kids, it’s bad for your health.

I own this city. I own all you see. Its streets and its people. Its homes and its hearts. It’s all mine, and I take care of it. I watch over it. I protect it, and I guide it. I have it, and I hold it. Mine to keep, in sickness and in health, good times and bad. Till death do us part. But now I’m starting to sound like the Spirit. Just, pretend you never saw that movie.

Now, who am I, you ask? Well, wouldn’t you like to know? Maybe I’m the Jazzman, the Scientist, Major Tom, Ironman, the Man Who Sold the World. Maybe I’m nobody. Hell, maybe I’m everybody. What if I’m God, or the devil? A guardian angel? A watchful demon? How about the Buddha? What about Kane? All or none of the above?

The truth is, I’ll have to get back to you on it. If I said I knew, I'd be lying.