9.12.2008

Germ to Germ

Nine o’clock am downtown Pittsburgh smells of diesel fuel, coffee and stale air. I sit outside a skyscraper waiting to attend an appointment. Grande coffee sits to the right of me, journal in hand, seated on a cold cement bench, I wait. Surrounded by a flower garden with no fragrance and trees that are growing out of concert sidewalks, this has to be proof of purgatory or reincarnation. Plants need light and air to be in this world. Could you imagine the hell it must be to be foliage in the city. No direct sunlight, living in a world diffused by buildings while breathing polluted air filled with car fumes and sewer gases.

Young businessmen in classy suits with expensive hair products placed in their short, quaffed cuts walk by. Pudgy women wrapped in tight black sweaters with large shoulder bags and even larger sunglasses perched upon their faces walk by in a cluster.

Here I sit. Staring at the masses “germ to germ”, I think to myself. What must nature think of us?