When its shell breaks, the egg slides, lead by the yolk, to settle in the low point of the pan. The albumen spreads. As the heat takes to the pan, the albumen finds its edge and begins to cloud white.
There's a man I see on the train infrequently. When I do see him, I have trouble looking away from him. His forehead bulges forward. He wears thick glasses. I can't tell if he can see me. His eyes don't appear in the glass of his lenses. I have yet to spot his eyes. Behind his glasses his skin is dark, as if bruised.
Beside me there's a sleeping woman. Her mouth is open. The Gucci insignia is set into the periwinkle nail of her ring finger. Versace glasses. Braids. Skirt suit.
People on my car keep their eyes closed. Some bear pillow marks on their cheeks. When a young man walks into the middle of the car and complains that he looks around the ring fingers of the people of New York and no longer sees any engagement rings, the people on my car stir. He's moved into their room. He's speaking in a fluid non sequitur that grows in its anger. I've heard him before talk about the billions of dollars he has, how Jay-Z speaks directly to him. His sneakers are white, dirty and near collapse at the heel. His voice is broad enough to allow no one to feel it directly but it becomes so loud it's impossible to ignore. The nuisance of an alarm clock. The faces wrinkle as they cannot slap it back to snooze.
I have pink eye.
I woke up with my right eye sealed shut. I strained to open my eyelid. The best I could do was open it a quarter of the way and the room looked soft, glaucous until I made my way to the sink and massaged my eye open, cleaned it then admired the swollen lid in the mirror- what a shifty look it gave me having one eye more open than the other.
Of the few who appear awake, a middle aged black woman in a t-shirt that reads "I don't always drive into tornadoes but when I do 40 is not enough" is writing in an oversized composition book. She has it in her lap and appears to be using it for landscapes. I remember not to check her face after I read her shirt. I look away without looking up, without measuring the pieces of her I can see.
