My Vacation to Chicago; experienced 7/28-7/31

I stumbled across the cracked sidewalk.   My head positioned downward to avoid inhaling the smoky air around me as I passed two people wearing business suits, both puffing at extra-long cigarettes.  The stale air smelled rotten as I stepped past the manhole covers.  Inhaling fumes escaping from the sewer, the humidity creating a smoking trail that seductively leaked out of the street vents.

I stopped at the crosswalk between two street names I briefly glimpsed at.  Cars poured down the city street like water flowing through a cold river; fierce and reassuringly unkind.  Continuing, I moved my feet once the stoplight glowed red.  All at once, I could not help but notice the excitement.  The city’s excitement, as if every single person existed at that moment to be going somewhere and arrive immediately.  Urgency flowed through me, encouraged me, guided me.  I could walk on forever, I thought, as the atmosphere of the city’s haste enclosed around me.

And like a rabbit with a broken pocket watch, I hurried on.