POW

In America
In Chicago
On Lincoln Avenue
In the rain
Right this moment

There is a completely normal looking middle aged man walking down the street, swinging his folded up umbrella like a baseball bat across his body over and over as he yells "Pow!... Pow!.... Pow!" in a desperate, gutteral tone that sounds so much like "Help!"

I am watching him through my window. I do not get up from desk, even before I realize that the "Pow!" is not actually "Help!" and even after I realize that his "Pow!" is so much more a cry for help.

This is the kind of violence that knocks the air out of me: my own ineptness at basic human reflexes. And everyone else's. Everyone stares, no one stops. Sometimes I think I'd rather just be punched, regularly. At least then I'd feel the pain and know where it came from.