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Mirror | Nov 05 2005

It’s a beautiful Saturday morning in Brooklyn and I’m sitting on the bench outside Guerrilla Coffee, drinking tea. Across the street a mailbox is on fire.

For the last five minutes I’ve been looking at the clouds. I can never remember the names of clouds, but these are the high, wispy kind, the kind that resemble vapors. Yesterday B stood at my window and said that the clouds (the big fluffy kind) looked like the clouds on the Simpsons. I’ve been sitting on the bench, considering B’s remark. It seemed telling when she said it, but now I don’t think so. Like everything else, nature is a mirror for our minds, and B’s mind is immersed in popular culture. It would be silly to expect her to look at the clouds and see buffalos, or whatever people saw in the clouds ten thousand years ago.

Also, I was wrong to say the mailbox is on fire. What’s burning, rather, are its contents. I know this because smoke is spewing out of the mail slot. Just now a woman came out of the beauty parlor and poured a small jar of water through the slot. This didn’t appear to have any effect, most likely because the act of opening and closing the mail slot served to fan the flames inside. Now she’s run back into the beauty parlor, presumably to get more water.

Ah, and now a small crowd has gathered around the smoking mailbox. They’re talking animatedly and shaking their heads. One man just pointed down 5th Avenue. At the culprit? Did he see who did this? I’m tempted to go over and ask, but I’d rather not give up my seat on the bench, which is comfortable and sunny.

Several times a woman has come out of the coffee shop to remark on what’s happening. She’s terribly affected and keeps saying that this is a violation of our social contract, which is true enough but doesn’t become more true through repetition. It seems she needs an audience for her anguish. She stands in the middle of the sidewalk and looks at the sky, addressing no one in particular (is she talking to the clouds?) and saying what a sin this is, and how only a psychopath could, etc. Then she retreats into the coffee shop.

Myself, I don’t know what to think. Mostly I’ve been sitting here drinking my tea and imagining all the mail at the bottom of that mailbox, all those rent checks and love letters, burning.