Nighttime New York

Overexposed: Times Square, originally uploaded by Stephen10031.

"As for the evening, it wafted away in seconds, the quick, furtive wing beats of the dark bird of sleepless night scattered its ashes. Suddenly, there was the sun, poking huge fingers through everything.

In the racing seconds from evening to sunrise, I saw the usual array of Manhattan night craziness: naked men, fumbling and churning each other, breathing too heavily, heaving urgency up out of their chests and shoulders. I saw a great crowd of young people, spilling in and out of a club, rah-ing and aw-ing at their own unique moment.

I saw police officers, jaws like armored bulldogs, scanning each dark corner, laser eyes sweeping with no mercy: do they fall on me, fall on guilty me? This time their police wheels spin on, past.

Then there were just those aimless scattergories of humans, limping out of the bar one last time. And then there was me, too fast, too hurried, too focused for the time of slumber, frantically stamping up and up another unnecessary hill to..." -- Father Jonathan Mercer.