There
were two unusual things I saw today. At work, after walking past the
enormous, illuminated globe, set halfway into the floor, in the art deco
lobby, and holding my wallet over the turnstile scanner to scan my
badge. Holding it. Moving it around in a tight little circle until
suddenly, the two metal bars swung open with a faint little hum and let
me in. I walked past the newsstand that still said “CIGARS” on a sign
above the entrance. I turned left and in the middle of the row of
elevators on my bank—13 to 26—there was a shock of milky brown coffee on
the floor. Full cup. Still hot, maybe. The elevators were gone and no
one else was waiting. I leaned across the splatter to touch the button. Up.
After
work, when I exited the subway station on Eighth Avenue and Ninth
Street, there was a little crowd by the top of the steps. They were
gathered around a telescope, perched on a tripod, about six inches wide
and three feet long. A bespectacled young man hunched over the thing,
squinting in the viewfinder, while others hovered, awaiting their turn.
Every passerby looked up. An airplane crossed the sky. Could they be
looking at airplanes? I thought that might be funny. Maybe they could
glimpse a little scene from the cozy little world inside the cabin: a
man fussing with a tiny bag of pretzels. His wife wearily paging through
the TV series: drama category of the seat-back touchscreen in-flight
entertainment programming. The moon was awful bright tonight. They had
to be looking at it. You couldn’t see much else.