How's that for subtleties

I share the bare thanksgiving streets with a man rustling through the garbage cans in the alley behind charleston. He pulls out a half eaten loaf of bread. I'm invisible to him, which i find comforting. We both wanted the streets to ourselves. Past the brick exterior of apartments and townhouses i see lights glowing, some from TVs, others from laughter. I'm The Pedestrian, but even worse, nobody seems to care. I'm free to wander, so i take a sharp right through the gates of the bucktown park. My shoes weren't meant for this weather. They never are, they weather wherever i go. Water spills in through the hole in the back of my left boot - i mutter obscenities as if i didn't create it in the first place. The swings look lonely, so i go to sit down. It's too cold to use them for their real purpose, swinging that is. Instead i just sit and stare at my half-soaked shoe. It would be a pity-swing anyway, just to keep them company.

The church bells here go off every hour starting at 8 am. 8 am is an awful time to be aware of if you ask me. But they ring 8 very noticeable times. Each individual bell toll makes my teeth hurt, my eyes roll, my legs numb, my fists clench. And then again at 9. The toes of my shoes submerse themselves in woodchips and the chains of the swing take off. I grab hastily at them like the cord on a city bus, but they ignore my signals. The church bells go off, the freezing chains creak in discord - they hate that fucking church as much as i do.

10 tolls, i should head back. I pick myself up by my slightly worn bootstraps, hearing the smack of my shoes on the pavement. I stop, one step, smack, one step, smack. It resonates down the streets and back again, a boomerang of sound. I laugh, it hits me, one step, smack. My pace increases, my muscles tighten, the sound is trailing behind me, shaking windows knocking down bricks, shattering televisions and laughter that encase the glow. Hey, you: i'm thankful for our music and our beds, and our lack of beds, and, well, our heavy fucking memories.