I have a cold today. I had spent thirty minutes trying to make a nosebleed stop. This one was in the category of 'Old Faithfuls'. I walked through the lobby, and people patted me like a cute rabbit in a small cage and asked me Are you okay? expecting the answer. I nodded, dripping blood, and I walked away. Satisfied, they turned back to their ambient conversations. Some people in the lobby told me to wipe the blood up, because I was making a mess. I told them through one nostril that I would come back later and clean it up. They nodded. Reparte.

The white porcelain sink had a single drop of blood in it, so perfect a splatter that I wished to lick it off the basin and onto film. Why photography, he had asked, and we all looked at each other and smiled downwards towards the table with the usual wry smile of reluctance and dormant talkativeness. I keep that dormant throughout my day, and so I nod. Sometimes people don't see the most obvious things in front of them. None of us are mind readers, yes.

I say Hi with a mouth-smile, because I haven't learned elsewise; Too deep, and my muscles hurt, especially around my heart, and I'm afraid that if I smile too hard and too mouthfully the muscles around my heart will stop, taking me with it as it slows down, a self-induced post-birth abortion that nobody agrees with, without carnivorous coat-hangers or firm white pills that slip down like snakes, but worse.

I want out or in. Something firm, something black or white or yellow or red. Not gray. Gray is not between black and white; It's between green and red, blue and yellow. Gray is the color of despair. Gray is the color of uncertainity and forced movement. Gray is the color of the elbows on a dead person after an unexpected heart attack in the middle of Boston Commons on a beautiful clear perfect autumn day.

Gray is the color of shadows on black asphalt.