Mickey Mouse

How can you stay down for long in weather like this--a battle between the sun, brisk winds, highly flying rain clouds that spit on you a chill mist every other block, and everywhere else, poking his infinite nose into the pedestrian-filled sidewalks, the infinite blue expanse of sky. And on my table as I write, sun dancing shadows of leaves high above thrown across my notebook, scooting and jiving to St Germain pounding nervously in my ears. Everyone outside my window, windblown and sun-dappled.

A man just walked by me. I was looking past the world at nothing, enjoying the sensations and stimuli, thoughtless when slowly, in the way your mind processes almost slow-motino when you're not exactly in control, his image impressed itself onto me. He was an older Asian man, probably Japanese, maybe in his sixties with paranoid eyes and a down-cast upper body, like he was sneaking, trying to be inconspicuous. He had on eighties-style white-washed jeans. That's what caught my eye first, because right above the knee on each thigh were loud black and red Mickey Mouse heads, two on each leg. Sleepy-eyed and still not that interested, I half-watched him cross the street towards me. When he was about halfway across I realized that he had a t-shirt on with a HUGE Mickey face on it. I began to feel an interest popping...what else, man? Just as he was about to pass out of my sight, I saw that his overshirt, a button-up, was a black and white camouflage of Mickey faces. My last look of him as he passed my window and out of sight: he looked so serious, so intent on getting to where he was going without a misstep.