Amabile by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview

Amabile

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New York City

Morey pockets the time-teleport capsule and drifts through midtown Manhattan with the loose, appreciative gait of someone who has surrendered to the city's diverse rhythm rather than trying to outpace it. The winter air has that metallic edge Manhattan specializes in, but the sidewalks are alive; steam rising from grates, taxis honking in three different emotional registers, dogs, ostensibly content to be on leashes held by hominids, and storefronts glowing like curated dioramas.

Morey passed a Korean bakery with pastel colored pastries arranged like jewels, a West African fabric shop bursting with patterns so bold they seem to pulse, a tiny Dominican barbershop where the music spills out onto the street and the barbers move with the precision of surgeons, a Japanese stationery store where pens are displayed with the reverence of museum artifacts, and a halal food cart sending up a plume of cumin and charcoal that makes him briefly consider abandoning his walk for lunch.

Morey loves this part of Manhattan for exactly this reason; the density of difference. Every block feels like a shuffle of the global deck.

He's now passing a luggage store; one of those places with suitcases stacked like defensive fortifications, when he hears a

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rustle near the alley. At first he assumes it's the usual city wildlife; pigeons, rats, a courier dropping a package.

But then two masked coons step out. They are not timid, not scurrying; stepping out like they've been waiting for him. They stand upright, uppity, shoulders squared, bandit masks naturally in place. Each holds a small, shiny object. Morey squints. They look like pocketknives, and the coons grip them with the casual confidence of creatures who have practiced.

One chitters sharply, as if delivering a line it has rehearsed.

The other gestures with its blade in a way that is unmistakably communicative, though Morey has no idea what the message is supposed to be. He raises his hands slowly, not out of fear so much as bewilderment. Midtown Manhattan has prepared him for many things, but not this.

For a few seconds, they all regard one another; the Amabile fox and the presumably Earth coons, caught in a strange, silent negotiation. The city noise continues around them, indifferent. A bus exhales. A cyclist curses. A tourist takes a photo of something entirely unrelated.

Then, as abruptly as they appeared, the coons lower their knives, exchange a series of rapid squeaks, and scamper back

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into the alley, leaving Morey standing there with his hands still raised. A cop passes.

Morey lowers his hands slowly.

He doesn’t understand what happened, but resumes walking, a little dazed, a little amused, and with a new appreciation for the city's capacity to surprise him. Diversity, he thinks, comes in many forms; cultural, culinary, architectural, and apparently zoological.

He sees an out of date newspaper kiosk, which has stubbornly refused to quit. The main story headlining a newspaper caught his attention. It boldly said in oversized letters; “THE START OF WWIII.”

“A Russian commander now claims that Putin's forces have shot down a US made F-16 fighter jet in Ukraine, using an S-300 air defense system. This comes as the United States seized another oil tanker in the Caribbean, targeting vessels linked to Russia and Venezuela. Is this just propaganda and pressure or are we watching a dangerous escalation between two nuclear powers? In an interview broadcast on Russian state television, a Russian air defense commander known by the callsign ‘Sever’ made a bold claim. He said his S-300 missile battery successfully shot down

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a Ukrainian-operated F-16 fighter jet, calling it ‘the most interesting target’ his unit has ever faced.”

Before Morey could finish the article, the kiosk attendant roughly says “You gonna buy that. This ain’t no fookin’ library.” Startled, Morey backs away, at the risk of high stepping hominid legs.

The overhead sign tells him he is at the corner of Forty-second Street and Avenue of the Americas, the latter where all property is zoned for commercial use, all the way from Tribeca to Central Park South, where a relic of a Fascination game parlor occupies that corner. He takes his time going in as he has never seen any place like it before. Hominids sat next to machines with blinking lights which were also emitting sounds not heard since Amabile’s descent into the digital.

The game is played on a table and the player sits at one narrow end of it. At the other end of the table is a series of 25 holes, at which the player rolls a rubber ball. As the ball falls through one of the holes, a light on a backboard behind the holes lights up, and the machine emits a chime, the former in a pattern corresponding to the hole the ball fell through, the latter seemingly random. The ball then rolls back to the player on a slight incline slanted back from the holes. The

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process is repeated until a player lights five lights in a row. The seated players are competing with each other, and only one will win. Winners receive a prize coupon or token, which can be redeemed for a small prize, or collected to redeem for bigger prizes later, or given coupons which may be redeemed as cash to play more games. None of the players look like winners, though this can be easily faked.

One particularly strange looking hominid is standing near the entrance, not playing at all. He seems to be wearing clothes made for someone much bigger. Despite that, he seems as confident as any poseur can be. He squats and reaches down for Morey, who anticipates the rude and threatening movement coming, and runs out the door, leaving Fascination.

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Morey is overwhelmed. He feels threatened. He has seen enough diversity for now, and is getting a better idea of what went on with the coons and the cops. He takes his time-teleporter from his sweater pocket, pushes three buttons, and is safely back home in Amabile.

However, when a few hours pass, he starts to reconsider. Morey padded up the familiar dirt path behind his den with the slow, uneven gait of someone carrying more thoughts than luggage. The winter sun in his home valley had that soft, amber warmth he’d missed; light that didn’t bounce off glass towers or ricochet between honking taxis. It simply fell, gently, like it had been waiting for him.

He dropped his travel worn canvas satchel by the stump outside his door and sat down, tail curled around his paws. Home smelled like pine needles, cold earth, and the faint sweetness of last autumn’s apples. It should have comforted him. It usually did.

But today, disappointment clung to him like city grime.

New York City had been ..... a lot. Morey had gone with the bright, naive hope of a young fox who’d grown up on stories of adventure and opportunity. He imagined bustling markets,

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friendly strangers, and maybe a rooftop garden or two where a fox could catch his breath.

Instead, he’d found crime, noise that never slept, crowds that moved like stampedes, and sidewalks that smelled like a thousand competing intentions. He’d tried to enjoy it truly, but the city felt like a puzzle with too many pieces missing. He’d left early, tail low, feeling like he’d failed some unspoken test.

Now, he was back home, but not settled

Sitting in the quiet, he replayed the trip in his mind. The subway that rattled his bones. The deli where he couldn’t figure out how to order. The towering buildings that made him feel like a misplaced woodland creature.

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But then other memories nudged their way in.

The bookstore owner who’d smiled at him without surprise. The tiny café where the barista had drawn a fox face in his latte foam. The jazz trio in Washington Square Park that had made him forget, for a moment, how overwhelmed he felt.

Maybe, he thought, the city wasn’t the problem. Maybe he’d just tried to swallow it whole instead of tasting it slowly.

Morey stretched out on the stump, letting the idea settle.

Maybe NYC was simply too big for a first leap. Maybe he needed something smaller right now; cities that didn’t roar so loudly, places where a fox could learn the rhythm before trying to dance with the giants.

Albany. Providence. New Haven. He even he hesitated, then smiled; Schenectady. No.

Cities with edges he could walk in a day. Cities where the crowds thinned enough for a fox to breathe. Cities that might teach him how to navigate the hominid world without swallowing him whole.

He stood, brushed the dust from his fur, and picked up his satchel again. He wasn’t leaving today. Maybe not tomorrow, either. But he was going.

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From Silver Lake

Jackson Browne

Did you see our brother?

He was here the other day

But he only came to say that he was leaving

Did you see his lady?

She was looking where he'd gone

But she wasn't letting on that she was grieving

He's bound to go

Perhaps she'll find him waiting for his boat

In some city far away

He's bound to go

Lately, I remember

Afternoons of smoke and wine

There was nothing we could find, but peace and pleasure

And with a smile, he told me

That he wanted just to be

On his way across the sea no man can measure

He won't be back

And the sun may find him sleeping in the dust

Of some ruin far away

He won't be back

Early today, as I watched while the skyline was shaking

I heard a rumbling

Early today the mechanical city was waking

And I ran out stumbling, mumbling

Out through the laughter of children and dogs

Did you see our brother?

(Someone who had been away)

He was here the other day

(Suddenly came back today)

But he only came to say

(And I allowed a hope to stray)

That he can't breathe here

(Into my mind)

Did you see his lady?

(For a moment, face-to-face)

She was reaching for his hand

(We looked back upon the place)

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Just as if to tell her man

(Long ago, he meant to chase)

That she can't either

(Our careless time)

They're bound to go

(Oh, what do you know?)

And the sun may find me running after them

(Not what I've been feeling)

(The past is healing so slow)

Seeing something far away

We won't be back

(My tomorrow, gone from sorrow)

Written by Jackson Browne.

The disappointment that had weighed him down was shifting into something else; renewed curiosity, maybe. Or determination.

He’d go back out there. Not to conquer the world, but to understand it. One manageable city at a time.

And maybe, someday, when he’d learned the rhythm of the preferable smaller streets and quieter crowds, he’d return to New York; not as a bewildered visitor, but as a fox who knew how to find his own path through the noise.

For now, though, he stepped inside his den, feeling lighter than when he arrived. The world was big. But he didn’t have to take it all at once.

He could start small. Portland came to mind. “No, not Maine, stupid machine. Oregon!”

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