Underneath the surface of a gentle river, schools of multicolored carp went about their day unfazed by the crashing of pale-yellow beaks from their feathery neighbors floating above. That their neighbors could dive deep enough for long enough to threaten a carp’s way of life never crossed their minds. After all, floaters are floaters, and fish are fish. The laws of nature had made it that way. It’s the way it was and always would be.
When I lifted the vending machine’s hinged metal door corn slid from its chamber into the uncalloused palms of my five-year-old son. After ensuring he’d collected every kernel, he clasped his palms together like a clam protecting a priceless pearl, then stepped to the side of the vending machine, extended his arms between the burnished-brown railings, and looked up at me with his eyebrows raised as if inviting my permission. “Go ahead, it’s okay,” I said, nodding my head.
He opened his palms, releasing the kernels, which fell like yellow raindrops onto the river’s surface, creating a series of circles that rippled outward in every direction. Moments later, multicolored carp emerged from beneath the bridge’s protective shadow. They darted back and forth beneath the surface, consuming as much corn as possible before it sank to the river’s rocky bottom.
On the other side of the bridge, my eight-year-old watched with concern as a family of ducks struggled to consume the kernels carried downstream. She shouted for her brother to come quickly, which he did, arriving just as the emerald head of a male mallard duck emerged kernelless from beneath the river’s surface. “Dad, they can’t catch the corn!” said Cooper, his voice pitched in panic.
“Don’t worry,” I said, directing their attention to the people on the bridge also feeding corn into the river. “The ducks and the fish will have plenty to eat.”
Sophie, my eight-year-old, looked up at me crossly and demanded we stay.
So, we stayed.
I fed more quarters into the vending machine while Sophie and Cooper dropped more corn into the river until they were satisfied that all the ducks and the fish had been fed. Then we carried on with our day.
Up every hill, around every turn, and through every valley of the man-made metal jungle all around us was a kaleidoscope of colors and cultures moving everywhere and nowhere at any given moment. At the water rides there were girls in bikinis and boys in board shorts. At the gaming booths – jocks and geeks, gamblers and go-getters. At the food tables – meat lovers, vegetarians, fried food fanatics, and those who preferred Kosher or Halal.
At one point, we weaved toward a rotating island of fiberglass boats behind a family of females wearing long black robes with colorful scarves wrapped around their heads. In an adjoining lane, three teenagers, hunched over with the backs of their T-shirts lifted over their heads, laughed and joked while a fourth teenager, walking backward in front of them, shouted gibberish and pretended to strike them with an imaginary whip. Fed up with the theatrics, I leaned over the railing and tapped one of the teenagers on the shoulder. “Excuse me,” I said. “Do you think that’s funny?” The teenager rolled his eyes and chuckled as he pointed at Cooper, attempting and failing to lift the back of his T-shirt over his head. “Well, it’s not,” I said, slapping my hand on the railing. “You and your friends should be –”
The roar of a rollercoaster passing overhead muffled my message before morphing into a different-sounding roar that shook the cinderblock walls of my fourth-floor flat, awakening me from a deep sleep.
I checked the time.
It was 4:55 a.m.
I shuffled up the hallway to the dining room and fumbled with a pulley to the brown metal shutters of my flat’s front picture window. Managing to open the shutters a few inches, I peeked outside. Aside from the roar of the call to prayer – and a few old men disappearing under the green awning of the mosque across the street – the neighborhood was eerily empty and surprisingly quiet. Unable to fall asleep, I grabbed a manual from the dining room table, sank into a white, cushioned sofa chair, and thumbed through its pages. After reading a brief history of the region that would be my home for the next four years, I felt sleepy, so I tossed the manual on the coffee table and shuffled to the back bedroom.
My wife and our three-year-old were nestled under layers of wool blankets with knit caps on their heads and mittens tucked under the cuffs of their warm winter coats. I sat on the edge of the bed and stared at my reflection in the closet’s mirror-paneled doors. My wool coat and sweatpants, which I had stuffed with more sweatshirts and sweatpants, appeared bloated, like a tick gorged with blood and ready to pop. I lifted my chin toward the peeling white paint on the bedroom’s cinderblock ceiling and slowly exhaled. A tube of warm liquid droplets greeted the room’s icy-cold air, creating a temporary cloud of condensation before vanishing. Grabbing my compact disc player from the nightstand, I slipped under the covers, positioned my headphones’ circular foam cushions over each ear, pulled the covers over my chin, and pressed the play button. The audiobook’s narrator started where he’d left off somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean on the flight over. In a raspy, Charleston Heston-like voice he read about 9/11. Terrorism. A clash of cultures and beliefs. A world that would never be the same.
I closed my eyes and drifted off.
When I woke up, it was midafternoon.
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