Copper

Today the air smells like blood. Warm, coppery, brilliant red. Seeping up from the sewer.

Tomorrow will be cigarettes and Friday is McDonald's breakfasts. Throwaway containers with grease spots on the bottom float in the murky water, miles under my feet. But that is Friday. And today is Wednesday. Today is blood.

The bus comes and it's cramped and small. I am stuffed between a grody teenage boy who looks at me with a creepy smile and an old black man who reminds me so much of my Grandpa, it hurts. Then the door closes, we are whisked away.

I am overwhelmed. All I can feel is the blood rushing to my head. And the boy is moving his hand near my leg. And I want to get out. The smell of decay and blood is invading my senses and I can't take it.

So I pull the cord. Three stops too soon. And walk the extra two blocks home.
Maybe someday far away when air smells clear as it should be. These bloody nightmares and cigarettes will all be a bad memory.