Free The Colossus of New York by Colson Whitehead

feel even grayer than usual. Tacked-up cartoons add a little homey touch. They decide what will have to wait until tomorrow, click off desk lights, become visible over cubicle walls. These days disappointment is modular and interchangeable and snaps together easily. According to diagrams fit three words together: See You Tomorrow. People huddle into elevators and ride down into in-betweenness, into the space between work and home that is a kind of dreaming: it’s where they go to make sense of what just happened so they can go a little farther.
    ESCAPE FROM midtown. Make a break for the wall or tunnel under. Elementary geometric forms run amok. Architects lay psyche in steel and concrete. Birth of first-born, bye-bye to mistress, alimony checks—it’s all there encoded in columns, the features of façades, windows that will not open. Walk in the shadow of subconscious, toil in the monuments to bitter decline. The skyline graphs the hubris of generations, visible for miles, and inevitably all who see it extract the wrong morals from the stories. Common buildings end too soon. Recognize royalty by height, on sight, and memorize their crowns over time. Some of these buildings arrived by tugboat, towed in from the South Pacific islands where they were carved from black volcanic rock. These dark glaciers. So much beneath surfaces. In buildings comprised of other buildings’ discarded thirteenth floors, sinister transactions unfold. Office Space Available. Few buildings around here deserve to be people, but judging by the grim procession of faces, some of these folks are halfway to sheetrock. Steel-boned, mortar-blooded. Granite without end.
    ORNITHOLOGISTS recognize these corporate peacocks by their pinstripe plumage. What goes through their heads, this species of bird. That pair have the same tailor and when they run into each other feel a great relief. Patchwork and held together by slender threads. Rely on camouflage to keep you safe. So full of suit and briefcase envy that only a really good shoeshine is going to set him right again. Here comes Mr. Bespoke—all they have come to fear lies in his miraculous stitches. When discovered, he will offer no excuse for wearing women’s underpants. They’re simply more comfortable. The sound of her heels chipping away at office floors makes lesser mortals tremble, but these sneakers downright kiss her feet on the commute. One more day until Casual Friday, goody goody gumdrops. In suspenders, in wingtips, as if dressing up in the language of flight might make them lose the ground and become something better. The wind tunnel round this building finally alerts him that his fly has been open for hours. Bit of a nip in the air tonight.
    SUCH CURIOUS rituals fill their days. Pawns and rooks move according to their rules. Take or be taken. Kill or be killed. Knuckle sandwich for the next person who steps on her foot. Summa cum laude from the Institute of Firm Handshakes. Turbine, meet Chassis. Hammer, meet Anvil. Next, exchange cards. Do you have a card. I have a card. Take my card. Do you like my card. Cards rub against each other in wallets and beget little cards. The secret origin of pocket lint. Stabbed by the pin he forgot to take out of his new shirt. Karma’s tiny arsenal. They invited her to join them for drinks but she rainchecked because it’s been a long day and some people have moved up a bit on the enemies list. Pencil them in for revenge, how’s Monday 2:30 look for you. Messy and teeming. Making plans, making haste, making partner. Move move move. The old man trips and falls and gets trampled and they’d help him to his feet but they’re late late late.
    IF YOU LIVED here you’d be home by now. Still plenty of time to look back over the last few hours and fix-ate on what did not go as planned. Spasms twist, spasms wrench and warn, spasms pass in a few minutes if history has taught us anything about this ulcer. At the newsstand to pick up antacid he accidentally drops