There is a line of people who have sat where I sit and all I can think about is how beautiful the buildings look in the light. They catch it and it warms them warms me and I think everything is peace. There is a line of people who have sat where I sit and we all dangle our feet, watch the distance fall out from under. I watch the rubber of my sole tremble and I do not remember if it is mine. All I can think is how pretty the buildings look. There is a line of people who have sat where I sit and I do not know what they thought about, sitting here, if they noticed how we are dwarfed only by the church spire, if they noticed the irony. Let’s forget. There is a line of people who sat where I sit and it stretches back to where I can see the battles carved in stone, the red brick, the slivers of light that shine through marble. I imagine someone across from me, chasmic, who waves, and I smile. The sky is streaked, the buildings are fading, if you stay here long enough you can see everything crumble. I wonder if anyone has. The light is gone. There is a line of people who have sat where I sit and the light is disappearing from the buildings, it’s moved inside, it’s moved, hasn’t it, the light isn’t fading at all, is it, there’s a line of people, I wonder how many, how many turned around, are we dwarfed by the church spire, there’s a line of people, the light, the light was warm, wasn’t it, I think the light was warm, the streaked pink, the deep blue, it is all changing, there is a line of people, will I turn around will I will I let the distance fall out from under me, it’s jumbled now isn’t it, the line, the line isn’t so clearly drawn, some turn back, some, there is a line, cracks in the pavement, they fill cracks in the pavement it’s not a metaphor I am dwarfed there’s a line of people who have sat where I sit and all I can think about is how beautiful the buildings look, look when they crumble.

Sterling Strathcona was originally published in The Yale Herald on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.