D.O.A

 

When I get to work in the mornings

it is cold and it is dark and I like it that way.

On the short walk from my bus to the building I work in I collect things like sights and sounds and smells and store them in my mind’s eye for stories.

A few days ago before I got a chance to switch from bus ride mode to collector mode I noticed a handful of papers were blowing up the sidewalk towards me.

I stopped one with my foot and looked down at it.

Sheet Music.

Interesting I thought- a musician must have lost their notebook- maybe they left it on the top of their car and drove off. Or maybe someone really hated this stuff and they just tossed it as they walked down the street.

I kept walking and as I turned the corner under the bridge I could see the street was littered with sheet music.

Weird I thought.

And then I looked to my left and there blocking one of the streets off was a police car and next to the police car at there is an entrance to a little alley and two Police Officers were putting up crime scene tape.

It was a sad sight.

I was wondering how to write about that strange walk- I thought I would take a picture, something to capture that cold dark morning and that little alley with the yellow tape and the dark figure I saw laying on the ground.

I just stood there with the sheet music blowing around my feet and I watched the police secure the area and I watched other people cross the street so that they could catch a glimpse of something I don’t exactly feel curious about in general.

 I left my camera in my bag and I kept walking.

I turned the corner and there in the middle of the sidewalk was one single piece of sheet music.

It was separate from all the rest of the music, and it was waiting for me right there on the sidewalk on top of a manhole cover

: Photo A.M. Moscoso

 

I took out my camera and clicked away.

Then I looked down so that I could see what the song was.

Your Daughters And Your Sons

I looked back up the street to the alley and I felt the cold and  it wasn’t as dark and then I went to work.

I still think about that music and the alley and that walk

and

 I still haven’t found a way to tell this story.

a.m.

DOA

definition from wikipedia

DOA is also frequently used as slang : an idea or concept has no chance.

Photo: A.M. Moscoso