Holy Moments

He sat in his empty apartment, at the bare wooden kitchen table where he dined alone every night, a mug of coffee in his hands. There was a light mist outside that couldn't really be called rain; it was a half-hearted attempt at precipitation that resulted in floating droplets of water, suspended in the air as if time had frozen them that way. One lonely lamp was casting yellow light over the floor, throwing everything else into varying reliefs of shadows. It was 3 AM, and he was listening to the dead silence of life at its holiest. This was a moment.

He stood in line at the drugstore, waiting to pay for a tube of toothpaste. He could feel the weight of the earth in his knees; the multi-colored shelves and displays pressed themselves against the back of his eyes, adding pressure to his brain. He wanted to get out of there as soon as possible, but he could only stand where he was, waiting, as people orbited around and around him like automatons in coats and hats. He couldn't look anyone in the face. The world was all a tumult around him, and he was the only stationary thing in the universe. The morning sun was shining outside, and light streamed in onto the floor, harshly reflecting off the linoleum and into his downcast eyes. He shut them and sighed. This was another moment.

He lounged on his friend's couch talking animatedly with some people. They were all friends, getting together and having beers. He gestured and gesticulated, enunciated and explicated, trying to communicate the many ideas he had in his head, about art, love, God. His friends were looking at him, some smiling, some trying to listen, some looking right through him with blank expressions of half-drunkenness. He suddenly stopped; he realized he was done. There was nothing more left for him to say. Only one person was still actually listening with anything resembling fascination, a woman. He thought about going home with her later. He leaned back instead on the couch, sinking into the cushions and finishing his bottle of beer. He breathed in deeply and the world lurched slightly to the right. He thought that he was having an alright evening. This was also a moment.

He was driving his old red-colored Chevrolet compact car, listening to the radio. A generic soft-rock song was playing, something by Rod Stewart or Elton John. He wasn't going anywhere in particular; he was just driving around the city, wasting time, wasting gas. It was late Sunday afternoon, and the sun was just starting to relax its efforts on the surface of the earth for the day. As he made a random right turn, an SUV with a gum-chewing cheerleader behind the wheel made an ill-advised left turn and slammed its large grill into his driver's side door, shattering the glass instantly and rocking his body violently against the metal, like a rag doll being thrown down the stairs by a petulant child. He died instantly. A fire truck and several squad cars came to block off traffic and divert it through a detour. A police officer comforted the upset girl and finally drove her home. No ambulances were called. This... this was also only another moment.