On the corner, I sit and wait. Having sat for a large majority of my life, and having waited for the entirety of it, I assume I have the experience suited for the role of sitting and waiting on the corner.
It is always the corner; this corner and no other; the corner and nothing but the corner. A few shuffles to the right and I’m heading down Grobund’s Lane, a few shuffles to the left and I’m hiking up Apollo Street. No, no, this would be no good. No moving for me. I sit on the corner and I wait on the corner, that is it and that is all.
What is it that I am sitting on, you may ask, how does it feel, when one lies down is one perfectly level or titled down a slope? Firstly, I sit directly on the ground. Pavement. Firm and moderately smooth. It feels like that sensation of walking through air- that is, a feeling which is constant and so one that is taken for granted, indistinguishable without direct acknowledgment of its effects. Secondly, in regards to the possibility of one lying down and falling asleep with their equilibrium askew, the ground on the corner is quite level. The corner is a perfectly horizontal plateau wedged between the soaring ascent and the nauseous descent of its neighbouring streets. And so I would say that sleeping there (i speak merely from hypothesis; the act of sleeping is one alien to my current considerations; i sit and wait on the corner, nothing else and nothing more) would most probably result in a pleasant experience. One could fall asleep as shooting headlights scream past and the guttural churnings of a city’s infernal machinery sublate through each of folds in Night’s virginal shawl of fog, with pigeons shifting to and fro, the utterances of those passing by puncturing one’s resting thoughts like a trumpet, its embroiling yelps weaving through the tumult of the band and stoking the flames of confusion that leap from ear to ear unrelenting, yes one could very easily sleep here comforted by the fact that their sleeping body would be perfectly level. This is part of the reason why it is precisely this corner that I sit and wait on.
Wait for what? For who? For when? For how long? No one really can answer these questions; the waiter only knows how long they have waited for until the wait has ended. To try and quantify the time spent waiting would be to put in place a starting and ending within the single present moment which we each inhabit. If I decided that I had started waiting at X O’clock, then I would be rejecting the certainly true proposition that I had been waiting before X O’clock but had not realized that I was waiting for something. If one was to put a starting point to their long wait, it would invariably always have to be the point at which they recognized themselves as a waiter, one who is waiting. But one can only create this start once they are sure of the end, as it is only the fulfillment of a wait that can give to it the property of being fully understandable: Before reaching the end of the wait, they cannot without doubt ascertain the precise goal for which they wait for and so any goal could potentially become the end of this particular wait. One only realizes that one was waiting for something when they finally attain it. As such, many waits can be encompassed into each other as they are all perceived as existing as one long wait for the goal that has been achieved rather than individual waits that all sparked and died out before their goal was fulfilled. I am not at the end of my waiting, hence i cannot say for sure how long i have been waiting and how long i will remain waiting. That I have been sitting for as long as this current wait (this is, of course, a statement that makes no sense; I cannot know which wait is a current wait and which is a past wait without my possessing that which i wait for) has gone on for, this I am sure of.
It might so happen that what I am waiting for is simply the moment in which I come to realize what it is exactly that I am waiting for, but I was distracted in that moment of realization and so missed what I was waiting for. It could very well be true that my reasoning for sitting here is simply to enjoy the particularities of the seat on the corner. However, if this is my reasoning then I surely would not have been able to sit and wait here for so long without offending principles of society which I do not intend to offend.- namely, the principle that holds that one should have a logical reason behind their actions. Fondness of the seat is a reason, yes, but it is an emotional one and could not be effective in persuading another to respect my continuing presence on the corner. The brain’s faculty of logic is privileged within the fabric of society over the faculty of emotion; when one asks another of his reasoning, a rational response is always expected and respected over an emotional one. Without one, I would surely be ousted from my position and told to go somewhere else, some place surely less comfortable. Thus, I would have to find out such a reason for my remaining seated in my position, a task which would undoubtedly submerge my waking moments within an ocean of stress.
Luckily, that is not a problem for me currently as I am still subscribed to the explanation for my sitting on the corner being that of “waiting”. The validity and necessity of my sitting is thus upheld by the fact that I am waiting for something. But as I mull over the concepts whose nature I have just engaged in an investigation of, it is occurring to me that my current excuse may not have the argumentative power I attribute to it. How can I know (and prove) that I am in fact waiting for something if I do not know what it is I wait for? I descend further into this muddled imbroglio with each progression of my thoughts: how could I possibly be waiting for anything if I am fully content just sitting here on the corner? It is suddenly no longer clear to me why I chose to sit down on the corner in the first place or why I am under the impression that I am waiting for something. If I was waiting for something and so chose to sit down, it could not follow that I would continue waiting for something as the wonders of this seat are so wholly fulfilling that it could not be that I desire something on top of them. It also could not follow that I sat down and then began to wait for something, as (alongside the absurdity of desiring something more on top of the satisfaction of the seat on the corner) then it would have to be uncovered the initial reasoning for sitting down and hence the reasoning for that reasoning and so on into infinitude.
Waiting is the only reasoning that can be explained solely through the explication of the future; it is born from it and is never within it, waiting is the act of deferring the present. Perhaps I only started believing I was waiting for something because I anticipated the eventual need for a logical reason for my sitting on the corner. But when did I start waiting? When did I sit down? What was I doing before I sat down? Is anybody waiting for me? Sometimes it seems that all I do and have done is sit and wait on the corner.
Out of the shivering gleams of the waning sun, a rider dressed in back emerges. I sit and wait on the corner, brushing off eyelashes from the places on my cheeks where they have fallen. The rider stamps through the slush of the leaves. I feel the beast’s fright writhing in the cacophony of each hoof slam. A cool breeze encircles the light that emerges from its eyes, playing with the horse’s hair a rough 12-bar blues rhythm, as the imperious rider draws ever closer. I sit and watch as he barrels by me, down from Apollo Street and heading right into the heart of Grobund’s lane. He leaves me on the corner, still sitting and still waiting- I think…