Filthy Holes

He smiles to himself and hums a tune to a song no one knows.  He tends to his garden in the middle of the surrounding asphalt and cement.  He quickens his pace, as he sees the sun start to drop behind the looming giants of the past.  Spires of steel and glass, long forgotten and left uncared for, he thinks about that sinful age, when man played god, and made suns of their own.  He is oblivious to how true that thought is.  Pulling the last of the weeds, he looks over his garden, proud of the crop he knows it will yield.  He wipes the the rich dark soil from his hands, the smell of it overwhelms his senses for a moment.  He stops still and lifts his head as he hears a voice call out his name from somewhere behind him, he smiles as she comes down the steps.

She has light brown hair, the kind that reminds you of coffee after two creamers.  A complete contrast to the black soot on her cheeks and brow from cleaning out the house.  Her smile lights up his face, she opens one of her hands to show him two crisp cigarettes she'd just finished rolling.  With his hand in hers they started their slow walk.  Though they had only been in their new home for a dozen days they had gone walking every night, always sure to head in a different direction or make an unfamiliar turn.  Tonight, with the last hour of light waning, the path they walked turned from cracked asphalt to gravel.  Each step a crunching shift of tiny dirty pebbles, dust lifting up to resettle over their beaten shoes.  As they came upon a crumpled building, he stopped, so did she.  He stared at the caved in rubble and mounds of gravel and he was reminded of home.

They had met there, home that is, back in a land that seemed surrounded by nothing but rocks and gravel and hills.  Their parents, like everyone else there, struggled to grow what they could, to raise their families.  He was the only child and his mother had passed giving birth, his father was a strong man, and he always made sure that there was food.  When cool months and wild dogs came from the north he was taught how to shoot and to be fearless.  Her family was the opposite, she had two sisters and two brothers, as well as both parents.  Their home was filled with books and all of them were taught how to write and read.  They didn't even own a gun, much less learn how to shoot one.

As the last visible tip of the sun drops out of sight, he looks over at her, the burning joint illuminating her face.  He is instantly reminded of how beautiful she is, of how he felt when he first met her, among  those mounds of filthy gravel.

9/11 8 years later (from the floor of the CME)

Here is something I wrote the day of, I didn't post this until the following Monday.

I live in motion, constant movement and forward aggressive action dictate my life. Even my job is one of rapid change in pace, acceleration, and volume. At any one moment before the day even starts, half a dozen traders can be found talking to each other. Filthy language is used to describe everything from coworkers, the weather, sports, or anything else. Clerks are running by making sure that every detail is ready for the morning bell, phones are ringing, and printers are grinding, while computers chime their booting tones. Ten minutes before the day starts the pits are filled to the brim with traders, some of them smiling and joking, others already angry about a recent cubs or soxs defeat.

By the time the morning bell rings the atmosphere can be anywhere, from a relaxed start to end a slow week, to a veritable powder keg ready to explode. The secret language of options is spoken fluently by all and overwhelms any visitor trying to make sense of our madness. Some days you can walk into the pit and find any sort of business besides options going on. Ball games are watched on computers and cellphones, bets are taken, and not unlike the actual art of trading, money changes hands. Other days, one can not hear over the screaming need of dozens upon dozens all going after the same slice of pie, tempers rise until eventually over the grinding printers, the ringing phones, the running clerk, and screaming voices someone, somewhere, snaps. Underlines change and products move, one day your on top and others you struggle, the only constant is that after it all, everyone goes home.

Today, however, was different, today everything went completely quiet for one minute. For one minute in a stadium full of clerks, traders, phones, printers, officials, and radios, we all fell silent. Our arena of competition, of motion, stood at a complete stand still as customers were ignored, phones rang unanswered, and printers halted their grinding. For one whole minute, everyone's thoughts where almost a full decade behind the present. Everyone of us stood in a room full of personal memories and thoughts of, where were you that morning? For a moment I heard for the first time a cough from the other side of this massive room, I heard feet shuffling from way over there. Then as fast it came, it ended, and the day began. Now as I carry on at work I hear the familiar pace, plans for the weekend being made, swearing about athletes.


One thought echoes across my mind, even with all of this noise and action and excitement, it carries through my head as if the one moment still continued inside. Nobody gives a fuck.