meteorish

today i walked home the way i usually do, down 21st street heading toward smaller numbers from somewhere in the 80s. i was pretty close to the train, probably crossing 63rd street or so when i baseball-sized chunk of cement-type stuff arced just in front of my face and smashed to the ground a few feet away. seemed odd. i saw it move from the intersection toward the sidewalk. i stopped and looked around a bit. diagonally across the intersection two guys in their fifties were engaged in an animated conversation. they didn't even know i existed. half a block down on that far side of the street a group of four boys walked toward the intersection. too far away to throw anything at all, really. and yet there it was, smashed at the edges, a clump of cement. i took another three or four steps and another chunk of cement sailed through the air just in front of me and landed, spewing shards all over the sidewalk. i stopped again and turned full around to see where it came from. nobody. nothing. i walked on down toward the train.

an hour or so later, on 7th avenue, i stepped out of a store just as a pint of raspberries came falling out of the sky and smashed inches from my feet. the plastic container broke open and raspberries rolled down the sidewalk. a mother and child walked past, hand in hand. "where on earth do you think those things came from?" she asked.