Reflections in puddles

The rain and my spectacles cause fractals in kaleidoscopic sparkles. Blurry in my head, fizzles swiped by the drizzle. The streets are putrid smelling: Pet turds smeared, curdled with mud and squashed slug sludge. A witch’s brew, waiting for blood.

At the corner with traffic lights I begged for forgiveness and stepped out more blindly than blithely, and waited for the inevitable nothingness to happen.

It did.

There’s nothing wrong with the hearing in my left ear but there’s no accounting for the Toyota Prius.

They come out of nowhere.

The cramps from the damp plague my ague with aches. A slow thud of what ails me flinches as if fingers working with frozen spanners in an engine on a January morning. Icicled knuckles, vulnerable. Cold chisels prying apart my joints. Crystals of arthritis.