Day 2: Bubbling.

Earlier this morning, I was trudging across midtown Manhattan. Everything was gray and wet, the clouds had just finished ejaculating water and hung there, just above the buildings. Gray light was seeping from the gray sky to sparingly illuminate gray-white, gray-red, and gray yellow buildings. In various hues of gray and black, Manhattanites were hurrying to work. Even the New York taxi cabs had lost their bright yellow color, blending into the gray world of 8am.

My head hurt from not enough sleep, my elbow hurt from too much exercise and my soul hurt just because it felt like it. I stared grimly ahead as I moved the right foot ahead of the left one only to immediately move the latter ahead of the former, like a hamster in a wheel.

With each successive step, I could feel the gloom descending on me, enveloping me, covering me like a blanket, surrounding me in a bubble. I stopped at the intersection of 6th avenue and 23rd street, waiting for a gray-red pedestrian light to turn into gray-white pedestrian light.

A bubble, I thought suddenly. What bubble? Why bubble? I don't usually think about bubbles. Then, I realized that I just saw a bubble floating past me. A huge soap bubble, almost a foot in diameter, was slowly drifting towards me, through still humid air. Alone, in the gray world, it shined with a delicate light. It was so fragile and yet it was not afraid of changing, flowing from shape to shape. It reflected cars and people around it, playfully distorting the boring world around it, creating a realm of its own.  I stood there fascinated, looking at the bubble, the colors and shapes running endlessly on its surface. And, then it popped.

The another bubble followed and another. They drifted, they danced, they twisted and changed, they shined. They changed the world. I stood there fascinated, like a little child, staring at the rainbowey spheres. The gloom was slowly lifting, the grayness no longer felt as oppressive. The world acquired colors.

The pedestrian light changed to white and I walked across 23rd towards the source the bubble stream. Who was it, the bringer of all delights, the destroyer of gloom, the light of Manhattan morning? A fifty year old black guy without half of his front teeth, was selling $10 child toys - a propeller driven bubble makers. Needless to say, I bought one.

So, I walked towards the subway trailing bubbles, took the train, walked to work, came to the lab and, to the incredulous delight of my colleagues proceeded making the little spheres of delicate delight.