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I awoke last night to the sound of birds not chirping. A noise woke me up. At first I thought it was a fire cracker. I live a block away form china town and I'm used to hearing fireworks. What got me startled and really woke me up was the aftershock.

(2:30 am)

I hate to say it but I'm noticing a trend. For about 10-15 seconds after a shooting there's a nervous chatter. No one knows what to do. It kind of sounds like "did that really just happen?" and "are we ok?" It's an incredibly uneasy sound. I looked out the window of my apartment to see a kid hobble up and move towards a car. He was clearly injured. I could only faintly hear a girl chirping "get in the car."

Had I of wanted to help I would have ran down five flights of stairs only to arrive on a witness free crime scene. The first thing everyone always thinks is "I don't want to get shot," so they quickly scurry indoors. The cops arrived 20 minutes later, got out of their car, walked up and down the block and then left. There was nothing for them to do.

Birds not chirping sounds a lot like the gravity of a particular location increasing. It's like there's a dark presence about the area that slowly drags people in to spectate. It sounds like rational thought breaking down. Like a bunch of humans turning into a startled flock of birds. It's a quiver of a sound that comes with a creeping feeling of terror in your gut. What is anyone supposed to do?

On a completely unrelated note...

I go to a support group once a week. Sometimes people have really silly things to complain about but sometimes someone is actually hurt or dying. The thing I've come to realize is that I kind of enjoy hearing people complain about mundane things. Part of me doesn't want to care about the tiny problems but another part of me wants to gather myself at the edge of my seat and sarcastically say "are these seriously your problems? Please, tell me more." It feels a lot like entertaining a child.

People are programmed to greedily want more out of life. Part of me feels guilty because instead of trying to do something about it I hypocritically throw all of my money into growing my own tits. Could I by chance tell you about the new hilarious little pains I feel in my chest when I bump into things by accident?

It's pretty funny.