Now At This Moment No.3

Now I am going to attempt the same writing exercise, but instead of writing "now" and "at this moment" I will attempt to only write down what comes after I think about writing them, that way, where I place the period represents where the "now" and "at this moment" would have been.

I am ready to start. My fingers are frantically feeling the plastic keys, wondering which letters to press. I am hoping. I am at a loss.

I can't seem to stop myself from thinking about how hard it is to stop myself from wanting to write the word "now" or the words "at this moment." I am trying to find something else to capture my immediate interest.

I hear a car swoosh down the street. The car is much further up the hill than I can imagine, but I can still hear it. Cars are returning to swoosh again. It sounds like wind. I am getting the two swooshes confused with the other. The cars and the wind sound the same. I am associating the swoosh of the cars as hot wind, like asphalt, blown up from the tires into the wind above the street, and up the stairs of my apartment complex, through the screen door, past my living room, and through my ears, cooling my arms and neck before it is blown past and out the back door, the screen door in the back of the house. That's where I prefer to smoke my cigarettes, on the back stairs, at the foot of the screen door at the back of my apartment.

I am thinking how I was just back there smoking a cigarette a few minutes ago, and reviewing the previous writing exercise in my mind. I got distracted by the leaves that were growing between the cracks in the concrete by the stairs that lead themselves down into the basement underneath my apartment. I think the leaves are part of a dandelion that got trapped there but is making the best of it.