I stepped out into the cold night. My warm body was instantly frozen, the temperature was somewhere below zero. Every muscle in my body involuntarily contracted as if trying to escape the cold. I walked stiffly down the street of the city that never sleeps. It was close to 3:00am and I was a thousand miles from home. I felt completely empty. I had experienced every possible emotion with great intensity in the past eighteen hours. I was exhausted. I was too tired to be angry, I was even too tired to be tired. When all the colors of the rainbow come together they become a clear light, void of color. All the colors of my emotional rainbow had been mixing and blurring together from the time I woke early that morning. I couldn't experience anything more. The extreme cold which usually hastens my pace to an angry sprint couldn't even motivate emotions from me. I needed to get back home and sleep, sleep for maybe a week and then look back at and sort things out. In time this day would be a memory, an experience. Another character building episode. My immediate attention had to be directed to remembering where I had parked. Somewhere in this neighborhood I had never been to, a neighborhood I will never come to again. This thought brought me to the realization that I need to remember what I parked, a rent-a-car I had never driven before today and would never drive again once it was returned. I was pretty sure it was white, it seemed so unimportant at the time I was picking it up. The streets were lined with parked cars, I started to feel pathetic. I realized it was an emotion I had yet to experience in the draining fiasco. I quickly pushed my emerging feelings into my rainbow analogy and trotted on, empty again. If I couldn't find the car I would just grab a cab and report it stolen when I got back to Chicago. I pulled the keys from my pocket and read the key chain; "Color: white, Make: Taurus, Plates…". After putting the keys away I noticed a person hunched over, they were a couple of blocks ahead of me. It was the first living thing I saw since I had stepped outside. The night was full of city noises but until then no visible activity. Perhaps a wino losing a precious belly full of nutrients. How anyone could survive living on the streets in this weather was beyond my comprehension. I had my own problems and was slipping steadily deeper into debt. I was in no mood to deal with beggars. Maybe he wasn't in the mood for begging, maybe he was in the mood for mugging. I've never been mugged before and can't remember any other time that it seemed like a good thing. For an instant I welcomed the thought of a violent exchange. I reveled in the possibility that an opportunity to thrash out would present itself. Never one to engage in physical altercations I was sure to end up badly injured or dead. Still, for that fleeting moment I was filled with the desire to defend myself from an attacker. Just more emotions to suppress. I regained my composure and then just wanted to get home and put this day behind me. I quickened my pace hoping to pass while he was still vomiting. He stood and walked briskly a few paces before bending to hurl further. He repeated this process. I started to pass during what I assumed was the third purging. I wondered if he was going to make it through the night. As I passed I was surprised to find that it wasn't a man but a woman. The dark formless cloth overcoat had thrown me. She wasn't throwing up, I was wrong about that also. She had a large piece of chalk, the kind we used to call sidewalk chalk. The chalk used to come in big pails with several different colors, it probably still does. She was circling a weed that was growing through a crack in the sidewalk. She looked so content, so complete. I had expected to see a man, a street person, with the blank stare of a lunatic or the perpetually furrowed brow of a maniac. She had the look of someone very relaxed, at peace with her world. Her look, so angelic, was a complete contrast to the bitter surroundings and my thoughts. She did not turn to look at me, she was completely absorbed in what she was doing. I slowed for a step to lengthen my glance. Her expression, my brief glimpse, filled me with a sense of hope. I hadn't noticed the small weeds before. I was looking for them now, they were growing every few steps. Each one I saw had been circled loosely two or three times. At the end of the block I felt that I needed to turn left to get to my car. Once I had stopped trying to remember where I had parked it was easy to recall. Before turning I looked across the street at the sidewalk ahead of me. I could make out a couple of small weeds but it was too dark to see if they were circled. If it wasn't so painfully cold I would have followed them. I wondered about where they began. But it was cold, very cold. I turned and found my rental and was soon on my way back to the airport I was at just hours before. This impromptu trip was going to cost me a small fortune that I didn't have. A shiver ran through my slowly warming body as I thought about the expensive monthly reminder my credit card company would be sending me. Month after month for what was sure to be an eternity I would be reminded of the poor judgment that led me to New York today.