Jake�s eyes gaped at a rich canvas flaunting its beautiful colors. His look was playfully fierce, the way you�d stare through your lover�s eyes in the sick moment of passion. From where I stood, far from him in an abandoned corner, I saw nothing of what Jake was swooning, and saw only the mess in front of me. A warm snake of air swathed my skin, and a heap of white noise clogged my ears: A humming furnace�the soft tap of footsteps�precautionary breathing. Jake whispered from across the room:

�Over here,� he whispered. �Come on.�

I pretended not to hear him, the militant tone of his voice.

The mess in front of me was painted, more like scribbled, on a large canvas, an arm�s length tall, a torso wide. It was a multitude of colors, not bound to one scheme, but an anarchy of hues. The shapes that made up the majority of the painting had more of a defined pattern or plan: flawed squares and rectangles were connected by straight and aggressive hack marks and it seemed as though the shapes were trapped, maybe suffocated, against the chaotic world of colors behind them. Maybe dead. No, that�s pushing things. Suffocated is the right word.

Jake came at me from behind, into my ear whispered:

�Hey man, you haven�t moved since we got here. You like?�

I don�t know if I like it so much as I feel myself caught in the middle of it.

�It�s OK,� I said, �except it makes me want to puke.�

�It�s ugly.�

�Yeah, you�re right.�

�God, it�s horrible. This guy must be blind or something.�

�He can see,� I pleaded. �He�s gotta see.�

�Come over here,� Jake said. �There is this painting you gotta see. It�s a beauty.�

I desperately wanted to go with Jake, but my feet wouldn�t budge. I fought them with all the meaningless energy I had, but remained grounded.

�It looks like I�m staying here,� I said.

�OK, man,� Jake said pacing towards bright colors and animated figures. �But you�re missing out.�

�Don�t you know,� I said. �Don�t you know I know that?�

Jake didn�t hear me and continued walking in a concrete stride. I turned back to the mess that had kept my mind in a mocking and intuitive engagement. The piece was unclaimed, no visible signature or description, only the faint outline of a soul. It clearly wasn�t eye pleasing, nor did it possess any advanced artistic technique; any unaware American - garbage collector, mailman, construction worker - American anyway, could have painted this disaster. And that�s what made it seem so real. Standing there, I felt a foreign feeling of attachment, as if I belonged.

I knew, though, I was missing something.

There was something I couldn�t see, anyway. I stared hard, in hopes of finding my identity behind the mass of colors. It was as if there was a layer of film surrounding the piece and all I needed to do was wipe at it with my hand, uncovering its deeper meaning. Maybe, I thought, it�s one of those 3-D images. I let my eyes go lazy. I made out waving streaks of humidity that only made the painting look more blurred, more perplexing. I wanted answers to spill from somewhere above, or below, anywhere, telling me who I was.

I left the museum unresolved, confused, ordinary. We fished around in Jake�s truck through traffic, avoiding pedestrians and other things unworthy of appraisal. Jake steered smoothly. He had no trouble dodging things, taking things head on. We merged onto the highway, Jake giving quick taps of acceleration between cars. The sun was coming to a set, sitting upon the horizon, beating me from all directions. Jake had lit a cigarette and a cruel smoke cloud infested the cab, painting a bright grayish haze on the world, making it difficult to see, or even breathe it.

�Have you been to that place off 19th?� Jake said. �Next to Roasters. It�s a new Chinese buffet place.�

�What do you think?�

�That�s right. You only eat cereal.�

�It�s scorching in here,� I pleaded, wiping balls of sweat from my temples. �And all these sounds��

�I need to get there someday. They have all-you-can-eat.�

Jake swerved out the way of a merging car.

�You need to get out more,� he said. �A person like you shouldn�t be so closeted. The best way to learn about a different culture without actually traveling is to eat their food.�

�That�s a relief,� I said. �I can�t take on anymore worlds.�

Our conversation deadened with the traffic. There was a streak of cars backed along the freeway, lined in straight rows of three. People lingered, feeling time�s illusion slow its count. Some talked to loved ones on cell phones, others honked their horns. A few smiled with their radios screaming. A man even had the nerve to get out of his car and read the paper cross-legged on the hood. I tried counting the colors of mingling cars, giving each a name: fire-engine-red, bruised-blue � I gave up after drawing a blank for a certain black pick-up truck. When I think black, the same reoccurring image fills my head. It is a nighttime scene: a dark sky, shining stars, and a grass field filled with rows upon rows of graves, all which have my name sloppily carved in the headstone with some kind of knife or chisel.

�What do you mean a person like you?� I said violently.

�I mean a person like you.�

�What in the world does that mean?�

�Exactly what I said,� Jake belched.

�Who am I?�

�You want me to spell it out?�

�Tell me who I am.�

Up ahead there was a wreck. By the looks of things, it seemed a car had collided with a mini-van and was sent soaring into the center divide, leaving fragments of fiberglass and metal scattered along the highway. I saw a human limb, still bleeding sweat, dangling from the front window of the car, which was folded like an accordion against the cement divide. There were traces of the victim�s life spread across the ground: jeweled compact disc cases�barren soda cans�a deformed briefcase. There was a bag of beaten clothes breathing between the pavement. It�s ironic how all the things that are consumed over a lifespan eventually outlive their owners.

�Look at these people,� Jake said. �This is what causes traffic.�

We rolled by slowly. Everyone near enough to see the wreck had their windows rolled to the floor, applying their brakes in rhythm, eye�s gaping the victims, the wreckage, the sorrow.

�There is something euphoric about disaster,� he said. �It makes people feel thrilled, almost high.� Jake�s hands started to grip violently, rubbing the wheel in circles. He cleared his throat and sang. �We are constantly thrown garbage bags full of useless information, worthless knowledge�You know what I�m talking about?�

More or less. I gave a nod.

�You think our minds can handle all that trivial information? Get real man. But there�s a solution, whether we see it or not.� Jake took one hand off the wheel and tapped his head with his fingers. �We develop an information immune system, provide ourselves with information vaccinations. Our set our minds on auto-pilot, rarely ever taking things in. You listening?�

I gave another famished nod. The sun was weaving its way nearer and nearer, gripping my scalp with its blistering fingers.

�Catastrophe is the only thing strong enough to get our full attention. It triggers emotions. We morn victims of natural disasters, feel patriotic when terrorists strike, feel sorrow for those who are killed in war.�

But, says Jakes, what we really feel is lucky.

�Because we�re bystanders,� I said. I thought of the mess at the art museum. I began to feel fatigued and Jake�s words started to blur together, crashing down in elongated slurs and syllables.

�Yeah man, good. People get obsessed, become addicted. We might be feeling sad, or depressed, or angry, but we are feeling something. Auto-pilot turns off. Ratings skyrocket when buildings are bombed, when earthquakes throw the world off-center.� His head was shaking back and forth in a transverse motion. He seemed to handle the heat much better than myself. Sweat seemed like fuel to him, as if with each drop came a new revelation. �And that�s the thing,� Jake said in a jarring tone, slamming his fist against the wheel. �You can�t simulate real disasters. There are only so many ways you can advertise steak knives and make it interesting. But real life disasters, they never grow boring. Sure, you can make movies, special-effects�� Jake pointed at the shards of blood-stained glass thrown across the ground. �But you can�t simulate that kind of real-life reaction. Not even close.�

Jake slowed the car to a cheetah�s pace and drew out an abrupt silence as if it were the intermission at a cultural symphony. In a climbing low, but climaxing tone he hummed:

�The real tragedy is people�s lives. It�s natural to feel awestruck by disaster, but people rarely see that through catastrophe, there is redemption. Through devastation, there is deliverance.

�Recovery is defined by destruction,� he said in a cult-like intonation. By that time, we had passed the wreck; Jake was grinding gears in acceleration while I stayed mime-like, seatbelt rendering me from any kind of movement. �People rarely find the good in it, the potential. Instead, we come up with statistics and images, only to be forgotten in days, even hours��

Around then, I stopped listening. It seemed as though all of Jake�s rants applied directly to my life, as if I were the bleeding heart of attack, the midst of wreckage. I stared helplessly out the window, swallowing smoke, blinded by the piercing shards of sun reflecting off the nameless cars that soared across the opposing side of the highway thinking: In a world so easily distorted, so brutally vague, how can anyone expect a person like me to see a car crash beneath an array of colors?