/////

 

The cashier called me “Sir” and I took that to mean I was now royalty. Upon meeting my eyes, they cast theirs down in...reverence? I must be a Prince, I thought. I was on 14th Street waiting to meet a friend who would take me somewhere they could help, and I felt very good.

/////

We walked up 1st Ave to the emergency room at NYU Langone Hospital. A guard scanned me with a wand and it beeped, which I assumed to mean that my skeleton must be metal, like Wolverine. I stayed in the ER, on a bed between curtains, for 48 hours until a space opened upstairs, in what I would later learn was the CO-OP. I was extremely lucky to be there. I was positive that I had made it to the spacecraft, and would soon be shot to space in a reflective silver coffin to the aliens, who would give me infinite life.

/////

I leaned my face against the cold dewy window in the little freak out room, adjacent to the room with a strap covered gurney, looking at the COCA COLA sign across the river and feeling deeply sad. I had already eaten a tuna sandwich and tea, carefully opened the tea bag to dry out its contents, and the bag, and roll a cigarette with it.

​

 

Sara Coffin (b. 1983 Kirkland, WA, USA) received their MFA from Yale University (2016) and BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2007). Recent exhibitions include Foster/White Gallery (Seattle, USA) Other Places Art Fair (Los Angeles, CA, USA) and Tops Gallery (Memphis, TN, USA). This fall they will present a solo show at Bellevue College Gallery (Bellevue, WA, USA).

​

​