Infinite

Budhh– Budhh–Budh! Blood surged into my head from all over my body, leaving a

tingling sensation in my arms and legs. I blinked away the moisture that had built up on my

eyelashes. In the darkness of the night, cars sped through the streets, weaving through the sea of

Metro buses and stopped taxi cabs. People who crowded on the littered concrete walked briskly,

navigating the corners and edges of the city. My brother and I stood in the middle of it all like

red oak trees in a storm.

I was there, on an unknown street in Manhattan, during the summer of 22’ with my

brother. Our family had left for New York City earlier in the day because my brother had a piano

performance at Carnegie Hall later in the week. We had flown to Newark, where we took a train

to Penn Station, a bustling station at Manhattan's heart. When we emerged from the city’s

subway scene, our eyes sparkled as we marveled at the city’s beauty at night. Glass skyscrapers

and concrete formed the blank canvases of the city, painted by flashing billboards and diverse

people. After spending a few minutes taking pictures and settling into this environment, we took

a taxi to our hotel. In the cramped interior of the cab, my brother and I gazed out the

residue-lined windows and pressed our fleshy hands against them. The warmth from our palms

fogged the glass. Our brown almond-shaped eyes, hidden under messy, oily black hair, lit with

curiosity and excitement.2

The cab stopped before an elegant brick building. A navy blue banner hung above the

building’s entrance and spelled “Hotel 57” in thin, gold letters. Grabbing our bags, we entered

the hotel lobby. The day had exhausted us, so my brother and I sat on the hard-cushioned seats

while our parents checked us in. We had been chatting about our plans for the next few days

when my parents told us that there had been a mistake between our travel company and the hotel.

My brother and I would have to wait an hour or two before collapsing on tightly fitted hotel

sheets. Since my brother and I had not eaten since the late morning, our stomachs growled. My

parents told us to grab food from a nearby store while they settled the hotel issue.

Since we were little, my brother and I have loved New York-style pizza, made with light

tomato sauce and a tender crust. Delighted at the opportunity to taste an authentic New

York-style pizza, we burst through the hotel’s revolving doors into the energizing streets of the

city. The warmness of the city air embraced our bodies, comforting us in this foreign

environment. In addition to the warm air, a cool breeze brushed against our youthful, round

faces. Observing the bustling nightlife, we operated harmoniously with the city’s diverse people.

We cruised along the sidewalks and searched for food like our hunter-gatherer ancestors. We kept

track of our left and right turns to ensure we could find our way back to the hotel.

After traveling a few blocks from the hotel, we found pizza shops with faded lettering

and colors. The worn-down signs seemed to have seen better days, but now, they reflected the

desolation of the shops. Nevertheless, beaming from cheek to cheek, my brother and I jogged

through the city, cherishing the symphony of honks and sirens as we moved along. We navigated

the maze of city streets, gliding over the worn-down paint of crosswalks and through sidewalk3

sheds. After an hour of searching, we found another pizza shop with icicle lights hanging from

the wooden, rustic insides. It was the type of pizza shop that an elderly couple would go to for a

fiftieth-anniversary celebration or perhaps a place that would host a retirement party–it, for sure,

was not a pizza shop for thirteen-year-old and fifteen-year-old tourists. Saddened by the nature of

this pizza shop, our gaze shifted toward the ground, toward the crushed Diet Pepsi can, toward

the specks of dirt, toward the trampling of feet. Our adrenaline from running around the city

began to fade, and a painful hunger emerged. We grabbed our hollow stomachs to ease the

discomfort that shot through them.

Filled with defeat, we headed back toward the hotel. Because we had traveled over many

blocks and lacked familiarity with the city, we soon found ourselves wandering in dimly lit

neighborhoods. We were lost. We were lost in a dense, overgrown mass of concrete. At that

moment, my brother and I were children again, in the grocery store, trying to find our parents.

We did not have access to cellular devices (both of our phones had run out of battery) and had no

courage to ask for strangers’ help.

Looking next to me, I observed that my brother’s face flushed a tomato red, and sweat

beaded the tip of his nose. For him, us not being in the hotel meant that he could not use this time

to prepare for his performance. He scanned up and down the towering skyscrapers, surveying the

surroundings. He hoped to find a building we had passed by on our search. As I followed his line

of sight toward the horizon, my eyes became strained by the contrast between the street’s warm,

saturated lights and the sky’s bluish darkness. This strain pierced my brain and sent a tickling

sensation down my spine. Hearing the cacophony of sounds, I rubbed my eyes until4

blue-greenish blobs blurred my sight, and moisture encapsulated the region around my eyes.

People and cars buzzed around us. We resolved to continue our search in the city and decided

that if we could not find our hotel by ourselves, we would ask someone for help.

We went through the streets, passing by cool-lit glass shops and corporate offices. Every

block we trudged through, we seemed further away from the hotel. As I felt more lost, my chest

relaxed, and my body felt softer. The essence of the warm blood that had pushed against my

veins seemed to have disappeared. The weight of my body had gone away as I glided through the

city of lights. Just a few minutes before, I had drowned in the city’s pool of sounds and visuals,

but now I floated on the pool’s surface, feeling the cool touch of the night.

Now that I was lost in the city with my parents absent, I roamed free like the city’s

infamous pigeons. But, we had made no progress in our situation. We had to do what we had

long feared: we had to talk to New York City strangers. We agreed on a target: a six-foot male,

perhaps in his twenties. He was on his phone and talked with a few friends, who laughed every

time he spoke. The cleanliness of the man’s outfit, translucent glasses, and silky comb-over made

him appear innocent and approachable. He was Asian, too–what we thought was a major plus

side as we shared a commonality. Surely, he would help us out.

“Go ahead, ask him,” I told my brother, who, as a responsible older sibling, ought to have

done. But he refused, saying I needed to break out of my small, eighth-grade comfort zone. Of

course! What a coward! Stubborn to my pleading, he made me approach the man, who was still

in conversation. As I approached the man, a string of words jumped from my mouth.5

“Excuse me–me, could we borrow your phone? My b–b–brother and I got separated from

my parents?” I stuttered. There was no response. Could he not hear me? Or did he purposely

ignore me? I realized he was wearing AirPods Pros in one ear, and his friends were shouting in

the other. So, I tried again in a louder voice.

“Ay, sorry man, I’m on FaceTime right now,” he said as he twisted his head back. His

face contorted between expressions of surprise and fear. The others also shot ugly glances while

they backed away from us. A few seconds later, they had disappeared into the crowd of those

crossing the street.

I turned to my brother, who had the same confused expression. Why on earth would he

refuse to help us, little children? I would understand why he reacted the way he did when I

encountered Elmo in Times Square a few days later. As for that moment, my brother and I had

come to a partial understanding of why.

“He didn’t want to give his phone away,” remarked my brother, turning around.

“Great observation!” I responded, rolling my eyes. We agreed to ask for directions

instead of invasively asking for phones. As the night progressed, we searched for the person or

group to ask. With New York City nightlife surfacing on the streets, the potential candidates were

limited. However, after some time, our eyes locked on a couple not more than fifty feet away.

The man and woman were short and had a reddish complexion. Like the earlier Asian man, their

bodies radiated innocence.6

We walked towards the couple, flashing a smile before we initiated a conversation.

“Hi, excuse me, ma'am, could you give us directions to our hotel?” we asked the woman.

Although the city’s ambulance sirens and honks had cut through the air, a deafening

silence replaced it. The silence settled in the four feet between the four of our faces. Sweat

accumulated at the base of my neck. What if she does not know English? What if she sees us as

con artists? What if she – My thoughts got cut short by the woman’s heavy sigh. She briefly

glanced at her partner, who gave a reassuring smile, and she responded in a Slavic accent, “Of

course, what is the name of your hotel?” Relief swept over my brother and me, massaging the

tension out of our bodies. We grinned at our fortune. We gave her the details of our hotel, and she

gave us directions to it on Google Maps. Not surprisingly, we had gone more than a mile from

the hotel. We rushed along after quickly memorizing the route and expressing our deep gratitude

toward the couple.

Our run toward the hotel was consumed by laughter and liveliness. The city’s infinite

number of lights filled us with the numbness needed to push our bodies to their limits. With my

brother trailing behind me, I cut through sweaty crowds and trash-littered streets, arriving at an

elegant building with a navy blue banner. Now, around midnight, the gold lettering on the banner

shone with extraordinary brilliance, comparable to molten glass.

“Oh, man! H-Home, sweet home,” I exclaimed, smiling at my brother. Seeing my brother

and I safe through the vast hotel windows, my father and mother exhaled with relief. They

condemned us for our foolish behavior but quickly treated us to New York pizza. Later that7

night, as I lay on the hotel bed, listening to the New York symphony of street noises, I came to a

sudden realization: I missed being lost; I missed running around; most