Bloomsday drives east, towards Clevelandia, on the shoreway that hugs the southern banks of Lake Erie. it is the first business day of 2012. His mind reels backward in time, to Prague and the alchemists, their transformations of base metals to gold, guided by elemental recipes.
He exits at East 9th and takes a quick left, northward. Ahead, the street seems to drop off into the icy water. White foaming waves crash over the breakwall, screaming into the left ear of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's pyramid. Another left, and he sees the giant, trinitarian turbine looming in front of the Great Lakes Science Center and its massive sphere. Then, a strange tribute to fallen firefighters, two rescue-suited statues overcome by the three-storied flames, footsteps from the turbine's base. Then comes Browns stadium. Brown, the earthen hue of dirt cast upon the annual grave of hopes we bury each year in this garish orange vault.
As Bloomsday vrooms to his Port of Clevelandia parking spot, he notes the succession: water of the lake, wind of the turbine, fire of the memorial, earth of Browns Stadium. Water. Wind. Fire. Earth.
He passes under West 3rd to the gated entrance to his city's port, and notices the port is...busy. Unusually busy. Cargo ships, containers, trucks, flatbeds with mysterious, large objects tethered under opaque plastics.
All the elements for transformation are here, he muses. Ripe for the commingling.
